Apparently, having your head up your ass is a preferable sensation for
many.
If this study is correct, then we can draw the following conclusions about
the Iraq situation:
- people who get their news from TV tend to have their heads further up
their asses than those who get their news from printed sources.
- Fox viewers in particular have their heads up their asses
- those who support the war tend to have their heads further up their
asses
than those who oppose it
- dubya supporters clearly have their heads up their asses, more so than
those who oppose him.
- the elephants have their heads further up their asses than the asses.
- the wealthy few who control the television media have their heads up
their
assess, and as a result, benefit greatly from their viewing also having
their heads up their asses.
- those who support Dubya *and* watch Fox news have their heads furthest
up
their asses.
- those who complain about the "liberal media" clearly have their heads up
their asses.
"Miller" <chumley702NOSSSSPAM@chartermi.net> wrote in message
news:vv1moubbbr3g49@corp.supernews.com...
Apparently there is some attraction for people who tend to have their
heads
up their asses to watch people on TV who are experts at it.
Scott
"ta" <ta33@bellsouth.net> wrote in message
news:5l_Hb.8341$Uj.6777@bignews4.bellsouth.net...
on Fox . . .
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)
http://tinyurl.com/plyg
