FAUX NEWS A THREAT TO AMERICA

This is an old study but it's worth repeating.

The Press and Public Misperceptions About the Iraq War
Steven Kull.
Nieman Reports.
Cambridge: Summer 2004.Vol.58, Iss. 2; pg. 64


During the summer of 2003, the Program on International Policy Attitudes (PIPA) at the University of Maryland, together with the polling firm Knowledge Networks, conducted a large-scale study of U.S. public perceptions and misperceptions related to the Iraq War, with a special eye to determining what role the press might have played in this process. The polls were conducted from june through September with a nationwide sample of 3,334 respondents.

The study found three widespread misperceptions:

* 49 percent believed that the United States had found evidence that Iraq was working closely with al-Qaeda;
* 22 percent believed that actual weapons of mass destruction had been found in Iraq;
* 23 percent believed that world public opinion favored the United States going to war with Iraq.
Overall, 60 percent of those we polled had at least one of these three misperceptions.

Frequency of misperceptions by respondent's primary source of news.

FOX NONE 20% 1 OR MORE 80%

CBS NONE 30% 1 OR MORE 70%

ABC NONE 39% 1 OR MORE 61%

CNN NONE 45% 1 OR MORE 55%

NBC NONE 55% 1 OR MORE 45%

PRINT NONE 53% 1 OR MORE 47%

NPR/PBS NONE 77% 1 OR MORE 23%