In a series of polls from May through September, the researchers discovered that large minorities of Americans entertained some highly fanciful beliefs about the facts of the Iraqi war. Fully 48 percent of Americans believed that the United States had uncovered evidence demonstrating a close working relationship between Saddam Hussein and al Qaeda. Another 22 percent thought that we had found the weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. And 25 percent said that most people in other countries had backed the U.S. war against Saddam Hussein. Sixty percent of all respondents entertained at least one of these bits of dubious knowledge; 8 percent believed all three.
The researchers then asked where the respondents most commonly went to get their news. The fair and balanced folks at Fox, the survey concludes, were “the news source whose viewers had the most misperceptions.” Eighty percent of Fox viewers believed at least one of these un-facts; 45 percent believed all three. Over at CBS, 71 percent of viewers fell for one of these mistakes, but just 15 percent bought into the full trifecta. And in the daintier precincts of PBS viewers and NPR listeners, just 23 percent adhered to one of these misperceptions, while a scant 4 percent entertained all three.
[And, from the other side:]
Meyerson’s critique relies entirely on this faulty syllogism: A lot of people have wrong ideas about the war with Iraq. A lot of people watch Fox News. Therefore, Fox News has given them wrong ideas. Absent a single example of Fox News’s promotion of the alleged misperceptions, the whole thing collapses under the weight of its own illogic. — John Moody, a senior vice president at Fox News.
The problem is in the study’s methodology for selecting errors to investigate. The errors selected for study all have one feature in common: The correct answer supports the anti-war position and an error supports the pro-war position. — Marvin S. Cohen, Arlington VA