In Iraq Crisis:
Networks are Megaphones for Official Views
FAIR (Fairness & Accuracy
In Reporting), March 18, 2003
http://www.fair.org/
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.
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.
ACTION: Please urge ABC, CBS, NBC and
PBS to broaden the sources they rely on in coverage of the Iraq
crisis.
CONTACT: ABC World News Tonight Phone:
212-456-4040 mailto:PeterJennings@abcnews.com
CBS Evening News Phone: 212-975-3691 mailto:evening@cbsnews.com
NBC Nightly News Phone: 212-664-4971 mailto:nightly@nbc.com
PBS NewsHour with Jim Lehrer Phone: 703-998-2150
mailto:newshour@pbs.org
As always, please remember that your comments
are taken more seriously if you maintain a polite tone. Please
cc fair@fair.org with your correspondence.
Mrs. Muriel W. Adcock President Club
of Budapest USA 4040 Civic Center Drive, Suite 200 San Rafael,
CA 94903 Phone: 415-492-2880 Fax: 415-925-9057 adcock@clubofbudapestusa.org
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