Biased media coverage causes misconception of Iraq war (Aggie needs freeping - FR mentioned)

The Battalion (Texas A&M) ^ | 5 November 2003 | Collins Ezeanyim

[Stultis]

The Battalion - Opinion
Issue: 11/05/03

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Biased media coverage causes misconception of Iraq war
By Collins Ezeanyim

Last spring, a Battalion columnist argued the then-nascent war in Iraq was theologically unsound. In the column, it was stated there was no reliable evidence of a link between Saddam Hussein and al-Qaida. The column resulted in e-mails from Aggies who disagreed with this fact, despite President George W. Bush telling reporters on Sept. 17, "We've had no evidence that Saddam Hussein was involved in 9-11," according to The Associated Press.
Yet due to biased media coverage of the war, a frustrating number of Americans continue to believe Iraq was somehow involved in 9-11. To ensure that the American public is able to make well-informed opinions on such an important decision, news outlets must be upfront with their biases.

According to one study, titled "Misperceptions, The Media and The Iraq War," the reason why Americans are seemingly misinformed involves the popularity of the Fox News Network.

Released jointly by the Program on International Policy Attitudes and Knowledge Networks in early October, the report revealed those who use Fox as their primary news source were "more likely than average to have misperceptions."

One misperception the report focused on included the belief that there was solid evidence demonstrating an Iraq-al Qaida relationship. The report also focused on the mistaken beliefs many Americans had that weapons of mass destruction had been found in Iraq and that the majority of the world supported Bush's decision to go to war in Iraq. A staggering 80 percent of Fox viewers believed one of these misperceptions, and 45 percent believed all three.

On the other end of the spectrum, it was discovered that those who use PBS and NPR as their main news source were the least likely to believe these misperceptions. Only 23 percent believed one, and a barely noticeable 4 percent believed in all three.

It is no secret that Fox News is a conservative network. Anyone who analyzes the channel recognizes this. Being a conservative network is not necessarily a bad thing, but Fox executives need to admit they do lean to the right.

Real problems occur if one lets his ideological bias distort the way the news is reported. For example, some may argue that the demographics of the Fox audience will lead them to believe the stated misperceptions. But even when controlling for demographics and ideological bias, the PIPA/KN study showed people who used Fox as their main news source were likely to believe falsehoods about the Iraq war. In fact, the level of belief in misperceptions increased the more one watched Fox News.

This is truly frightening and does not bode well for the state of political discourse in the United States. Obviously, people will disagree over the interpretation of facts, but it is vital that they be the same set of facts.

When a huge influence such as Fox distorts the news to suit its agenda, the American public will base important decisions, such as whether a pre-emptive war is justified, based on an ideological bias.

Online magazine Salon.com recently ran an interview with Charles Reina, who worked for six years at Fox as a producer, copy editor and writer. He claims a daily memo posted on the Fox computer system often contained instructions on how to slant the day's news to make it as pro-Bush as possible.

Anyone who still needs convincing that Fox has an agenda should consider the events of March 28, when the Fox News Ticker on Sixth Avenue in Manhattan mocked war protesters. One message read "War protester auditions here today ... thanks for coming!" Another asked, "How do you keep a war protester in suspense? Ignore them."

So Fox has and has had a pro-war agenda. This is OK as long as it and others who supported the war based their reasoning on unbiased facts.

It is possible to deliver undisputable facts even if one's bias is known, which is why Fox News should admit its bias to the American public. For instance, freerepublic.com is "an online gathering place for independent, grass-roots conservatism on the Web." Yet it often contains links to informative articles. Salon.com's editors lean left, yet it is one of the better information sources on the Web and in the past has given voice to conservative writers such as David Horowitz and Andrew Sullivan. This is a real example of being "fair and balanced." This is a mantra that Fox seemingly doesn't take seriously.

[Stultis]

The positive mention of Free Republic is nice, but the main thrust here is audaciously hypocritical. The editorialist pontificates that even biased sources should be expected to accurately report facts, yet bases the argument on treating an absurdly slanted, blatantly opinionated psuedo-study as if it were about factual misconceptions!!!

[Stultis]

Here are some threads on the almost unbelievably stupid "study" the author is relying on:

Fox News fans misinformed, study finds  ^
			Posted by wallcrawlr On 10/17/2003 3:50 PM CDT with 22 comments Pioneer Press ^ | Oct. 17, 2003 | BRIAN LAMBERT One of Jay Leno's best shticks is "Jaywalking," when he manages to find more or less average Americans who know, or at least appear to know, almost nothing about the world beyond Entertainment Weekly. Show them a picture of Abe Lincoln, and they're stumped. "Is he the guy from Smashmouth?" Ask them to name two countries that border the United States, and you get, "Covina? Azuza? I don't know." It's scary — these people could be called for jury duty or placed in middle management. But it gets scarier yet, apparently, when you start asking 3,334 randomly selected adult Americans...
Fox News fans misinformed, study finds ^
			Posted by jdege On 10/17/2003 10:03 AM CDT with 114 comments St. Paul Pioneer Press ^ | Oct 17, 2003 | BRIAN LAMBERT Fox News fans misinformed, study finds BY BRIAN LAMBERT Pioneer Press One of Jay Leno's best shticks is "Jaywalking," when he manages to find more or less average Americans who know, or at least appear to know, almost nothing about the world beyond Entertainment Weekly. Show them a picture of Abe Lincoln, and they're stumped. "Is he the guy from Smashmouth?" Ask them to name two countries that border the United States, and you get, "Covina? Azuza? I don't know." It's scary - these people could be called for jury duty or placed in middle management. But it gets scarier...
Study hits war views held by Fox fans (moronic study alert) ^
			Posted by mhking On 10/08/2003 8:10 AM CDT with 86 comments Baltimore Sun ^ | 10.4.03 | David Folkenflik Heavy viewers of the Fox News Channel are nearly four times as likely to hold demonstrably untrue positions about the war in Iraq as media consumers who rely on National Public Radio or the Public Broadcasting System, according to a study released this week by a research center affiliated with the University of Maryland's School of Public Affairs. "When evidence surfaces that a significant portion of the public has just got a hole in the picture ... this is a potential problem in the way democracy functions," says Clay Ramsay, research director for the Washington-based Program on International Policy Attitudes,...

[Always Right]

It is no secret that Fox News is a conservative network.

Then what is the point of the article? Why does Fox have to admit a known fact? And why doesn't all the other folks in the media have to admit their biases? It is quite easy to establishes biases from every media source, including this article. Why doesn't the author admit his biases up front.......

[Prodigal Son]

I take it the author is either a lurker or a regular poster here.

[general_re]

I bet you could, if you were inclined to investigate it, find a strong positive correlation between the likelihood that one believes that the Clinton impeachment was "all about sex" and the likelihood that one listens to NPR and reads Salon. But, of course, that survey will never be done, and will most certainly never be touted as evidence that NPR and Salon slant their coverage to the left, and thereby cause their consumers to believe lies.

[xzins]

The column resulted in e-mails from Aggies who disagreed with this fact, despite President George W. Bush telling reporters on Sept. 17, "We've had no evidence that Saddam Hussein was involved in 9-11," according to The Associated Press.

This is not exactly a true reflection of Pres. Bush's comprehensive thoughts on the subject. He has elsewhere drawn a distinction between "evidence" and "intelligence."

There was significant "intelligence" that connected Iraq to terrorists, and to the terrorist groups that carried out 9/11.

This met the standard of Bush's post 9/11 statement regarding whom the U.S. would target: ANYONE who aided, abetted, harbored terrorists; particularly the al qaeda group proven to have been involved in 9/11.

This is different that direct line evidence that Iraq was part of the "planning process for 9/11," but the connections raise the specter of Iraqi complicity, and they might all along have had reasonable expectation of what was being planned.

[sam_paine]

It's from the Battalion.....this is an Aggie talking about politics for crying out loud!!!

WHO CARES?!?!?!

Does anyone get the local irony???

A&M "Farmers" have historically frowned on us snobbish "Tea-Sippers" from UT as the sons and daughters of the Austin politico crowd. That's where the "Teasip" name-calling came from.

Here we have an elitist political opinion coming from an Ag criticizing his own.

Marvelous. SSSSssssssssssssssssssssssssssip.

(Hook'em)

[chudogg]

Visit !CHUDOGG'S HOUSE!. I take this apart peice by peice and show that these views are not really misconsceptions as the article states, but are actually grounded firmly in fact!

[Stultis]

Thanks. Good job! And I couldn't remember the name of the stupid study / over-the-top push poll. Here's the main thread on it here at FR:

Study: Wrong impressions helped support Iraq war  ^
			Posted by tomball On 10/07/2003 10:10 PM CDT with 37 comments The Akron Beacon Journal ^ | Thu, Oct. 02, 2003 | FRANK DAVIES WASHINGTON - A majority of Americans have held at least one of three mistaken impressions about the U.S.-led war in Iraq, according to a new study released Thursday, and those misperceptions contributed to much of the popular support for the war.The three common mistaken impressions are that: U.S. forces found weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.   There's clear evidence that Iraqi President Saddam Hussein worked closely with the Sept. 11 terrorists.   People in foreign countries generally either backed the U.S.-led war or were evenly split between supporting and opposing it. Overall, 60 percent of Americans held at...

[weegee]

Online magazine Salon.com recently ran an interview with Charles Reina, who worked for six years at Fox as a producer, copy editor and writer. He claims a daily memo posted on the Fox computer system often contained instructions on how to slant the day's news to make it as pro-Bush as possible.

Obligatory Salon Stock DEATHWATCH BUMP"

[Coop]

SBS Hero Dies in Al Qaeda Battle (in Iraq) - Link

Nothing to see here...