Notes from the Movie: Weapons of Mass Deception viewed last night and a very hopeful development around Dan Gillmor.
The filmmaker Danny Schaechter was at the movie and joked that he embedded himself in his living room to watch and record the TV news every move leading up and during the war, at least as much as he could stand.
I think this graph is a great illustration of the problem with the TV News. It is derived from a study done by PiPA Program in International Policy Attitudes at the University of Maryland.
Misconception throughout the board with varying degree of severity.
At Stanford last week ABC News president David Westin apologized to the American people for the poor coverage:
The executives also discussed their stations’ coverage leading up to the war in Iraq and failure to more carefully examine the Bush administration’s claim that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction.
“[ABC] let down the American people,” Westin said. “I sincerely regret that.”
Random thoughts from the movie: