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Page 2
The bias of agenda based on different editorial perspectives is a well-documented and discussed phenomenon. However, what is less well understood is the bias in news consumption. We all have the natural proclivity to focus on stories that confirm our world view. Hence, those against the Iraq War follow in detail the prisoner abuse scandal, perhaps secretly hoping that the abuse was not isolated and that high officials in the Bush Administration are implicated. While responsible people will not make such an accusation without sufficient evidence, they will still eagerly consume stories like the ones in the New Yorker by Seymour Hersh that suggest some culpability on the part of Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld in prisoner abuse.
Some follow such stories hoping to be politically vindicated. Yet, it would seem that the proper perspective for an American would be to hope that the abuse scandal is isolated, both to redeem American values and make life a little safer for innocent American soldiers. However embarrassing it might be to concede it publicly, Bush opponents are not above a little schadenfreude at the prisoner abuse scandal, regardless of the cost to American prestige and risk to American lives. Such people should ask themselves whether they will be disappointed or excited to find out that prisoner abuse is pervasive. I know of no way to demonstrate this, but am willing to assert than many who are carefully scouring the news for information that Rumsfeld is somehow connect to prisoner abuse are not devoting the same study to scandal in the United Nation's Oil-for-Food program, or evidence of operational links between Al Qaeda, or the discovery of nuclear material in Jordan. Similarly those who would prefer to see at least one of the reasons for the war more fully vindicated are more likely to follow with rapt attention stories lending credence to the WMD threat posed by Saddam Hussein's Iraq. Though the prudent would caution against grasping too tightly at the latest discovery of sarin gas artillery shell, would it not really be a cause of celebration to learn with certainty Hussein disposed of his WMD stockpiles shortly before the war? Would it not be better to be assured that the WMD could not fall into the hands of terrorists - terrorists with no scruples against use of such weapons against civilian populations? Some want to believe that their pre-war assessments of WMD, yet evidence supporting such a conclusion might prove to be more destabilizing. Do we really want a world where some WMD have been taken to unknown haunts? Some should ask themselves if they would be disappointed to find out that all WMD stockpiles were destroyed before the war so that the threat of war was sufficient to disarm Saddam (even if we didn't know at the time). Of course, for those who accepted pre-war WMD assessments, there is sill a graceful way out: These WMD stockpiles could be found and disposed of now.
The copyright of the article Personal Biases in News Consumption - Page 2 in Conservative Politics is owned by . Permission to republish Personal Biases in News Consumption - Page 2 in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.
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