From: "ritu" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Bryon Daly wrote:
Oh heavens, no. The anti-war crowd enjoys as varied a composition as the pro-war crowd and there are enough don't-care-enough-to-check-out-available-facts/lunatics on both the sides. However, I really can't think of a single anti-war misperception propogated by the media and I could easily bring to mind all the ones discussed in this study *before* I read the study. If you could think of any anti-war misperceptions, we can talk about them too. :)
I'm avoiding mentioning some I thought of, because I figure that will derail discussion of my main point, which is that the article would have been more interesting and credible if they had taken a balanced approach, rather than appearing to have a pre-determined agenda.
In any case, Dan M. mentioned a few, but I will add one: The misperception of the current state of affairs in Iraq as a complete shambles. The news regularly portrays it as such. Recently, Dan Rather (of CBS news) remarked after a story from a reporter about how bad it is in Iraq: "A reminder that television sometimes has trouble with perspective, so you may want to note that in some areas of Iraq, things are peaceful."
> From the pdf, apparently that's what the sruveyors think: > They have a bar > chart listing a low support percentage for the war among > those with "no > misperceptions". Really, none at all?
Maybe they meant 'not these misperceptions'...?
Yes, that's what they should have said. The sloppy generalization betrays their bias.
> The implication > being, of course, > that very few people who have their facts straight supported > the war, and > those that did support it are hapless dupes, misled by the > White House and > the evilly complicit Fox News.
Um, if we remove words like 'evil' and 'hapless dupes', isn't that a fair summation of what actually happened? The Bush administration did make misleading statements [some of which have been retracted in the last few months], overhyped the threat from Iraq and the US media didn't really seem to give too much space or time to the opposing viewpoints. I could be mistaken, of course, but that did seem to be the case.
I disagree. You're still assuming that only clueless people and those that were tricked were pro-war. I know many well-informed pro-war people who still believe it was for the best, even in retrospect of not finding the WMD's.
I also believe that the US media in general gave the anti-war viewpoint a fair share of coverage, at the very least: It ranged from skepticism/ criticism of Bush's stated justifications for war (and sometimes offering alternate, ugly reasons), to dire predictions of millions dead, to well- reasoned calls for multi-lateralism, to detailed coverage of anti-war rallies in the US and worldwide, to coverage of celebrities speaking out against the war and Bush (ie: dixie chicks: "ashamed of our president", etc), to predictions that the entire Middle East would be enveloped in war or rise up against the US.
> I probably would have been clearer to say anti-war > misperceptions. If > they're going to cover media bias regarding the Iraq war, I > think they need > to cover both sides. Otherwise, how can we know that the > finger they point > at Fox News would not be equally deserved by other media as well. I > personally suspect it would be.
This is something I know very little about actually but my impression was that the debate/criticism in the US media started *after* the major combat operations were over. Until then, the media, the Congress and a vast majority of the US citizens seemed to be solidly behind Bush and his Iraq mission.
I don't think there was ever as much concensus as you indicate. I do think that now that the fighting is over, the debate has shifted to be along more clearly defined political party lines than before the war, when they were less partisan.
> As it stands, the survey mainly shows that people watching > pro-war news are > more likely to have pro-war misperceptions. Wouldn't you > expect the inverse > to also follow?
Oh certainly. I think the relevant question here might be the amount of anti-war news available in the US before Bush's dramatic landing on that carrier.
I'm not sure how the carrier landing would affect the availability of anti-war news.
> Some of both. And by politically motivated, I'm thinking > more along the > issue line rather than party line. Ie: I think people who > are pro war can > be more inclined to pick up pro-war misconceptions (than > anti-war people > would) because they boost their existing belief. And exactly > the opposite > for anti-war people.
That is almost always the case anyway: one does tend to filter information through the prism of one's beliefs.
> I suspect that the stance of > some of the > media itself would be different if it was a Democrat project. I also > suspect that these people wouldn't be doing this survey in that case.
I am not so sure about that. This issue seems to be bigger than partisan politics. An entire country was mobilised to war, the reasons given by the govt. for waging this war have not exactly been proven correct and the reasons why this mobilisation was possible do need to be investigated. At least that is how it looks to me.
Several points here:
- Leading up to the war, a big criticism of Bush was that he had given several
different justifications for the war (ie: 1441, Iraqi liberation, WMD's Saddam
currently has, potential for Saddam to develop nukes in the future, increase
middle east stability) and he kept shifting between them rather than focusing
on one. I heard this repeatedly. Now, suddenly the perception is that the war
was "sold" entirely on the basis of the WMD's Saddam was believed to currently
possess, and since he apparently didn't really possess them, the whole war is
now unjustified.
- A case can be made that Bush knew there was no WMD's, and yet deliberately
lied about them and intentionally misled everyone about their presence.
Alternately, a case can be made that he honestly thought the WMD's were there,
(just as the rest of the UN/world did prior to the war, and just as Clinton did
in 1998), but was overconfidently certain. In other words, deliberate wrongdoing,
or forgivable mistake? The media gets to decide how to angle its coverage, and
partisanship certainly gets to play a hand in that.
-bryon
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