According to today’s IMDB movie and TV news, a Pew Research Center poll states that:
46% of Americans think that the media “is becoming too critical of America, and that such criticism is weakening national defense.”
70% think that “the media ought to take a more pro-American stand in its reporting of US actions in Iraq and the war on terrorism.”
Those most critical of the media “are likely to be devotees of the Fox News Channel.”
I know this is heavily related to this thread, but I thought this deserved its own thread because of the interesting questions inherent in this poll, like:
What does this mean for Bush and the questions about his justifications for war? If Bush did mislead the country, does this prove that the ends justify the means? That posters here are right that Americans don’t care if Bush mislead them? That they do, at core, believe in the government’s actions? Does this mean that Bush is more of a sure thing than ever in 2004?
What does the American public want or expect from its media? Is it necessarily the truth?
Does this poll imply that Americans think that the media is lying to them, or misleading them, about how bad things really are in Iraq? If so, where do they get this impression?
Why do Americans think the first point mentioned in the poll above is true? Who tells them this? Or is it something inherent in people?
*Is there any connection between being conservative and necessarily agreeing with the course being taken in Iraq? What I mean is, could one argue that a Democratic president taking these same actions would be treated differently by the media, conservatives, and the public at large?
There’s a lot of other stuff here too, I think, but that’s enough for now… Others can bring up what they think interests them.
It means that a majority of the public agree with his reasons?
A majority of the public don’t buy the idea that he substantially misled them.
Let’s say certain posters here (e.g. moi) are right that Americans don’t think one questionable sentence in one speech amounts to substantial misleading.
Yes
Yes. If this is the best attack the Dems can come up with, they’re in trouble.
Truth. Fairness. Balance.
Yes.
Because it’s true. The media is misleading the public, about how bad things really are in Iraq. The media isn’t lying, but it is giving undue emphasis to problems.
Americans have more and more sources of information other than the main stream media, such as talk radio, Fox News, and the internet. So, the media cannot present distorted views with impunity. Compare with 1991 when Peter Arnett of CNN could say whatever he wanted, and his view would prevail, since he was the only one in Iraq during the war.
This is speculative. The media tend to be pro-Democrat and anti-war. So, a pro-war Democrat might be treated better than a pro-war Republican, but not as well as an anti-war Democrat. OTOH conservatives would be less supportive of a Democratic war. E.g., there was a lot of conservative criticism of Clinton’s efforts in the former Yogoslavia. The critics turned out to be dead wrong, as Clinton’s bombing successfully led to an end to the slaughter of innocents.
As usual, it means that the majority of people polled don’t want to be bothered with any information that might shake their complacency. We are fundamentally lazy and idealistic. We want to think that our government is run by rational, high minded and principled people who are earnestly working to further the general welfare. We don’t want to be bothered with information that might bring those suppositions into question. We want to be spoon fed stories about George Washington chopping down the cherry tree, and Ronald Regan sounding the trumpet that brought the Berlin Wall a-tumbling down. We want to be a John Wayne character doing the best thing for the best reason. We hate self examination. We want to kill the messenger. We want more propaganda and fewer facts. We like being played for suckers as long as it isn’t too blatant. We don’t want to think about it.
Look at the number of people who thought that that nice Mr. Nixon was being unfairly put upon because of that third rate burglary.
Personally, I don’t feel that the media as a whole is out and out lying to us. But because most of our news sources are in the hands of a few people/corporations, I don’t trust it as much as I used to.
I check out BBC from time to time for that reason. And I also read websites that belong to organizations that I trust – Amnesty International, for example.
It bothers me that news talk shows have developed an obvious slant. Some people don’t seem to be able to distinguish what is verifiable information from what is spin. Rush Limbaugh makes my flesh crawl.
I think that if a Democratic President took the same actions that Bush has, under the same circumstances, with the same deception or error and with the same result, she or he would be BBQ’d. President Clinton lied to a grand jury and was impeached. Lying to a grand jury – even if it is about your personal sex life – is not decent. But compare that with the potential that this mess has!
We live in fascinating times. I have watched the complete downfall of one President in my lifetime. I think this could be much worse. The damage that has been done is beyond measure.
Poor Bush doesn’t even have that going for him. Things are not looking at all good in Iraq.
I think that too many Americans, myself included, want confirmation of what we already believe. I somehow am convinced that it is the truth.
The question about wanting more patriotic coverage sounds like a no-brainer to me. Patriotism means different things to different citizens. Who would say no?
A more revealing poll was on Wolf Blitzer’s program last night. Although the poll was not scientific, over 90% of the voluntary participants in the poll wanted further investigation into what-the-hell is going on in this Administration.
Incidently, the person that I trust the most for information and opinion is Tim Russert.
But if you go to the bottom of his item, you discover that Mark Willacy is in Jerusalem He’s not in Iraq. He doesn’t know what ordinary Iraqis think. He just put his prejudices in their mouths.
**Capacitor[/] I think perhaps you mean that America should be pissed. The poll quoted by the OP suggests they are not pissed or, to the extent that they are, what they would prefer is to not know, and therefore not be pissed. See no evil…
I am reluctant to say anything, because most of you have made up your minds. However: Do keep in mind that just because you and everyone you talk to has a particular point of view, that doesn’t mean it’s the majority. We all tend to associate with people we have something in common with, and often that includes our political views. December is right in this instance, even though you don’t like it.
And to whoever said “Look at the number of people who thought that that nice Mr. Nixon was being unfairly put upon because of that third rate burglary” : Ummm, not a very large number. One of the reasons he resigned was that even his staunchest defenders could not support him any more. By the time it was over, there were very few people who thought he was being unfairly put upon.
As I understand it, Nixon had many supporters well after the facts became clear. Those of his staunchest defenders who mattered (the powerful) certainly reached the point, knowing what they did, that they could not be seen to support him any more without losing their own credibility and power. But his public support amongst the general electorate remained surprisingly high, even well after the facts became clear.
As to December, I agree with him insofar as the public may well have the views that he believes they do. Whether those views are rational or objectively correct, is another issue. In particular, towards the end of his first post, he suggests the media are being misleading, which is just an expression of December’s own opinion, as he says.
The media is liberal. People know the media is liberal. Many people don’t like the fact that the media is liberal.
This explains the 46% and 70% numbers from that poll. It also explains the success of the fox news channel, and decline in rankings of the old media networks.
Bear in mind that the views of a majority of Americans is not an approximation of the mind of God. If the media is going to be critiqued it shoud be in accordance with a higher professional standard, not the views of the unwashed masses.
Could be they’re just sick of people who criticize America without any apparant reason, i.e. the critic has the preconception that America is inherently evil.
I tend to curl my lip reflexively whenever I hear “Guess who the only nation to ever drop an A-Bomb was!” To me, that only shows the speaker is completely clueless about the circumstances of WW2, but is still trying to use them as analogy to support his claim de jour that the U.S. is eeeee-vil.
Similarly, there’s a user here named “Wake Up Call” or something whose very name rather condescendingly suggests we’re ignorant and need to be alerted (i.e. woken up). His criticisms of the U.S. invariably strike me as pointless and blatant in their axe-grinding.
Now, there are valid criticisms to be made of the U.S. and its government, and thoughtful publications like Time and Newsweek manage to make these criticisms without showing too profound a bias. A perception that the entire media is out to “get” the U.S. is unfair, to say the least. There are leftist publications that shriek and holler, to be sure, and rightist publications that are one step removed from a white supremacy tract, but these are fairly easy to spot and should not be taken as representative.
The lack of “good” (i.e. pro-American) news from Iraq may just reflect the lack of it (they did just fight a war there, after all), or the lack of interest in it (how many war reporters feel comfortable reporting feel-good “hearts and minds” stories?).
Of course, if more heartwarming tales were being printed, there’d be a poll result showing Americans want more hard news and less fluff.
The media shouldn’t make decisions based on some ivory tower, liberal elite views. If 75% of the people in America are in favor of X, then 75% of the media should be in favor of X.
For example, most American’s are in favor of using the military on the borders to prevent illegal immigration. However, the mainstream media won’t touch this issue at all. 30% or so of Americans are pro-life (I’m not one of them) and the media certainly doesn’t reflect this. And Bush’s approval ratings remain record high, yet, the press attention that he recieves is mostly negative. Glancing at the op-ed pages of any major newspaper makes this clear.
How about just admitting the biases? I like the UK newspapers, where you pretty reliably have some idea of the paper’s general orientation from the get-go. You can be honest with the facts and upfront about your opinion at the same time. I think the pretension of complete objectivity from people who obviously have a slant is what annoys people. I at least know where Rush Limbaugh is coming from. I wish CNN, the BBC and Fox were as straigtforward.
Of course the biggest bias is the desire to create “news” and blow things up bigger than they really are. Thus, we have the media frenzy over Clinton’s sex life, and the eagerness to trash Bush as some sort of Nixon in short pants becuase he believed what he was told by our closest ally.
What people realize is that much like their own jobs, running a government is mostly boring bureaucratic crap, and that the majority of the time the media is blowing things up for publication; because the one story you’ll never hear on the TV is that nothing really important happened today, or that it’s way too soon to know the effect of policy XYZ. The media are slaves to their constant lust for the next big thing; they need to make a “story” out of facts, even when those facts are incomplete and confusing. The result is that they are entertaining, but usually not constructive.
Of course we do need to keep government honest, and we need muckrakers to do it, as Spavined Gelding points out. So what’s the solution?
There isn’t one. I think that this is they way the system is supposed to work. If the founding fathers were to look down, I think they’d likely see 46% as just about right.
Wouldn’t it be better if 75% of the media were in favour of what 75% of the reporters and editors were in favour of? I’m skittish about anything that takes journalistic control out of the hands of journalists, even if it is a good-intentioned attempt (and we know where those lead) at creating fairness.