Liberal blogger Greg Sargent of the Washington Post reported on a new survey by the Public Religion Research Institute on who favors Rep. Peter King's upcoming hearings on radical Islam in America. You may want to question the poll since it discussed "alleged extremism" among Muslims in America (and their press secretary worked for Obama's religious-outreach team in 2008). Sargent insisted it shows Fox News watchers are a paranoid, under-informed lot. But the survey itself shows the polar opposite to Fox fans in the "Islamophobia" category are...people who most trust PBS for their news and public affairs.
More than three-quarters (76%) of those who most trust Fox News say it [King's investigation] is a good idea compared to only 45% of those who most trust CNN and 28% of those who most trust Public television.
Have American Muslims done enough to oppose radical Islam in their communities? Again, Fox viewers say no, and PBS watchers say yes, and disagree with the question:
A majority of Republicans (56%) and those who most trust Fox News (59%) believe Muslims have not done enough. Only about 4-in-10 of those who most trust CNN (43%), those who most trust Broadcast news (42%) and Democrats (42%) say Muslim Americans have not done enough. Only 3-in-10 public television watchers agree that Muslims have not done enough, and a majority (56%) disagrees.
PBS fans are more upset about "Islamophobes" than the average sampling of Democrats. That's not just the view of PBS fans. That's the view of PBS bosses.
As Brent Bozell chronicled in 2007, a planned documentary on "Islam vs. Islamism" was part of an "America at the Crossroads" series of post-9/11 programs, but it was shipped off from the taxpayer-funded Corporation for Public Broadcasting to D.C. PBS station WETA, which promptly demanded that producer Frank Gaffney be fired from the project, since he headed a conservative advocacy group. (This, from the network whose star Bill Moyers gave stem-winding speeches to radical-left hootenannies and ran a left-wing foundation.)
Overall, the poll found 56 percent of their respondents thought the King hearings on radical Islamists were a good idea, and only 29 percent thought it was a bad idea. It's also worth noting that polling on this is a little underbaked: 65 percent of the respondents said they had heard nothing about the King hearings yet. Once the liberal media starts pounding King, perhaps the numbers will shift a little left.
But Sargent went to the friendly pollsters and acquired the Fox News statistical breakdown, and compared them to Republicans who trust other news sources more (like CNN, or PBS?):
-- 41% of Republicans who most trust Fox News believe that American Muslims want to establish Shari'a law as law of the land in the United States, compared to 23% of Republicans who most trust other news sources and 22% of the general public.
-- 65% of Republicans who most trust Fox News believe that American Muslims have not done enough to oppose extremism in their communities, compared to 45% of Republicans who most trust other news sources and 47% of the general public.
-- 82% of Republicans who most trust Fox News believe the hearings on the alleged extremism in the American Muslim community are a good thing, compared with 60% of Republicans who most trust other news sources and 56% of the general public.
-- 53% of Republicans who most trust Fox News say they feel well informed about Islam and the beliefs and practices of Muslims, compared to 34% of Republicans who most trust other news sources and 46% of the general public.
Sargent found it "sublime" that "Republicans who most trust Fox News are far more likely than other GOPers to say they are well informed about Muslims -- even as they are also far more likely to believe that Muslims broadly want to establish Sharia as the 'law of the land' in America."
Sargent does not remind his readers that respondents were given the weasel-word choice of "completely agree" or "mostly agree." People who are alarmed about Islamism aren't going to want to check the box "mostly disagree" to this question, even though the pollster is seeking "you hate American Muslims as a whole" answer.
I might say "mostly disagree" if I was phoned, and then tell the pollster he wrote a loaded question designed to make Peter King and conservatives look bad. A less liberal pollster could simply ask the respondent if they were concerned about the tolerance of Sharia law in American jurisprudence. But again, the problem with all of this polling is that most Americans have not been told much by their media about what "Sharia law" is, or how it operates differently than our legal system.
Fox News has done the most on Sharia law, and honor killing, and other ugly stories about Islamic insensitivity to traditional American notions of civil liberties. But Sargent thinks Fox viewers are living on a different planet: "Now, we'll never know whether Fox watchers harbor these views because they watch Fox, or whether they watch Fox because they harbor these views. That's a chicken-and-egg question best left to philosophers. The two are probably self-reinforcing. Either way, if Fox's explicit goal has been to create a self-sustaining, self-perpetuating alternate reality, as many have alleged, it appears that when it comes to Americans' views of Muslims, the network may be succeeding brilliantly."
