TV news can make you even less knowledgeable about public affairs
David Frum at the Daily Beast draws attention to a study of TV news viewing habits that indicates certain news channels make people dumber than if they hadn't watched the news at all.
The study by Fairleigh Dickinson University ("the largest independent university in New Jersey") finds aa correlation between which news programs Americans watch, and their ability to answer Ndamukong Suh Jerseys
questions on public issues. It's worth noting that nobody does very well. Out of 1,185 respondents , on average people got the correct answer to only 1.8 of 4 questions on international news, and 1.6 of 5 questions on domestic news.
But people who watched the "most ideological" stations - FOX News for conservatives and MSNBC for liberals - did the worst.