In 2006, Fox News falsely reported "WMDs Found in Iraq". They quickly stopped saying such lies, but the damage was done and thousands of people believed the fake headline. My question is: Are there any NON-viewers of Fox News who believed that story? Or did only the viewers who watch Fox fall for that?

Someone posted this this morning.

In my opinion, Fox news has trouble finding the truth when it bites them in the ass. I thought they might find some of the less than sophisticated chemical weapons they used on the Kurds in the past. But they had got rid of those as well.

Fox news should start working for the White House….did’t they find them a couple of times too

yaaa I found the WMD’s….oops no I did’t, it’s a rock…

OK, there was way more bark to the WMD thing than there was bite. However, if you looks historically at what had happened with Iraq in this area, it is hard to believe that they were telling the truth ever along the way. “No we don’t have WMD”, then they use them in their own country. “All WMD are gone”. But inspections showed that wasn’t they case. “Ok now all WMD are gone”, but can you believe that?

Fox news reports aside, and bad intel about where WMD might be found aside, I believe that a uranium stockpile was found in Iraq and althought they were in essence defunct, shells with blister agent were found as well.

Yes I know that the intel was bad, and we didn’t find these where the intel told us they were, but given the historical interaction and trouble with UN inspections in the past, I can see how it was not too much of a stretch to think there were WMD in Iraq, should that have been reported as news, well that is another question entirely.

I am not a fan of Fox news, but often see it quoted on other stations. I find it hard to believe ANYTHING they say because of the numerous untruths they have promulgated for various reasons . . political . . propaganda . . sensationalism to attract more listeners . . personal aggrandizement of program hosts. I don’t trust their “news” at all!

Didn’t the wikileaks documents released in Oct. show there were WMD unearthed by American troops upto 2008?

@bkcunningham Yes, the problem is they were the WMD’s from the 80’s, largely that we sold them, that we already knew they had. The “new” WMD’s, the super bio weapons, nuclear facilities, etc, etc…. never turned up.

As far as the original post, Fox “news” could tell me the sky was blue and I’d have to go outside and check it to be sure.

The WMDs that the UN inspectors couldn’t find from the first Gulf War, were found. The WMDs that we thought they had built since, were not. So which WMDs are you referring to? It is this kind of ambiguous crap that leads to the liberal half story we see constantly in the main stream media.

@Jude ‘s post is a prime example. Even the CBO had to revise the cost estimate of the Health Care bill upwards after the bill was passed. So how much it will contribute to the deficit is still a guess. But if you don’t agree with liberals, they scream misinformation. What a load of crap.

Most major press outlets take a lot of their cues from Fox and a few other right-wing sources, so when Fox lies the lie propagates fast. Just the other day I saw The New York Times imply the so-called Tea Party movement (properly referred to as teabaggers) spontaneously erupted in a fit of populist outrage…you know, rather than being funded by shady billionaires like the Koch brothers and then given constant free PR by Fox and other outlets. (In all fairness, it implied the same about MoveOn.org, which was funded by George Soros for a time.)

@bolwerk most major press outlets take a lot of their cues from Fox and a few other right-wing sources…lol yeah, sure.

@bkcunningham I would be hesitant to say most…. But this nonsense about the “liberal media” .... There are very clear, and very well defined liberal and conservative camps in the media… and if anything the conservative media is stronger… Just look at Fox’s viewership when compared to MSNBC or any other major “news” source. The ones that actually give news, like the AP, BBC, and to some extent CNN… are FAR behind.

@tedd I was laughing at the statement made by @bolwerk.

Looks like @bkcunningham got into the nitro.

But yes, it’s most. I’m hesitant to say all, but it could be all. The reason is there just aren’t that many major outlets left to begin with, and with the way newspapers are dropping off even the still right-wing “liberal” ones are going to be gone soon. A few outlets even be able to salvage some dignity if they stopped following ratings cues from Fox and talk radio, and started reporting on things. But that said, there’s not much difference between what CNN, MSNBC, and Fox talk about. The only major difference is the level of on-screen decorum.

And even if it seems like there are hundreds of options, remember that many are owned by a handful of companies.

I watch Fox news occasionally and its awfulness is fascinating. It is so loud and strident and aggressive that even if it told the truth I don’t think I would believe it.

In doing some research at work today, I ran across a 2008 article about Mitt Romney pushing for individuals to be required to buy health insurance. Why is this becoming a “socialist” idea?

I’m on a major media self-imposed blackout – well, moreso I don’t rely on them to give me the whole story without spin.

I would not be surprised if you didn’t have to watch fox specifically to get this impression, what with the blogosphere. At a bare minimum, I attempt to read news ignoring all adjectives, adverbs, and googling any statistical claims. I look at media news sources kind of like Wikipedia these days – they tell me “Hey, this thing happened! Look here to learn that it did, and for the primary resources you should look at to find out what it really means for yourself.”

Before we even invaded Iraq, it was patently obvious to any skeptical thinker that there were no WMDs to be found there, that there was no secret nuculer [sic] program, and that Saddam had nothing to do with the 9/11 attack.

The UN Weapons inspection team had been in Iraq at that point searching for months. They were given unfettered access to all sites that they wanted to visit—even Saddam’s palaces which had previously been off limits. When Rumsfeld said “We know where the WMDs are” he HAD to be lying, and he had to know it. He knew that we had already fed all our known intelligence on potential locations to Scott Ritter, the head of the UN Weapons Inspection team in Iraq and a loyal American patriot who diligently followed every lead and found nothing. Not only did they not find WMDs, they found no documents discussing WMD design or production, no blueprints, no orders for partsd, no funding documents for programs—NOTHING.

The Bush administration lied us into that completely unnecessary war, and fighting it has enormously strengthened Iran. I will not say Bush knew, because he probably couldn’t grasp such a thought process. But Cheney and Rumsfeld certainly knew that the whole adventure was built on a litany of lies.