Iraq WMD, Talk Radio, AP, Harris Poll

'A DRUMBEAT OF VOICES'

For WMD Sentiment, Talk Radio, Blogs Blamed





Here's a great question for the MSM's next poll: do you believe the AP is capable of reporting fairly on the situation in Iraq?

As it clearly isn't likely to occur anytime soon, don't hold your breath waiting for an unbiased look at public sentiment toward the war. Instead, we get survey results (released two weeks ago) inserted into this stealth editorial disguised as objective 'news' reporting.

If Charles J Hanley's piece is meant as a commentary, or subjective analysis, it should be presented that way. Instead, in one of the year's most slanted stories, opinions are presented as facts.

In a piece carried in hundreds of newspapers today, Hanley couldn't be more clear that anyone who believes there are still WMDs in Iraq is an idiot. Regardless of how you might feel about the subject, does it belong in this kind of a story?

For misleading the public, he blames talk radio, blogs and the Bush Administration. Going out of his way to make those polled feel downright stupid, Hanley considers the case closed for good, despite lingering questions raised by recent stories like these.


Buried in the story is any thought to the contrary and those points are glossed over, then quickly dismissed.

From the Washington Post's site, see for yourself:

Do you believe in Iraqi "WMD"? Did Saddam Hussein's government have weapons of mass destruction in 2003?

Half of America apparently still thinks so, a new poll finds, and experts see a raft of reasons why: a drumbeat of voices from talk radio to die-hard bloggers to the Oval Office, a surprise headline here or there, a rallying around a partisan flag, and a growing need for people, in their own minds, to justify the war in Iraq.

People tend to become "independent of reality" in these circumstances, says opinion analyst Steven Kull.

The reality in this case is that after a 16-month, $900-million-plus investigation, the U.S. weapons hunters known as the Iraq Survey Group declared that Iraq had dismantled its chemical, biological and nuclear arms programs in 1991 under U.N. oversight. That finding in 2004 reaffirmed the work of U.N. inspectors who in 2002-03 found no trace of banned arsenals in Iraq.

Despite this, a Harris Poll released July 21 found that a full 50 percent of U.S. respondents - up from 36 percent last year - said they believe Iraq did have the forbidden arms when U.S. troops invaded in March 2003, an attack whose stated purpose was elimination of supposed WMD. Other polls also have found an enduring American faith in the WMD story.

"I'm flabbergasted," said Michael Massing, a media critic whose writings dissected the largely unquestioning U.S. news reporting on the Bush administration's shaky WMD claims in 2002-03.

"This finding just has to cause despair among those of us who hope for an informed public able to draw reasonable conclusions based on evidence," Massing said.

Timing may explain some of the poll result. Two weeks before the survey, two Republican lawmakers, Pennsylvania's Sen. Rick Santorum and Michigan's Rep. Peter Hoekstra, released an intelligence report in Washington saying 500 chemical munitions had been collected in Iraq since the 2003 invasion.

"I think the Harris Poll was measuring people's surprise at hearing this after being told for so long there were no WMD in the country," said Hoekstra spokesman Jamal Ware.

Checking a number of newspaper websites that carried this story, the Radio Equalizer has yet to find one that called this a commentary, column, or even an analysis. It's presented as straight news in every case. Since it's based on poll results released two weeks ago, how can that be?

Making sure talk radio, FOX News and blogs are sufficiently slammed, Hanley takes additional one- sided shots:

"Our top story tonight, the nation abuzz today ..." was how Fox News led its report on the old, stray shells. Talk-radio hosts and their callers seized on it. Feedback to blogs grew intense. "Americans are waking up from a distorted reality," read one posting.

Other claims about supposed WMD had preceded this, especially speculation since 2003 that Iraq had secretly shipped WMD abroad. A former Iraqi general's book -- at best uncorroborated hearsay -- claimed "56 flights" by jetliners had borne such material to Syria.

But Kull, Massing and others see an influence on opinion that's more sustained than the odd headline.

"I think the Santorum-Hoekstra thing is the latest 'factoid,' but the basic dynamic is the insistent repetition by the Bush administration of the original argument," said John Prados, author of the 2004 book "Hoodwinked: The Documents That Reveal How Bush Sold Us a War."

After reading this "story", isn't it amazing that blogs and talk radio are being held to a standard that the AP itself clearly doesn't follow? With fellow- traveller Reuters busy retracting fake Lebanon photos today, shouldn't the AP correctly label this piece a commentary?

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one Iraq WMD image: CBS