Media portrayal of Iraq - Pew Research Center poll...
More than twice as many American think the media are
portraying too bleak a picture of the situation in Iraq as believe
the media are painting the situation as "better than it really
is," a Pew Research Center for the People and the Press poll
released last week discovered. In fact, across a series of
categories of people (party affiliation and news source, for
instance), while in some areas a plurality see the media as
getting it about right, in all the sub-groups more see the media
as portraying Iraq as worse than it than those who think the media
are showing it as better than reality.
Surprisingly, even amongst those against going to war, 26
percent see coverage as overly negative compared to 22 percent who
think it's too upbeat.
Pew's Web page summarized its findings: "The latest Pew
Research Center national survey, conducted Oct. 15-19 among 1,515
adults, finds that nearly four-in-ten Americans (38%) believe the
news media is painting too bleak a picture of the situation in
Iraq, while 36% say media reports are fairly accurate and 14% say
news organizations are showing the situation there to be better
than it really is."
Specifically, to the question, "News reports are making the
situation in Iraq seem...better/worse than it really is," the
results:
-- Overall:
Worse: 38 percent
About right: 36 percent
Better: 14 percent
Don't know: 12 percent
By sub group, with the percent for worse compared to better
and then the "about right" percent:
-- Party affiliation:
Republican: 55 to 7, 30 about right
Democrat: 28 to 16, 45 about right
Independent 34 to 19, 34 about right
-- News source:
Newspaper: 36 to 12, 41 about right
Radio: 42 to 12, 32 about right
Network news: 36 to 12, 40 about right
CNN: 32 to 18, 41 about right
FNC: 55 to 10, 28 about right
-- View of war:
War was right decision: 45 to 11, 35 about right
Wrong decision: 26 to 22, 39 about right
For the complete poll results:
people-press.org
mediaresearch.org |
