Falsehoods in the U.S. Media
Published by Warrior Tang October 3rd, 2003 in US PoliticsThere have been some recent polls with absolutely crazy results. Literally crazy, like 20% think Iraq nuked U.S. troops in the field during the recent invasion, or 70% think Saddam Hussein had something to do with the September 11 attacks.
The University of Maryland Program on International Policy Attitudes identified three major misperceptions (aka falsehoods) that people in the US were likely to believe:
- Iraq supported al-Qaeda
- The U.S. found WMDs in Iraq
- The world largely supported the U.S. invasion of Iraq
Then they polled people on whether they believed these misperceptions, and where they got their news from. Results:
| Fox News | CBS | ABC | CNN | NBC | Print media | NPR or PBS | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| No misperceptions | 20% | 30% | 39% | 45% | 45% | 53% | 77% |
| At least 1 misperception | 80% | 71% | 61% | 55% | 55% | 47% | 23% |
| At least 2 misperceptions | 69% | 51% | 41% | 38% | 34% | 26% | 13 |
| At least 3 misperceptions | 45% | 15% | 16% | 13% | 12% | 9% | 4% |
| Is primary news source | Believes in Iraq-AQ links | Believes U.S. found WMD | Believes in world support for war | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Two or more networks | 30% | N/A | N/A | N/A |
| Fox | 18% | 67% | 33% | 35% |
| CNN | 16% | 48% | 20% | 24% |
| NBC | 14% | 49% | 20% | 20% |
| ABC | 11% | 45% | 19% | 27% |
| CBS | 9% | 56% | 23% | 28% |
| PBS/NPR | 3% | 16% | 11% | 5% |
| Print media | N/A | 40% | 17% | 17% |
The study also looked at respondents’ party affiliations and political leanings. No surprise, people who have one of these misconceptions are likely to support Bush. A result which exemplified this is this table of belief in a nonexistent Iraq-Qaeda link:
- Bush supporters who rely on FOX: 78%
- Bush supporters who rely on NPR: 50%
- Democrats who rely on FOX: 48%
- Democrats who rely on NPR: 0
As the study states, “not one single respondent who is a Democrat supporter and relies on PBS and NPR for network news thought the US had found such evidence”.
The study also found a clear correlation between whether the respondents believe in these misconceptions, how closely they follow the news, and their partisan affiliation. Bush-supporters are more likely to believe in a misconception the closer they follow the news, while Democrat-supporters are less likely. There is a similar correlation substituting “support of the war” for “belief in misconceptions”.
In sum, the report says what common sense suggests: people watch news that tells them what they want to hear. However, news media are generally supposed to get the facts straight, and Fox News more than any other source seems to be pushing these misconceptions. I would also liked to have seen some anti-war misconceptions thrown into the mix, such as “Saddam never supported terrorism” (yes he did, just not AQ), but that will have to wait for another study.
See also an earlier post on bias in the U.S. media. Thanks to The American Prospect and Atrios for the link.