University of Maryland study : Foxnews viewers ignorant about Iraq war

It is not just Fox News that is guilty here, but the administration that they parrot.

Guilty of what?

 

Nope. Just the thread title...

 

Guilty of misleading the American people in order to support a questionable war effort. Ask yourself why people believe we've already found WMD's or, even more, why they believe a link's been proven to 9/11. Just an incredibly well-educated guess on my part, but I'm saying that Bush saying "9/11" several times in virtually every speech leading up to the war had something to do with it. Also, Fox and the White House have each floated various, now refuted, stories about smoking guns with regard to WMD's. Each has since been retracted (as has the suggested Al Qaeda link), but the damage has been done. It is no surprise that so many Americans believe these bogus stories to be true. They've heard them again and again from Bush, his people and the media.

 

Americans have been considerably more likely to perceive the news media as too liberal than as too conservative the last four times this question has been posed. One's interpretation of these findings is, to a degree, dependent on one's perspective. It's true that substantially more Americans say that the news media are too liberal than say they are too conservative. At the same time, a majority says that the news media are either too conservative, or just about right.

It's perhaps surprising that there has been such little variation in this sentiment over the last three years -- given the continuing focus on alleged media bias over this time period, including best-selling books such as Bias by Bernard Goldberg and Slander by Ann Coulter, which have alleged systematic liberal bias in the news media. The ratings success of the Fox News channel has been based in part on its attempt to appeal to conservative viewers who feel that the more traditional news media are liberal and biased.

It is clear that the underlying dynamic behind the finding that the news media are too liberal is the widespread belief among conservatives that the news media are too liberal, contrasted with the far less prevalent view among liberals that the news media are too conservative. Additionally, liberals are twice as likely to say that the media are too liberal (18%) as conservatives are to say they are too conservative (9%). Moderates are more "moderate" in their views, but still roughly as many say the news media are too liberal as say they are about right, and relatively few moderates say the news media are too conservative.

Plus, about 4 in 10 Americans today identify themselves as conservatives and about the same number identify as moderates, while less than 20% identify as liberals. Given all of this, the overall conclusion is that Americans, on average, are more likely to see the news media as too liberal than too conservative:

 

I don't know...because Fox told them so? Is that supposed to be the point of the 'study'?

So Fox (CBS too, let's not forget them) shouldn't report what the president says? What networks are NOT reporting what Bush says? Is Fox making up stories about WMDs? Or are they running the same stories that everyone else is?

 

Freak, I think you kind of miss the point of the study. I don't blame you because I think the headline's diversionary. The main point here is that many, many Americans believe flat wrong things about the most important issues regarding this war. Indisputably wrong things. I do think the secondary point is that there are news media sources who have been more or less guilty of spreading (or encouraging) this misinformation, but frankly I think every single news outlet in this country has been complicit. Yes, CBS is guilty. So is PBS. Investigative journalism, as well as any sort of healthy cynicism from the media went out the window on 9/11. It is only now making a comeback. Bush should have been called on this stuff both by the media and Congress, but time and again he was allowed to get away with it. But again, the main point here is that the president encouraged people to believe wrong things and the media (most especially the right leaning media) helped him. And it worked.

 

No they didn't. There are objective answers to all of them.

 

That may be true, Mr C, but we don't KNOW the objective answers to all of them. Do we know for a fact that the war wasn't for oil? No. We are not in the minds of the ones who made the decision to go to war and, anyway, they gave us a series of reasons, whose importance shifted and changed every time they started looking dodgy (just like the first Gulf War). No one can state as an unequivocable fact the reason(s) we went to war.

Conversely, we know for a FACT that no WMD's have been found yet, there is no proven link to 9/11 and world opinion was against the war.

The most interesting thing to me about this study is that people have supported this war based on false understandings of the major issues. Now, maybe they're dumb and maybe they were duped, but their support for the war is absolutely questionable since it is based on false premises.

I repeat, if I believed Saddam was responsible for 9/11, I'd be right out front in support of the war. And I repeat, many of the people who did support the war were under this (and other) false impression(s). As such, public support for the war is pretty incredibly suspect.

 

Well, you answered my questions correctly, except for the "virtually," but I think many of the people on your side would get many of them wrong. Look at Timing claiming the answers were "subjective" probably because he thinks Cheney is after the oil.

If it's fair to ask these improtant questions to the war supporters, why isn't it fair to ask them to the people who opposed the war? We are going to find people misinformed when your ask questions that they feel emotional about. Many of the anti-war demonstrators were ridiculously misinformed on some the key details as well. (I will agree though that there should be a different standard for the President, and he should try to be objective when looking at CIA data and such, instead of trying to "sell" a war ).

And you also have to ask other questions- Will the war make America safer? Will Iraq be transformed into a stable and free country? Are we threatened by Arab extremism that requires a pre-emptive repsonse? Those questions are much more important when it comes to evaluating whether this war was bogus in the future.

 

I supported the war and I don't think Saddam was responsible for 9/11. I just think it was the right thing to do. I'd be willing to bet that more people (who supported the war) share this point of view than you might think.

 

I will not dispute that these Fox viewers, and much of the American public, was wrong about some of the issues- i.e. imminent threat and Saddam's ties to 9/11. However, I won't say that public support for the war was suspect, because the larger issue- security- was always there in Bush's speeches. Yeah, he made the threat sound more imminent than it really was ("uranium", "one vial") but the safety of American citizens was always the main premise.

Even if Bush DID lie and manipulate CIA data, wasn't he doing it because he thought it was best for America's safety?

 

"More imminent than it already was?" How about imminent at all? The security issue itself was a trumped up lie that required other trumped up lies to sell it.

And you finish up with another in a series of subjective questions, which we are certain to disagree on. I don't believe for a second that Bush did what he did in the interest of American security. That may have been a by-product (like the oil or the Halliburton profiteering), but I don't believe for a second it was a primary reason. Why? Mostly because Saddam was never a threat to us. Mostly because the intelligence presented to Bush posited that Saddam would only use WMD's if attacked. Mostly because, if he had been a threat, it would not have been necessary to willfully exaggerate some intelligence and willfully bury other intelligence. We have all been had. We have been lied to and many people have died unnecessarily as a result of those lies, brought to you by the guy who restored honor and integrity to the White House. What a sick, sad joke.

 

Mr. Clutch...


The distinction Batman was attempting to point out was that the first questions deal with our knowledge of 'fact', through objective analysis. whereas many of the examples given as counters would be premised on supposition, however much you agree with them.


Let's look at the first and the second lists, individually:


1) Has Saddam Hussein been directly linked with the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks?


There is a factual response to this, based on the limitations of our knowledge. The answer is no. It doesn't matter whether or not you feel that eventually we will make a connection...or that possibly someone somewhere has the evidence which will support this. It is not a matter of a opinion, but of fact. No, Saddam Hussein has not been directly linked with the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks. Period.

2) Have weapons of mass destruction already been found in Iraq?

There is a factual response to this, based on the limitations of our knowledge. The answer is no. Again, it doesn't matter whether you believe that they will be found, or that finding a papaer trail of the production of what might have been intended to be WMDs has been found, etc. The factual answer is that no weapons of mass destruction have been found in Iraq. Period.

3) Did world opinion favor the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq?


Again, factually, by any standard, no. Not even close. Not even remotely close. Every means we have of determining world opinion showed that, not only was the planet not in favor, but pre-war, only one nation, the United States, was not opposed to the war. Period.


Okay, now let's look at your questions, individually:

1) Was the war unilateral?

Depends on your defintion of unilateral. Dictionary defintion, according to Webster's, is the following: "1.Of, relating to, involving, or affecting only one side. 2. Obligating only one of two or more persons, parties, or nations."

Now, according to the first, in that we were the only nation whose population supported the war pre-war, then we represented only one side. According to the second, more than one nation took part in the invasion, irrespective of popular support, so the answer would be no.


2) Was Saddam in violation UN resolutions right before the war?


Again, depends on interpretation, and timescale. There is no doubt that Saddam had violated UN resolutions at various times. However the basis of his violation right before the war was premised on our belief that he hd WMDs and was hiding them. That may still prove to be the case, but then again, he may have been telling the truth, in which case the answer to this, depending upon what 'right before the war' means, would be no. In all likelyhood, even if it were only with regards to his undertaking to be a pain in the ass about the inspections, the answer would likely be yes.


3) Was the war for oil?


The only objective answer anyone out of the loop can give for this is " We don't know." That's what makes this subjective...anything beyond this is supposition or opinion. Now if you had asked " Has it been established that the war was for oil?" that would avail an objective answer; no. But that was not your question, and as phrased, it is subjective, allowing for subjective responses, among them " Of course not, we were doing the right thing!", " Of course, Big Oil is Bush's meal ticket!", and " Who knows, but as other options get ruled out...and moreoever, as it becomes known more and more that the White House knew they were ruled out before we went in, what are we supposed to think?"

You might think that anyone who thinks it was for oil is batty...but that's just your opinion, not fact, just like the war is for oil is theirs.


4) Was the planned war to benefit Halliburton?


Exactly the same thing here...If you re-phrased it, then an objective negative or positive response would be available. As is, it's speculation. I will say this...If the question were asked " Was the war planned knowing in advance that Haliburton would substantially benefit?" The factual, proven answer would be yes. If you asked " Has it been proven that the war was planeed to benefit Haliburton, and only for that reason?" The factual response would be no. But in between the two you are left with your opinion, and I with mine. To confuse the two is part and parcel with what this entire article is about...

5) Was the war a necon conspiracy?

Same deal here, no need to elaborate.


Do you see the distiction that Batman was trying to make? Some of these are answered one way irrespective of what your position on the war is...some aren't. Batman went on to state that, and I agree, were the factual ones different, then many of our anti-war positions would not even exist. If Saddam were proven to be behind 9-11 I would have, with Batman, been leading the charge for the immediate invasion of Iraq. Had the world supported the invasion I would have supported it, as I did the first. Had he had WMDs...well, that's a grey area for me...it was still under the authority of the UN; outside of the UN reolution, there is no one to legally say he can't have WMD...but had the UN supported the fact that he was in possession of WMD, or had it been absolutely proven that he had WMD, and represented a threat ( not the same thing, as GW1 showed) then I would have supported the war.

In fact, you might say it is the very fact that these three misconceptions factual basis was what it was that was the foundation for my stance against the war, and probably Batman's too.

 

Yep, you got me right MacBeth. Email me about that stuff we were talking about in chat.

 

No. Besides, I was replying to Batman, not you...

 

I would have replied but I just didn't think you said anything. Some people mighta supported the war cause they thought it was right? You think? I certainly never meant to suggest some supported the war because they thought it was wrong. The article, which I don't know if you read or not -- certainly can't tell by your post, sheds some light on WHY some people might have thought it was right. In fact it identified the most compelling reasons to date for people to believe the war was right -- except that all those reasons were wrong.

 

I think the point of the study is definitely open to interpretation. Unless you have access to the minds of those conducting the 'study', I don't think you can claim to know its purpose. To me it's obviously another attempt to discredit Fox News. I'd like to see the BBC included in this, as someone mentioned. I could just see it:

"True or False - the US was responsible for 9/11: when asked this question, 90 percent of those whose primary source of news is the BBC answered 'True'."

"It proves that what we're doing is great journalism," says NPR spokeswoman Laura Gross. "We're telling the truth and we let our audience decide."

I guess she gets the 'point' of the study, right Batman?

 

Freak, I've seen several stories on this report and they're not all headlined to emphasize the Fox connection because that's not even the most interesting thing about the report. The most interesting thing about it is that so incredibly many Americans believe these incredibly false things. But you're right about one thing -- whether the report was intended to make Fox News look bad or not it absolutely made them look bad.

As for your BBC thing, it's exactly the same thing Mr. Clutch did. It's a deflection and a really very poor one. The analogy doesn't come close to matching. Responsibility for 9/11 is something that could never be quantified as a fact. If you want a better analogy, I'd suggest asking the left (or viewers of perceived left-leaning networks) if Saddam ever had WMD's. We all know he did -- that's a quantifiable fact. If you could make the case that BBC viewers believed he never had them (or that he had never gassed his own people or something), you'd have a point. Your suggested questions (and Mr. Clutch's) though, miss the point of the study entirely. I don't have to be in the mind of the study's authors to say your analogy (and his) are completely off-topic.