Finally, clear documentation on just how evil FoxNews is as a propaganda machine. (Actually, it was clear on Thursday, but better late than never.)
From Knight Ridder--and this is one case I strongly, strongly urge you read the whole thing:
Study: Wrong impressions helped support Iraq war
WASHINGTON - A majority of Americans have held at least one of three mistaken impressions about the U.S.-led war in Iraq, according to a new study released Thursday, and those misperceptions contributed to much of the popular support for the war.
The three common mistaken impressions are that:
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.
Overall, 60 percent of Americans held at least one of those views in polls reported between January and September by the Program on International Policy Attitudes, based at the University of Maryland in College Park, and the polling firm, Knowledge Networks based in Menlo Park, Calif.
Good lord. It's hard to be shocked when so much has been reported about these misconceptions, but for God's sake. You would think at least the reporting about the misconceptions would help a little (though the press has been irresponsible on that, too--see below). Just what is it going to take?
(And in case it is not completely clear: all three perceptions are completely wrong.)
Now, on to FauxNews' culpability--as if you didn't know already:
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.
The story also includes a graphic breaking out primary news source for the WMD misconception and the al-Qaida, with all the nets shown. FauxNews is out in front in both, with CBS second.
The really dramatic difference comes on al-Qaida, where 67% of FauxNews viewers believed it, and even 40% of print readers did--with everybody else bunched in the middle except one. But only 16% of NPR listeners did. That's pretty incredible. And it shows how persistent, honest reporting can be effective. Even with all that other media out there leading them astray, NPR was able to get the message to them not to believe it.
And/or NPR listeners are also bright, skeptical people who are not swallowing everything whole. And/or they're the type of people also reading other non-mainstream sources like Salon, Slate, The Nation . . . which are setting them straight. I will bet all three of those factors are playing a role.
But clearly, the media can correct its mistakes if it wants to.
But it really never wants to:
Kull cited instances in which TV and newspapers gave prominent coverage to reports that banned weapons might have been found in Iraq, but only modest coverage when those reports turned out to be wrong.
This is one perhaps the biggest single flaw I see with our media today. I witnessed it firsthand reporting on Columbine: the press rushed in and got most of the story wrong, beat the myths into the ground with blistering 24/7 coverage for days on end, then quietly buried what passed for corrections months later. It's disgraceful. And they do it every time.
And the source of the original bad reporting on the Iraq story? You know the answer to that, of course:
The Bush administration has also been a factor in persistent confusion.
Last month, for example, Bush said there was no evidence that Saddam was involved in the Sept. 11 attack after Vice President Dick Cheney suggested a link. Cheney, in a "Meet the Press" interview, had described Iraq as "the geographic base of the terrorists who had us under assault now for many years, but most especially on 9-11."
And the response of our watchdog press?
Susan Moeller, a University of Maryland professor, said that much reporting had consisted of "stenographic coverage of government statements," with less attention to whether the government's statements were accurate.
And the final piece of evidence to indict FauxNews of a different kind of war crime: yes, as expected, the false information they're churning out led the public to support the war:
The study found that belief in inaccurate information often persisted, and that misconceptions were much more likely among backers of the war. . . . Among those with one of the three misconceptions, 53 percent supported the war. Among those with two, 78 percent supported it. Among those with three, 86 percent backed it. By contrast, less than a quarter of those polled who had none of the misconceptions backed the war.
Bush never would have had the guts to get us in there with less than 25% of the public backing it. We are mired in what will probably prove to be our worst imperialist blunder since (before?) Vietnam because of grossly irresponsible media. Led by FauxNews.
Dutton (Penguin) in early 2009. 
