[Peace-discuss] Support the troops? Fallujah

[Chas. 'Mark' Bee]

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Paul M. King" <pmking at uiuc.edu>
To: "Morton K. Brussel" <mkb3 at mac.com>; <peace-discuss at lists.chambana.net>
Sent: Thursday, February 10, 2005 1:32 PM
Subject: Re: [Peace-discuss] Support the troops? Fallujah


>i just forwarded this story to a friend of mine and his
> response follows:
> 
> "...but i'm skeptical: with the hundreds of imbedded reporters
> -- including those accompanying the troops during the fallujah
> invasion -- why wasn't this story splashed on the front page
> of the new york times? while there is no doubt some very ugly
> shit slips through the cracks that we never hear about, i
> think this story lacks credibility..."
> 
> where do i start? any suggestions? i don't have the patience
> to debate this with him. is there a good, concise and
> illuminating article or interview i can send him that will
> describe with some thoroughness how our system of propoganda
> works? i've been trying to get him to stop watching fox news
> for quite some time now and haven't been able to. thanks!
> 
> ..:: paul

   Regarding Fox, have you tried these?  (they're pretty common knowledge, you might already have them)

http://www.rense.com/general35/MEDIA.HTM

 Appellate Court Rules Media Can Legally Lie.
 
 On February 14, a Florida Appeals court ruled there is absolutely nothing
 illegal about lying, concealing or distorting information by a major press
 organization. The court reversed the $425,000 jury verdict in favor of
 journalist Jane Akre who charged she was pressured by Fox Television
 management and lawyers to air what she knew and documented to be false
 information. The ruling basically declares it is technically not against any
 law, rule, or regulation to deliberately lie or distort the news on a
 television broadcast.

 On August 18, 2000, a six-person jury was unanimous in its conclusion that
 Akre was indeed fired for threatening to report the station's pressure to
 broadcast what jurors decided was "a false, distorted, or slanted" story about
 the widespread use of growth hormone in dairy cows. The court did not dispute
 the heart of Akre's claim, that Fox pressured her to broadcast a false story
 to protect the broadcaster from having to defend the truth in court, as well
 as suffer the ire of irate advertisers.

 Fox argued from the first, and failed on three separate occasions, in front of
 three different judges, to have the case tossed out on the grounds there is no
 hard, fast, and written rule against deliberate distortion of the news. The
 attorneys for Fox, owned by media baron Rupert Murdock, argued the First
 Amendment gives broadcasters the right to lie or deliberately distort news
 reports on the public airwaves.

 In its six-page written decision, the Court of Appeals held that the Federal
 Communications Commission position against news distortion is only a "policy,"
 not a promulgated law, rule, or regulation.

------------------------------------------

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)