L.A. Times editor John S. Carroll spoke on journalism and ethics:
Carroll cited a study released last year that showed Americans had three main
misconceptions about Iraq: That weapons of mass destruction had been found, a connection between al-Qaeda and Iraq had been demonstrated and that the world approved of U.S intervention in Iraq. He said 80 percent of people who primarily got their news from Fox believed at least one of the misconceptions. He said the figure was more than 57 percentage points higher than people who get their news from public news broadcasting."How in the world could Fox have left its listeners so deeply in the dark?" Carroll asked.
Perhaps because Fox does not tell them the conclusion? Let's examine the three misconceptions:
We found WMD. This is true. At some point, we found missiles with chemical weapons left over from the Kurdish war. We also found other evidence. What we haven't found (yet) is WMD matching the levels that we thought were there when the decision was made to goto war. Who has changed that to there were no WMD?
There's a connection between al Qaeda and Iraq. Well one could make an argument for this. For some reason, I think it is so immaterial as to be boring. What we don't have is evidence that the Iraq regime had any involvement with 9/11. That's a long way from no connection.
The world supports us. Yeah, what a misconception. England Poland, etc. It is true that not everyone supports us. It is also true that not everyone opposes us. The mere phrasing of this statement begs for a misconception.
But hey, I watch Fox, therefore I'm confused.
UPDATE: Xrlq and Patterico do a much better job countering Carroll. I just ranted off the top of my head.
Posted by Justene Adamec at May 9, 2004 09:20 AM | TrackBack"But hey, I watch Fox, therefore I'm confused."
Who am I to disagree?
What exactly is the source of Justene's WMD claim? My recollection was that some warheads were dug up that, initially were reported to have possibly contained chemical weapons. Upon testing, they were found not to. Perhaps news of those later tests weren't aired on Fox.
al Qaeda/Iraq - who cares one way or the other, says Justene. Big deal.
Justene also misdirects on the "world approves of the invasion" issue. "the world" demonstrably did not. If someone thinks they did (quite possibly, a Fox viewer) they are in error. Even less of the world does now.
By the way, why does Justene pick apart journalistic paraphrases of Carroll's remarks and not his actual quoted speech? The specific wording of the paraphrases, after all, isn't necessarily his.
But perhaps this is a point on which Fox viewers have some confusion.
Posted by: m.croche at May 9, 2004 10:30 AM (Permalink)M. Croche: maybe you should forget your recollection, and follow the links. One is to my blog entry, which contains a link to this summary of the confirmed WMD that have been found. Granted, it's a far cry from what we originally expected to find; however, it's an even father cry from the liberal "Saddam Had No WMD" meme.
The jury is still out on Iraq/al Qaeda, but unless you anyone who supported the war solely because of that, "big deal" is about right. Silly me, I thought the war in Afghanistan was the one about al Qaeda, a group that very few Americans had even heard of when our troubles with Iraq began in 1990.
As to "the world" approving vs. disapproving, you seem to be keeping up the fine Crochist tradition of missing even the most obvious points. Let me put it a little more bluntly: anyone who says "the world" does OR does not approve of the U.S. action in Iraq is either an idiot or a liar. The only honest answer - though one that this phony "study" would never have accepted - is that some parts of the world supported our action, while others opposed it.
Oh, and FYI, Die Frau ohne Schatten has nothing to do with abortion. And there's no Easter Bunny, either.
Posted by: Xrlq at May 9, 2004 01:30 PM (Permalink)I think we ought always to entertain our opinions with some measure of doubt. I shouldn't wish people dogmatically to believe any philosophy, not even mine. Bertrand
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