HW: Tour Shirts

[Eric Siegerman]

On Mon, Apr 26, 2004 at 12:12:11PM +0100, M Holmes wrote:
> people
> reading tabloids are quite simply not so stupid that they can't see
> through all the cant telling them how to vote.

I'd be interested in your reaction to this poll:
    http://www.pipa.org/OnlineReports/Iraq/Media_10_02_03_Press.pdf

Different medium (TV); different country (USA); same issue.  The
poll examined the frequency with which its subjects hold three
specific misperceptions about the Iraq situation, and found that
80% of people whose primary news source is Fox TV hold at least
one of the misperceptions -- dramatically more than do people
whose news comes from NPR/PBS (public radio/television; 23%),
print media (47%), or CNN (55%).

In other words, in practice, Fox watchers *don't* "see through
the cant" -- or at least, see through it much less successfully
than do people who get their news from better sources.  Whether
that's due to Fox watchers' stupidity, or merely to their being
successfully propagandized, the end result is the same.

The above URL is for the executive summary of the poll's results.
These two documents contain more detail:
    http://www.pipa.org/OnlineReports/Iraq/Media_10_02_03_Report.pdf
    http://www.pipa.org/OnlineReports/Iraq/Media_10_02_03_Questionnaire.pdf

--

|  | /\
|-_|/  >   Eric Siegerman, Toronto, Ont.        erics at telepres.com
|  |  /
It must be said that they would have sounded better if the singer
wouldn't throw his fellow band members to the ground and toss the
drum kit around during songs.
        - Patrick Lenneau