“Misperceptions, the Media, and the Iraq War” by Steven Kull, Clay Ramsay, and Evan Lewis, in Political Science Quarterly (Winter 2003–04), 475 Riverside Dr., Ste. 1274, New York, N.Y. 10115–1274.

Last summer, with (1) no Iraqi weapons of mass destruction unearthed, (2) no clear evidence found of any link between Saddam Hussein’s regime and Al Qaeda, and (3) world opinion decidedly against the U.S.-led war (which was then officially over), 60 percent of Americans were still in the dark about one or more of those three facts. Were the news media falling down on their job—or were Americans not paying attention?

Apparently, they were paying attention, but it mattered a great deal what they were paying attention to. Surveys conducted for the University of Maryland’s Program on International Policy Atti­tudes, with which the authors are associated, showed that a narrow majority of Americans who said they got their news chiefly from the print media got none of the three facts wrong. Not surprisingly, those readers who said they paid close attention to the news were more inclined to get those facts right.

That wasn’t the case, by and large, with the 80 percent of Americans who got most of their news from radio or television. In fact, among viewers who said they chiefly relied on Fox News (which set the theme for its war reporting with an American flag in a corner of the screen), the level of misperception increased the more closely they watched. For example, 80 percent of the close watchers thought that clear evidence had been found linking Iraq to Al Qaeda. Only 42 percent of more casual Fox viewers got that idea.

Overall, 80 percent of Fox viewers got at least one of the three facts wrong. Other networks did not produce sparkling results either. The viewer “failure” rates: CBS, 71 percent; ABC, 61; CNN, 55; and NBC, 55. Among the small minority of Americans who got their news chiefly by watching PBS or listening to NPR, only 23 percent did not have all three facts straight. So the quality of news coverage did matter. Some news organ­izations, the authors say, failed “to play the critical role of doggedly challenging the administration” in power.

And news coverage wasn’t the largest factor involved in misperceptions. People who said they intended to vote this year for President George W. Bush were 3.7 times more likely than others to misperceive at least one of the three facts. One explanation: Bush and other high officials made statements that could be construed as encouraging the misperceptions.