In a Rooney-less world, options are limited.

Hey look, there's a new study from people who study things like this that indicates that Fox News viewers are now less informed than people who watch no news whatsoever. It's like whatever Fox and Friends is spewing is somehow making their viewers at home more stupid.

I swear to god when this show started they had a puppet co-host.
Does anyone else remember this?

But I feel like we already knew this. What I don't get is why anyone bothers doing these studies anymore. It's not like the remaining Fox fanbase is going to be swayed by facts. These people can be broken down into three basic groups. Please approach with caution:

No it doesn't, but who cares?
You're watching aren't you?

First are the people whose only knowledge of the world around them comes from the television in the Wal-Mart Auto service center. The sound is usually off, but the Fox graphics are admittedly pretty slick and the news segments are given awesome titles which may or more likely may not bear a resemblance to things that happened. Armed with their half-remembered screen crawls about how Nancy Pelosi goes down to socialist-controlled Cuba twice a year for orphan blood injections, they defend their positions with every fiber of their being because they 'sawr it on the news.'

With Andy Rooney gone, what else are
curmudgeons going to nod approvingly at? 

Then there are the old people who just need their worldview validated. After all, cell phones are confusing, men are marrying other men and the President is black. Who can keep up? Fortunately, Fox is totally there to make them feel better about being afraid of Muslims. Did you know that for the first time in the history of the world, things are different from the way they were in the past? Also, things cost more, what's up with that? And how come there's so much swearing in movies these days? 

"Wow, thanks, but you must go now.
Others need your guiding wisdom.
 Godspeed jackass, godspeed!" 

The last group are the true addicts who know it's crap but continue to watch regardless of how bad it is for them. Like smokers, no amount of cajoling is going to dissuade them from their addiction. In fact, pressing them on the subject is likely only going to make them want to run home and turn it on just to spite you. To keep with the smoker analogy, they know it's bad for them and are either too addicted to stop, or just don't give a shit. All you're going to do is make them light up another one.  

Yup, at this point there's nothing we can do to save them. Everyone who's given up on Fox News has already done so and those who haven't are too far gone. Like the guy at the end of the Human Centipede whose only sustenance has been passed through...you know what? I'm going to abandon this metaphor right now and go with something less stomach-churning:

Hey, how 'bout that guy in Star Trek: First Contact that gets assimilated by the Borg
so Picard phasers him to put him out of his misery. Yes. Let's go with that.