Lies, Liars and the Media that Enable Them: Part II

Earlier on this blog I reviewed a study by Bruce Hardy, Kathleen Hall Jamieson and Kenneth Winneg, “Wired to Fact”, which found that heavy Internet use enabled people to differentiate between facts and deception above and beyond the influence of traditional news media during the 2004 election.  The article also faulted traditional media for failing to be “custodians of the fact”  by not correcting candidate misstatements because traditional media coverage focuses too  much on the horse race and the politicking of the campaign as well as “he said/she said” coverage where journalists seek out perspectives of the two major political parties on an issue rather than talking to experts to try to unearth the truth. I wondered at the time whether the Internet in general, and political websites and blogs in particular, helped people distinguish between fact and fiction in the 2008 campaign, particularly because of the rise of more partisan content in the 2008 election and the increase in the number of voters who sought out information that conformed to their existing viewpoints.

The question of whether the media have become any better at being “custodians of fact” and whether Internet use helps citizens distinguish between political fact and fantasy hit home particularly hard this last week when liberal blog Daily Kos released the results of a study by pollster Research 2000 of more than 2,000 self-identified Republicans that, in part, examined facts about Barack Obama.  The study found that while the plurality (42 percent) said Barack Obama was born in the United States, more than a third (36 percent) said he wasn’t and 22 percent were unsure.  While a slight plurality said they did not believe Barack Obama is a racist who hates white people (36-31 percent),  that still means that about two-thirds of respondents said either he IS a racist or were unsure whether he is.  Finally almost two-thirds (63 percent) of self-identified Republicans branded Barack Obama a socialist compared to 21 percent who said he was not.  The lesson to be drawn from these results ISN’T that Republicans are less intelligent than Democrats.  Indeed, a recently released poll by Pew Research on political knowledge found that Republicans outscored Democrats on many issues.   However when politicians make claims like the the president supports a government-run health care program and when these statements are reinforced by conservative commentators such as Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck and Sean Hannity  who brand the health care plan as socialist or fascist,  compare Obama to Hitler or  call him a Marxist,  it is difficult for those labels not to stick.  This is particularly true when major newspapers and  broadcast news organizations act as stenographers and give considerable considerable attention to stories such as the birther controversy or charges that the health care bill is socialist or fascist without doing much to correct misstatements.

Am I being too hard on major newspapers and broadcast news organizations by calling them stenographers rather than journalists interested in unearthing the truth?  To what degree do you think that both partisan and mainstream media are to blame for perceptions such as Obama is a socialist and was born outside the United States? I would like to hear what you think.