{"id":26200,"date":"2007-04-05T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2007-04-05T05:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/alpha.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/2007\/04\/05\/who-do-you-trust-for-war-news\/"},"modified":"2024-04-14T03:56:00","modified_gmt":"2024-04-14T08:56:00","slug":"who-do-you-trust-for-war-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/alpha.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/politics\/2007\/04\/05\/who-do-you-trust-for-war-news\/","title":{"rendered":"Who Do You Trust for War News?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">by Michael Dimock, Associate Director, Pew Research Center for the People &amp; the Press<\/p>\n\n<figure><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright\" src=\"https:\/\/assets.pewresearch.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/12\/old-assets\/publications\/445-1.gif\" alt=\"Figure\"><\/figure>\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Four years into the Iraq war, most Americans say they have little or no confidence in the information they receive &#8211; from either the military or the media &#8211; about how things are going on the ground. Fewer than half (46%) say they have a great deal or fair amount of confidence that the U.S. military is giving the public an accurate picture of the situation, and even fewer (38%) are confident in the press&#8217;s portrayal of the war.<\/p>\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Public confidence in both institutions is much lower now than at the outset of the war. In March 2003 &#8211; in the first week of U.S. troop deployment in Iraq &#8211; fully 85% said they had at least a fair amount of confidence in military information, and nearly as many, 81%, were confident that the press was giving an accurate picture of the war. The public&#8217;s response to both military and press coverage of the first Gulf War in 1991 was similarly favorable.<\/p>\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">On the negative side, 21% now say they have no confidence in military reports, while 27% have no confidence in press reports on the war. At the start of the war, virtually nobody expressed this view.<\/p>\n\n<figure><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright\" src=\"https:\/\/assets.pewresearch.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/12\/old-assets\/publications\/445-2.gif\" alt=\"Figure\"><\/figure>\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Opinion about how these institutions portray the war has mirrored the public&#8217;s perception of how well the war is going overall. Fully 90% of the public said that the war effort was going &#8220;very well&#8221; or &#8220;fairly well&#8221; in the early days of the invasion compared with 40% who express this view today.<\/p>\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">While Democrats, Republicans and independents all express less confidence in the information they are receiving about Iraq today, there is now a substantial partisan divide in how these two institutions are viewed. The vast majority of Republicans (73%) remain at least somewhat confident in the military&#8217;s portrayal of how the war is going, compared with just 32% of Democrats. At the outset of the war, the partisan gap was far less pronounced.<\/p>\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Conversely, Republican confidence in the accuracy of media reports on the war has declined more sharply. In March 2003, eight-in-ten Americans generally trusted press reports and opinions did not differ across party lines. Today, fewer than a third of Republicans (29%) feel confident in what they are hearing from the press, while about half of Democrats (51%) remain confident in the news from Iraq.<\/p>\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Independents have become skeptical of the information they are getting from both institutions. The share of independents who express at least a fair amount of confidence in military portrayals of the war is down from 83% to 39% since the start of the war, and their confidence in the accuracy of press reports has declined from 81% to 34%.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Four years into the Iraq war, most Americans say they have little or no confidence in the information they receive &#8212; from either the military or the media &#8212; about how things are going on the ground.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":46,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_crdt_document":"","sub_headline":"The Public Now Puts Little Confidence in the Descriptions of Iraq Provided by Either the Military or the 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