On the topic of Fox News (and CBS for that matter), and why bad news and uneducated or biased audiences can be dangerous, I point to this article by Common Dreams. It is based on a 2003 report by Pipa, that looked at some common misperceptions held by people at the time we went to war in Iraq. As summarized by Common Dreams, they are:
- 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.
None of these are true of course. Even the weakest of evidence to prove any of these misperceptions, such as the couple of warheads found, or "plans" for WMDs, were found after the study was done, so at the time of the study there was even less reason to remotely believe any of these things was true.
Here's the relevant bit, as presented by Common Dreams: "The analysis released Thursday also correlated the misperceptions with the primary news source of the mistaken respondents. For example, 80 percent of those who said they relied on Fox News and 71 percent of those who said they relied on CBS believed at least one of the three misperceptions.
The comparable figures were 47 percent for those who said they relied most on newspapers and magazines and 23 percent for those who said they relied on PBS or National Public Radio."
I noted this report in an editorial a while back. Ultra-conservatives determined to dismiss the report pointed out that you can dig and find that way up the contributor tree there are some contributors to Pipa that also fund liberal organizations.
True. But that doesn't change the facts of the report. It only changes, maybe, the motivation for sharing the facts. If you read the report, the study was performed properly.
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