Delivered-To: dfarber+@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Date: Thu, 09 Oct 2003 14:55:21 +1000
From: Nathan Cochrane <.au>
Subject: Media study reveals effect of spin on US public
To: "Dave Farber (E-mail)" <dave@xxxxxxxxxx>
Hi Dave
Please remove my email address
We Report, You Get It Wrong
By Jim Lobe
Inter Press Services
Asia Times
Friday 03 October 2003
The more commercial television news you watch, the more wrong you are
likely to
be about key elements of the Iraq War and its aftermath, according to a
major new
study released in Washington on Thursday.
And the more you watch the Rupert Murdoch-owned Fox News channel, in
particular,
the more likely it is that your perceptions about the war are wrong, adds
the report
by the University of Maryland's Program on International Policy Attitudes
(PIPA).
Based on several nationwide surveys it conducted with California-based
Knowledge
Networks since June, as well as the results of other polls, PIPA found that
48
percent of the public believe US troops found evidence of close pre-war
links
between Iraq and the al-Qaeda terrorist group; 22 percent thought troops
found
weapons of mass destruction (WMD) in Iraq; and 25 percent believed that
world public
opinion favored Washington's going to war with Iraq. All three are
misperceptions.
The report, Misperceptions, the Media and the Iraq War, also found that
the more
misperceptions held by the respondent, the more likely it was that s/he both
supported the war and depended on commercial television for news about it.
The study is likely to stoke a growing public and professional debate
over why
mainstream news media - especially the broadcast media - were not more
skeptical
about the Bush administration's pre-war claims, particularly regarding
Saddam
Hussein's WMD stockpiles and ties with al-Qaeda.
"This is a dangerously revealing study," said Marvin Kalb, a former
television
correspondent and a senior fellow of the Shorenstein Center on the Press,
Politics
and Public Policy at the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University.
While Kalb said he had some reservations about the specificity of the
questions
directed at the respondents, he noted that, "People who have had a strong
belief
that there is an unholy alliance between politics and the press now have
more
evidence." Fox, in particular, has been accused of pursuing a chauvinistic
agenda in
its news coverage despite its motto, "We report, you decide".
Overall, according to PIPA, 60 percent of the people surveyed held at
least one
of the three misperceptions through September. Thirty percent of respondents
had
none of those misperceptions.
Surprisingly, the percentage of people holding the misperceptions rose
slightly
over the last three months. In July, for example, polls found that 45
percent of the
public believed US forces had found "clear evidence in Iraq that Hussein was
working
closely with al-Qaeda". In September, 49 percent believed that.
Likewise, those who believed troops had found WMD in Iraq jumped from 21
percent
in July to 24 percent in September. One in five respondents said they
believed that
Iraq had actually used chemical or biological weapons during the war.
In determining what factors could create the misperceptions, PIPA
considered a
number of variables in the data.
It found a high correlation between respondents with the most
misperceptions and
their support for the decision to go to war. Only 23 percent of those who
held none
of the three misperceptions supported the war, while 53 percent who held one
misperception did so. Of those who believe that both WMDs and evidence of
al-Qaeda
ties have been found in Iraq and that world opinion backed the United
States, a
whopping 86 percent said they supported war.
More specifically, among those who believed that Washington had found
clear
evidence of close ties between Hussein and al-Qaeda, two-thirds held the
view that
going to war was the best thing to do. Only 29 percent felt that way among
those who
did not believe that such evidence had been found.
Another factor that correlated closely with misperceptions about the war
was
party affiliation, with Republicans substantially "more likely" to hold
misperceptions than Democrats. But support for Bush himself as expressed by
whether
or not the respondent said s/he intended to vote for him in 2004 appeared to
be an
even more critical factor.
The average frequency of misperceptions among respondents who planned to
vote
for Bush was 45 percent, while among those who plan to vote for a
hypothetical
Democrat candidate, the frequency averaged only 17 percent.
Asked "Has the US found clear evidence Saddam Hussein was working
closely with
al-Qaeda"? 68 percent of Bush supporters replied affirmatively. By contrast,
two of
every three Democrat-backers said no.
But news sources also accounted for major differences in misperceptions,
according to PIPA, which asked more than 3,300 respondents since May where
they
"tended to get most of [their] news''. Eighty percent identified broadcast
media,
while 19 percent cited print media.
Among those who said broadcast media, 30 percent said two or more
networks; 18
percent, Fox News; 16 percent, CNN; 24 percent, the three big networks - NBC
(14
percent), ABC (11 percent), CBS (9 percent); and three percent, the two
public
networks, National Public Radio (NPR) and Public Broadcasting Service (PBS).
For each of the three misperceptions, the study found enormous
differences
between the viewers of Fox, who held the most misperceptions, and NPR/PBS,
who held
the fewest by far.
Eighty percent of Fox viewers were found to hold at least one
misperception,
compared to 23 percent of NPR/PBS consumers. All the other media fell in
between.
CBS ranked right behind Fox with a 71 percent score, while CNN and NBC
tied as
the best-performing commercial broadcast audience at 55 percent. Forty-seven
percent
of print media readers held at least one misperception.
As to the number of misconceptions held by their audiences, Fox far
outscored
all of its rivals. A whopping 45 percent of its viewers believed all three
misperceptions, while the other commercial networks scored between 12
percent and 16
percent. Only nine percent of readers believed all three, while only four
percent of
the NPR/PBS audience did.
PIPA found that political affiliation and news source also compound one
another.
Thus, 78 percent of Bush supporters who watch Fox News said they thought the
United
States had found evidence of a direct link to al-Qaeda, while 50 percent of
Bush
supporters who rely on NPR/PBS thought so.
Conversely, 48 percent of Fox viewers who said they would support a
Democrat
believed that such evidence had been found. But none of the Democrat-backers
who
relied on NPR/PBS believed it.
The study also debunked the notion that misperceptions were due mainly
to the
lack of exposure to news.
Among Bush supporters, those who said they follow the news "very
closely", were
found more likely to hold misperceptions. Those Bush supporters, on the
other hand,
who say they follow the news "somewhat closely" or "not closely at all" held
fewer
misperceptions.
Conversely, those Democratic supporters who said they did not follow the
news
very closely were found to be twice as likely to hold misperceptions as
those who
said they did, according to PIPA.