What can we learn from our ignorance?

FROM THE DENVER POST http://www.denverpost.com

If more than a third of Americans believes weapons of mass destruction were found in Iraq, what does that tell us?

• That more than a third of the public is totally out of touch?
• That 34 percent of the people don't believe news reports?
• That roughly one in three people want to give the answers they think pollsters are looking for?
• Or that people will believe what they want to believe - or are conditioned to believe - regardless of all evidence to the contrary?

The opinion survey that found this 34 percent brain-dead factor has a daunting name: The Program on International Policy Attitudes/Knowledge Networks Poll.

But even if its name doesn't trip lyrically off the tongue, this poll, done at the University of Maryland, had a large enough sample to have a lot of credibility: 1,258 adults. It had a margin of error of 3.5 percent.

It was conducted in mid-May, when it was blatantly obvious that no weapons of mass destruction had been found in Iraq - at least, not to that point.

And it was as plain as the gas mask on your face that chemical or germ warfare had not been used on any of the troops sent to Iraq to look for those agents of war.

Yet 22 percent of the people who responded to this poll believed that Iraq used chemical or biological weapons "in the war that just ended."

Where do these people get their information?

There's a serious warning here for those us who think we're engaged in the business of informing the public. Some people just aren't getting the message. And we're losing our credibility, from The New York Times down to small-town media.

No matter what the facts are - or, maybe more to the point, regardless of what the news media say what the facts are - roughly a third of the population thinks it's all a bunch of lies. Made-up stuff. Liberal bias. Whatever.

Before the war, President Bush and members of his administration argued repeatedly and prominently that Iraq had to be invaded because it was stockpiling weapons of mass destruction.

The president now has declared that the major part of the fighting is over. But he never has said that weapons of mass destruction actually have been found in Iraq - and certainly never has claimed that WMDs were used against American troops.

But for a lot of people, the original argument was good enough. If that was the Bush rationale, well, it must have a basis in fact.

"It's partly a test of whether you believe the president," said Peggy Cuciti, who directs the "Mind of Colorado" poll conducted annual by the University of Colorado at Denver's Graduate School of Public Affairs.

"They may just be saying they believe they're there."

This is the sort of thing that creates peril for pollsters and jitters for journalists.

The director of the University of Maryland's poll, Steve Kull, was quoted in a Knight Ridder report last weekend as finding the poll results "striking." To say the least.

"Given the intensive news coverage and high levels of public attention," Kull said, "this level of misinformation suggests some Americans may be avoiding having an experience of cognitive dissonance."

In other words, they won't accept facts that conflict with their biases. Kull said most of those who believed weapons had been found were supporters of the war.

Weapons may yet be found, but it hasn't happened yet.

That's not all, either. Another survey before the war in Iraq found that half of those polled believed Iraqis were among the Sept. 11 hijackers who flew airplanes into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.

But none of those 19 hijackers came from Iraq. Most were from Saudi Arabia.

This survey does more than reflect the sad state of Americans' knowledge about public affairs. It also reflects poorly on a press whose judgments about what's truly important and what's merely interesting aren't always clear.

If the media did a better job of interpreting accurately and with a sense of proportion, maybe its interpretations and analyses would have more credibility.

Only a few people - a shrinking number, apparently - are willing to study current events in depth. Denver pollster Floyd Ciruli says between 2 and 10 percent of the population are "extremely involved" in following the news, and only 1 to 2 percent closely follow foreign affairs.

And roughly 30 percent, he said, "will believe anything."

"It's always amazing how ill-informed people are," said Lori Weigel, Denver-based vice president of Public Opinion Strategies.

"But ask them who won 'American Idol' and they'll know."

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Fred Brown punditfwb@aol.com, retired Capitol Bureau chief for The Denver Post, is also a political analyst for 9News.

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