A brief entry to draw your attention to a recent poll; it seems that the public is actually seeing the man behind the curtain.
I did not notice any coverage of this poll yesterday, and a quick google today did not give any hits either. No wonder! The public has exposed the media and the military as less than trustworthy sources for information; I guess they would really like to hide this one. I became aware of it reading Norwegian news sources this morning.
The Pew Research Center published a poll yesterday that demonstrates a major shift in the public’s perception of the military and the media as truthful sources.
Four years into the Iraq war, most Americans say they have little or no confidence in the information they receive – from either the military or the media – about how things are going on the ground. Fewer than half (46%) say they have a great deal or fair amount of confidence that the U.S. military is giving the public an accurate picture of the situation, and even fewer (38%) are confident in the press’s portrayal of the war.
Public confidence in both institutions is much lower now than at the outset of the war. In March 2003 – in the first week of U.S. troop deployment in Iraq – fully 85% said they had at least a fair amount of confidence in military information, and nearly as many, 81%, were confident that the press was giving an accurate picture of the war. The public’s response to both military and press coverage of the first Gulf War in 1991 was similarly favorable.
On the negative side, 21% now say they have no confidence in military reports, while 27% have no confidence in press reports on the war. At the start of the war, virtually nobody expressed such views.
(snip)
While Democrats, Republicans and independents all express less confidence in the information they are receiving about Iraq today, there is now a substantial partisan divide in how these two institutions are viewed. The vast majority of Republicans (73%) remain at least somewhat confident in the military’s portrayal of how the war is going, compared with just 32% of Democrats. At the outset of the war, the partisan gap was far less pronounced.
Conversely, there has been a greater decline in Republican confidence in the accuracy of media reports on the war. In March 2003, eight-in ten Americans generally trusted press reports and there was no difference of opinion across party lines. Today, fewer than a third of Republicans (29%) express confidence in what they are hearing from the press, while about half of Democrats (51%) remain confident in the news from Iraq.
Go read the Summary Findings – some interesting tables! Also interesting to note that the repubs have less confidence in the media than democrats – the spin of biased media coverage of the Iraqi carnage is working. We’ll all have to keep un-spinning!
