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Fairness & Accuracy In Reporting (FAIR-L)
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In Iraq Crisis, Networks Are Megaphones for
Official Views;
Network newscasts, dominated by current and former
U.S. officials, largely exclude Americans who are skeptical
of or opposed to an invasion of Iraq, a new study by FAIR has
found
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| WASHINGTON
- March 18 - Looking at two weeks of coverage (1/30/03-2/12/03),
FAIR examined the 393 on-camera sources who appeared in nightly
news stories about Iraq on ABC World News Tonight, CBS Evening
News, NBC Nightly News and PBS's NewsHour with Jim Lehrer. The
study began one week before and ended one week after Secretary
of State Colin Powell's February 5 presentation at the U.N., a
time that saw particularly intense debate about the idea of a
war against Iraq on the national and international level.
More than two-thirds
(267 out of 393) of the guests featured were from the United States.
Of the U.S. guests, a striking 75 percent (199) were either current
or former government or military officials. Only one of the official
U.S. sources-- Sen. Edward Kennedy (D.-Mass.)-- expressed skepticism
or opposition to the war. Even this was couched in vague terms:
"Once we get in there how are we going to get out, what's the
loss for American troops are going to be, how long we're going
to be stationed there, what's the cost is going to be," said Kennedy
on NBC Nightly News (2/5/03).
Similarly,
when both U.S. and non-U.S. guests were included, 76 percent (297
of 393) were either current or retired officials. Such a predominance
of official sources virtually assures that independent and grassroots
perspectives will be underrepresented. Of all official sources,
75 percent (222 of 297) were associated with either the U.S. or
with governments that support the Bush administration's position
on Iraq; only four out of those 222, or 2 percent, of these sources
were skeptics or opponents of war.
Twenty of the
297 official sources (7 percent) represented the government of
Iraq, while a further 19 (6 percent) represented other governments--
mostly friendly to the U.S.-- who have expressed doubts or opposition
to the U.S.'s war effort. (Another 34 sources, representing 11
percent of officials, were current or former U.N. employees. Although
members of the U.N. inspection teams made statements that were
both critical of Iraq's cooperation and supportive of further
inspections, because of their official position of neutrality
on the question of war they were not counted as skeptics.) Of
all official sources, 14 percent (43 of 297) represented a position
skeptical or opposed to the U.S. war policy. (Sources were coded
as skeptics/critics if either their statements or their affiliations
put them in that category; for example, all French government
officials were counted as skeptics, regardless of the content
of their quote.)
The remaining
96 sources-- those without a current or former government connection--
had slightly more balanced views; 26 percent of these non-official
sources took a skeptical or critical position on the war. Yet,
at a time when 61 percent of respondents in a CBS poll (2/5-6/03)
were saying that they felt the U.S. should "wait and give the
United Nations and weapons inspectors more time," only sixteen
of the 68 U.S. guests (24 percent) who were not officials represented
such views.
Half of the
non-official U.S. skeptics were "persons in the street"; five
of them were not even identified by name. Only one U.S. source,
Catherine Thomason of Physicians for Social Responsibility, represented
an anti-war organization. Of all 393 sources, only three (less
than 1 percent) were identified with organized protests or anti-war
groups.
Overall, 68
sources, or 17 percent of the total on-camera sources, represented
skeptical or critical positions on the U.S.'s war policy-- ranging
from Baghdad officials to people who had concerns about the timing
of the Bush administration's war plans. The percentage of skeptical
sources ranged from 21 percent at PBS (22 of 106) to 14 percent
at NBC (18 of 125). ABC (16 of 92) and CBS (12 of 70) each had
17 percent skeptics.
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