A study conducted out of the University of Maryland reports that 80% of viewers who rely on Fox News as their sole source of news hold "demonstrably untrue" beliefs about the US action in Iraq. [link] By comparison, on 23% of viewers who rely on PBS or NPR as their sole source of news hold those beliefs.
At first glance, this merely reconfirms that Fox News is about as fair and balanced as an elephant and a flea on a see-saw. And while it's interesting to confirm what you already suspect, the problem with this study is this: I don't imagine many Fox viewers reading the study and the smacking themselves on the forehead saying "Well gosh, now that you have a study that proves it, I see that Fox was spouting propoganda at me all this time!" If anything, Fox viewers are likely to dismiss the study as more liberal claptrap.
And frankly, they'd have a modest point. First, the survey limited itself to people who rely on one news source, presumably to the exclusion of all others. This can't be a large sample, nor can it possibly be representative.
Second, the study found that people who relied on any of the major broadcast networks or CNN for their news were all more likely than not to hold the "demonstrably untrue" beliefs. In one case, CBS News, the rate of belief was nearly as high (seventy-odd percent) as the rate of belief among Fox viewers. And it may be that it's not the tenor of the broadcast that's the problem, but rather the headline-focused format of most television news programs: according to the study, other than the aforementioned NPR and PBS viewers, the only group in which the rate of belief was less than fifty percent was people whose primary news sources were newspapers. Now, I'm no expert, but one of the things that those three outlets have in common is a format that allows for reporting in greater depth than a twenty-two minute news broadcast (30 minutes each for the major network news shows, minus 8 minutes for commercials).
Third, the study posited the following three "demonstrably false" propositions, and measured whether viewers of the various news sources believe or disbelieve the propositions:
1. Saddam Hussein has been directly linked with 9/11
2. Weapons of mass destruction have already been found in Iraq
3. World opinion favored the US-led invasion of Iraq
The study determined that based on government reports and accepted public opinion, each of those statements is false. But are they?
The first is the most obviously false; even President Bush now admits that there is no evidence of such a link. So okay, maybe that's one, though even there, Czech intelligence has waffled on whether Mohammed Atta, one of the hijackers, met with Iraqi officials in Prague.
The second is a harder question. True, no operational weapons have been found, so the statement is literally false. But now a question that isn't answered by the proffered statement: what is a WMD? As 9/11 taught us, WMDs come in the unlikeliest of packages (box cutters and Boeings, to name two). So what exactly is the "demonstrably untrue" statement talking about? Does it refer to nukes? Or chemical-equipped missles? How about artillery tipped with nerve gas? Stocks of biological agents that haven't yet been "weaponized"? Or the means to process and create chemical and biological agents? And what about factories that make legitimate commercial products, but that could be converted to make chemical or biological agents?
My point is not that Iraq had any of these things, only that there may in fact be a fuzzy line between WMDs and other bad stuff, which would make the question not "demonstrably untrue". Colin Powell showed slides of two trucks that might (or might not) have been mobile laboratories for manufacturing chemicals. There have been reports of a number of "dual use" facilities that could be innocuous or could be used to manufacture bad things. If the media reports that we have found these things, is it "demonstrably untrue" to the average survey respondent that we have not found WMDs? I'm not so sure, and unless the study defined "weapon of mass destruction" in its "demonstrably untrue" statements, I can't evaluate the truth or falsity of the statement.
The third question is also squishy. True, the United Nations Security Council failed to pass a resolution regarding the use of force in Iraq, but the heads-of-state in Britain, Italy, Spain, Portugal, Denmark, Poland, Hungary and the Czech Republic signed on to an open letter of support for American action, and the US did manage to assemble a coalition (if somewhat ragtag) of nations who committed troops (most notably, Britain and Poland, but also Australia, Denmark and Spain, among others).
So is it "demonstrably untrue" that world opinion favored the US-led invasion of Iraq? I can't say definitively if it is. Certainly, large numbers of people demonstrated against it, and a number of large nations who have been American allies in the past criticized the US this time around. But there are 6 billion people on the planet, and many of them haven't weighed in one way or the other. To say, therefore, that world opinion disfavored the invasion is, to me, as "demonstrably untrue" as the converse.
At first glance, this merely reconfirms that Fox News is about as fair and balanced as an elephant and a flea on a see-saw. And while it's interesting to confirm what you already suspect, the problem with this study is this: I don't imagine many Fox viewers reading the study and the smacking themselves on the forehead saying "Well gosh, now that you have a study that proves it, I see that Fox was spouting propoganda at me all this time!" If anything, Fox viewers are likely to dismiss the study as more liberal claptrap.
And frankly, they'd have a modest point. First, the survey limited itself to people who rely on one news source, presumably to the exclusion of all others. This can't be a large sample, nor can it possibly be representative.
Second, the study found that people who relied on any of the major broadcast networks or CNN for their news were all more likely than not to hold the "demonstrably untrue" beliefs. In one case, CBS News, the rate of belief was nearly as high (seventy-odd percent) as the rate of belief among Fox viewers. And it may be that it's not the tenor of the broadcast that's the problem, but rather the headline-focused format of most television news programs: according to the study, other than the aforementioned NPR and PBS viewers, the only group in which the rate of belief was less than fifty percent was people whose primary news sources were newspapers. Now, I'm no expert, but one of the things that those three outlets have in common is a format that allows for reporting in greater depth than a twenty-two minute news broadcast (30 minutes each for the major network news shows, minus 8 minutes for commercials).
Third, the study posited the following three "demonstrably false" propositions, and measured whether viewers of the various news sources believe or disbelieve the propositions:
1. Saddam Hussein has been directly linked with 9/11
2. Weapons of mass destruction have already been found in Iraq
3. World opinion favored the US-led invasion of Iraq
The study determined that based on government reports and accepted public opinion, each of those statements is false. But are they?
The first is the most obviously false; even President Bush now admits that there is no evidence of such a link. So okay, maybe that's one, though even there, Czech intelligence has waffled on whether Mohammed Atta, one of the hijackers, met with Iraqi officials in Prague.
The second is a harder question. True, no operational weapons have been found, so the statement is literally false. But now a question that isn't answered by the proffered statement: what is a WMD? As 9/11 taught us, WMDs come in the unlikeliest of packages (box cutters and Boeings, to name two). So what exactly is the "demonstrably untrue" statement talking about? Does it refer to nukes? Or chemical-equipped missles? How about artillery tipped with nerve gas? Stocks of biological agents that haven't yet been "weaponized"? Or the means to process and create chemical and biological agents? And what about factories that make legitimate commercial products, but that could be converted to make chemical or biological agents?
My point is not that Iraq had any of these things, only that there may in fact be a fuzzy line between WMDs and other bad stuff, which would make the question not "demonstrably untrue". Colin Powell showed slides of two trucks that might (or might not) have been mobile laboratories for manufacturing chemicals. There have been reports of a number of "dual use" facilities that could be innocuous or could be used to manufacture bad things. If the media reports that we have found these things, is it "demonstrably untrue" to the average survey respondent that we have not found WMDs? I'm not so sure, and unless the study defined "weapon of mass destruction" in its "demonstrably untrue" statements, I can't evaluate the truth or falsity of the statement.
The third question is also squishy. True, the United Nations Security Council failed to pass a resolution regarding the use of force in Iraq, but the heads-of-state in Britain, Italy, Spain, Portugal, Denmark, Poland, Hungary and the Czech Republic signed on to an open letter of support for American action, and the US did manage to assemble a coalition (if somewhat ragtag) of nations who committed troops (most notably, Britain and Poland, but also Australia, Denmark and Spain, among others).
So is it "demonstrably untrue" that world opinion favored the US-led invasion of Iraq? I can't say definitively if it is. Certainly, large numbers of people demonstrated against it, and a number of large nations who have been American allies in the past criticized the US this time around. But there are 6 billion people on the planet, and many of them haven't weighed in one way or the other. To say, therefore, that world opinion disfavored the invasion is, to me, as "demonstrably untrue" as the converse.
posted by Daniel at 3:11 PM
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