Good Morning America selectively cited polling on public perceptions of Iraq media coverage

Written by Joe Brown

Published

On Good Morning America, correspondent Dan Harris reported that "[t]he latest national poll says 31 percent of Americans believe the media make things in Iraq sound worse than they are." But Harris failed to inform viewers that in the same poll he cited, a majority of Americans -- 59 percent -- said that the media describe “things in Iraq” either “accurately” or “better than they are.”


On the March 23 broadcast of ABC's Good Morning America, correspondent Dan Harris reported that "[t]he latest national poll says 31 percent of Americans believe the media make things in Iraq sound worse than they are." But Harris did not inform viewers that in the same poll he cited, a majority of Americans -- 59 percent -- said that the media describe “things in Iraq” either “accurately” or “better than they are.”

The poll Harris cited, identified by an on-screen graphic as the CBS News poll conducted March 9-12, found that 31 percent of respondents believe the media portray problems in Iraq as “worse than they are,” 35 percent believe the media describe the Iraq war “accurately,” and 24 percent believe the media depict the situation in Iraq as “better than” what actually exists there.

Harris made his comments while reporting on a recent surge of emails received by ABC News regarding the network's coverage of the war in Iraq.

From the March 23 broadcast of ABC's Good Morning America:

HARRIS: Renee, from Kirtland Air Force Base, writes, “I think you should cover how many women are now allowed to work, and how many kids are now enrolled in school and excelling.” Mary Muchler's son is a U.S. Navy corpsman. She wrote to us from Oregon.

MUCHLER: We need to hear about the deaths and what's going on as far as that's concerned, but we also need to hear what's going good, also.

HARRIS: The latest national poll says 31 percent of Americans believe the media make things in Iraq sound worse than they are. But some of our viewers, like Deborah from Texas, say delivering the bad news serves an important purpose. “It is the job of the media,” she writes, “to report what's happening on the warfront, and that means insurgent attacks and sectarian violence.”