WE REPORT, YOU GET IT WRONG

By Jim Lobe

WASHINGTON - 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.

(Inter Press Service)