"Crazy" By Association

[Gold9472]

"Crazy" By Association

By Jon Gold
11/24/2007

In August 2004, 911Truth.org commissioned Zogby International for a poll (http://www.zogby.com/search/ReadNews.dbm?ID=855) that concluded "half (49.3%) of New York City residents and 41% of New York citizens overall say that some of our leaders "knew in advance that attacks were planned on or around September 11, 2001, and that they consciously failed to act."

In May 2006, 911Truth.org commissioned Zogby International for a poll (http://www.911truth.org/page.php?page=zogby_2006) that concluded 45% of voting Americans think "Congress or an International Tribunal should re-investigate the attacks, including whether any US government officials consciously allowed or helped facilitate their success."

In September 2007, 911Truth.org commissioned Zogby International for a poll (http://www.zogby.com/news/ReadNews.dbm?ID=1354) that concluded "51% of Americans want Congress to probe Bush/Cheney regarding the 9/11 Attacks."

In all three instances, the media has almost completely ignored the results of these polls even though Zogby International is used by most mainstream media outlets.

Instead, the media decided to focus on a different set of polls conducted by Scripps Howard/Ohio University.

In August 2006, Scripps Howard/Ohio University conducted a poll (http://www.yourbbsucks.com/forum/showthread.php?t=11805) that concluded, "more than a third of the American public suspects that federal officials assisted in the 9/11 terrorist attacks or took no action to stop them so the United States could go to war in the Middle East."

Yesterday, it was reported that Scripps Howard/Ohio University conducted another poll (http://www.scrippsnews.com/node/28533) that concluded, "nearly two-thirds of Americans think it is possible that some federal officials had specific warnings of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on New York and Washington, but chose to ignore those warnings."

The difference between the Zogby and Scripps Howard polls is that in both cases, Scripps Howard decided to lump JFK and UFO conspiracy theories into their questionaire. The first poll concluded that 38% of Americans believe "the federal government is withholding proof of the existence of intelligent life from other planets." The second poll concluded that 37% "of the respondents said they think it is "very likely" or "somewhat likely" flying saucers are real and the government is hiding the truth about them."

The obvious reason Scripps Howard is lumping "crazy" theories into their polls about 9/11 is that it makes those that question 9/11 "crazy" by association.

Low and behold, today, the NYPost (http://www.nypost.com/seven/11242007/news/nationalnews/blame_u_s__for_9_11_idiots_in_majority_318165.htm) decided to jump on the newest of the Scripps Howard polls. They referred to us as the "Blame U.S. For 9/11" Idiots, and said that "anger at the federal government and skepticism in general by younger Americans is fueling the popularity of crackpot conspiracy theories (plural)."

We are the 9/11 Truth Movement. We are not the 9/11, UFO, JFK Assassination, Moon Landing, Holocaust, Oil Truth Movement.

[AuGmENTor]

Nor are we the controlled demolition movement. Nice article Jon...

[Gold9472]

Thanks. I actually don't like it. I don't think I portrayed my point well enough. However, I never like my articles.

[simuvac]

The people who compiled the first Scripps Howard poll actually published an article in the journal Journalism & Mass Communication Quarterly titled "Media Use, Social Structure, and Belief in 9/11 Conspiracy Theories" (Vol. 84 No. 2, Summer 2007). What's amazingly imprudent about their study is the fact that ALL of their conclusions are based on the assumption that there is absolutely no reason to believe ANY of the skeptics' claims, and therefore what is being measured is "belief in conspiracy theory."

From the abstract:

"Patterns vary somewhat by conspiracy theory, but members of less powerful groups (racial minorities, lower social class, women, younger ages) are more likely to believe at least one of the conspiracies, as are those with low levels of media involvement and consumers of less legitimate media (blogs and grocery store tabloids). Consumers of legitimate media (daily newspapers and network TV news) are less likely to believe at least one of the conspiracies, although these relationships are not significant after controlling for social structure variables. Beliefs in all three conspiracies are aligned with mainstream political party divisions, evidence that conspiracy thinking is now a normal part of political conflict in the United States."

Wow. Where to begin? How about with the astoundingly naive observation that people who consume corporate media by the bushel are more likely to believe corporate America's vision of the world? What kind of stupid shit is that? Like, duh, of course those who limit themselves to "official" news outlets are going to believe the official version of events.

Or how about the first part. I think if you go to www.patriotsquestion911.com you will see many "believers" in the "conspiracy theory" who are not women, racial minorities, of lower social class, or of a young age. In fact, I'd bet most of the list consists of old, white, middle class men who are moderately to highly educated.

And how does one associate "grocery tabloids" with "blogs"? Maybe tmz.com is a tabloid, but I find plenty of thoughtful analysis on blogs. Are the authors of this study suggesting if it doesn't come from the New York Times, it isn't true?

It's as if these authors haven't read a piece of Media Studies literature in 50 years. And one of them, Guido H. Stempel III, is a distinguished Professor Emeritus in the E.W. Scripps School of Journalism at Ohio University.

[Gold9472]

How many times do you remember seeing people like Bill O'Reilly reference the first Scripps Howard poll? I remember seeing it a lot.

[simuvac]

How many times do you remember seeing people like Bill O'Reilly reference the first Scripps Howard poll? I remember seeing it a lot.

I can't say for sure. Probably several times.

My beef is with the underlying assumption of the people who conducted the study. Studies like this always begin with the assumption that there's no basis for skepticism on 9/11. Shouldn't they instead be doing studies of what was actually reported, of what the 9/11 Commission actually wrote, of how evidence was collected, etc.?

[Gold9472]

Right. I heard there were nuts who believed in the 9/11 Conspiracy, so I'm going to run a poll to see just how many nuts there are. Disregard the reasons as to WHY so many "nuts" exist.

[PhilosophyGenius]

Nice article (and effort)

Also, best title you've ever made.

[BASE701]

I think it was an excellent article. Call me crazy...;)