BROOKE GLADSTONE: We're back with On the Media. I'm Brooke Gladstone. Earlier this year, anywhere from a third to fifty percent of respondents in various polls believed that some of the September 11th hijackers were Iraqi citizens. None of the hijackers, in fact, were from Iraq -- but those polls came out before the U.S. invaded. Surely the slew of war coverage since then had taught the American public a lot about Iraq --or not. A new poll released earlier this month says a third of the public mistakenly believes that the U.S. has found weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, and just under a quarter incorrectly believe that Iraq used chemical or biological weapons during the war! How do such mistaken beliefs thrive? Joining me is Republican pollster Frank Luntz. Frank, welcome to On the Media.

FRANK LUNTZ: It's a pleasure to be here!

BROOKE GLADSTONE: So this latest poll is baffling because more Americans were tuning in to the coverage during the war.

FRANK LUNTZ:Well never under-estimate the public's ability to basically carry two different opinions at the same time -- to be inconsistent in those opinions -- sometimes contradictory -- and to even get it wrong. You have to understand --a fair number of Americans -- 10, 15 percent -- still believe Elvis is alive. According to a survey that we did, more young people believe in the existence of UFOs than believe Social Security will exist when they retire and that Americans have gotten facts and figures wrong forever! We pay attention to general stories, but we don't always pay attention to the specific facts of the matter, and in this case, there's an awful lot that's confusing.

BROOKE GLADSTONE:So what should the media do here -- shout louder about the ongoing search for the weapons? What those weapons are? Should the media take the blame then, for this scrambled message?

FRANK LUNTZ:I don't think the media should take the blame, and I don't think the media should think like it has to do anything. The fact is Americans were very much tuned in to what was happening in Iraq in the first few days and even the first two weeks, but it was a tidal wave as people started to click off from news and click back on to entertainment with the fall of Baghdad. And so the media could shout from the highest rooftops about WMDs as people now like to abbreviate which is also a problem --never use acronyms -- particularly when people don't know what the definition of that wording is. So they could shout, they could complain, they could run this every day and Americans still wouldn't know because they're not paying attention any more.

BROOKE GLADSTONE: So a lot of the viewers missed the final chapter is what you're saying. They turned off. [BOTH SPEAK AT ONCE]

FRANK LUNTZ:Exactly. And that, and that's an issue right now. It's a very legitimate issue to discuss! Which is: since they have turned away from this, and since they're now focused on the economy and issues of domestic concerns, how do you communicate with them foreign policy? How do you communicate with them national security? They're just not paying attention right now!

BROOKE GLADSTONE:Okay, but Frank I want to get to the tricky issue of where these false beliefs initially come from! It has been suggested that by saying things in a certain way officials can plant beliefs without actually employing outright lies. You just simply pick the right time to disclose a, a, a promising discovery and then reveal later when no one is paying attention that, well, maybe that discovery wasn't so promising after all. The discovery of what appeared to be mobile labs some months back probably falls into this category.

FRANK LUNTZ:Well that suggests a premeditated effort, and neither you nor I know if that took place. The public would say to the press: Tell us the facts. Tell us the caveat to those facts. And if you learn anything differently, explain that to us. But don't deny us information just because you're not absolutely positively sure of the fact or the figure or the conclusion.

BROOKE GLADSTONE:I'm not sure what you mean here, because I'm not talking about the denial of information per se -- I'm just wondering about the origin of false beliefs. As somebody who watches the public mind and the, and public opinion as a career, do you have any idea how false beliefs get implanted?

FRANK LUNTZ:That, that's a slightly different question, but that's an excellent question. I'm going to give you an example from the Iraqi war. We saw those barrels of chemicals and it said Do Not Enter. And nobody knew what was in those barrels. I remember seeing this for about 72 hours. And the suggestion was that this could be chemical weapons. A mobile unit is just that -- a mobile unit. It's hard to pin down. But where Americans tend to be misinformed, it's often a visual that seems to show one thing but in fact demonstrates something else. When you see a picture of something that could be chemical weapons, you therefore assume that it may very well be, and you don't stay around to find out 3 or 4 days later whether or not it is.

BROOKE GLADSTONE: Okay! Frank Luntz, thank you very much.

FRANK LUNTZ: It's my pleasure.

BROOKE GLADSTONE: Frank Luntz is a Republican pollster based in Virginia.