Over the past week, I conducted polls in both MyDD and DailyKos to see how people in both camps perceive the major news cable networks: CNN, MSNBC, and Fox. I was interested because in the past few months, as mot of us are painfully aware, MyDD has become a bastion for Clinton loyalists while DailyKos is primarily an Obama destination. Therefore, I reasoned that conducting polls on both sites would give a pretty good idea of how boosters for each candidate see media bias.
More below the fold...
In many respects, the results were not surprising. Generally speaking, if you support a candidate, then you will perceive any criticism or negative coverage of your candidate to be bias. Thus, there will alway be people who think that every news organization that has ever existed has had it in for their candidate since the beginning of time. But then, there are those who are more level headed and allow for a measure of objbectivity within themselves and try to provide a fair appraisal. Judging from the comments on each poll, it seems that both types of people in both camps participated in these polls with the following results:
CNN Results:
DailyKos: 336 votes
Pro-Hillary/Anti-Obama: 86%
Pro-Obama/Anti Hillary: 4%
CNN has been pretty fair: 8%
MyDD: 58 votes
Pro-Hillary/Anti-Obama: 32%
Pro-Obama/Anti Hillary: 49%
CNN has been pretty fair: 17%
Predictably, DailyKos has seen strog Pro-H/Anti-O bias in CNN coverage. Interestingly, a large minority in MyDD have seen the same, and there is no majority concensus about CNN's coverage in MyDD. Another interesting point to note is the participation in each poll. DailyKos in all three conducted polls has a much higher reate of participation: 336-58. This is probably the result of Kos's wider popularity, and also the fact that Obama has huge internet support over Clinton.
MSNBC Results:
DailyKos: 477 votes
Pro-Hillary/Anti-Obama: 24%
Pro-Obama/Anti Hillary: 36%
MSNBC has been pretty fair: 38%
MyDD: 51 votes
Pro-Hillary/Anti-Obama: 1%
Pro-Obama/Anti Hillary: 76%
MSNBC has been pretty fair: 21%
Again, predictably, MyDD has seen strog Pro-O/Anti-H bias in MSNBC coverage. And again, a large minority in DailyKos have seen the same, and there is no majority concensus about CNN's coverage in DailyKos. In fact, Kos participants see more pro-O bias in MSNBC coverage than pro-Clinton bias.
FoxNews Results:
DailyKos: 166 votes
Pro-Hillary/Anti-Obama: 64%
Pro-Obama/Anti Hillary: 2%
Fox has been pretty fair: 6%
Fox has been equally unfair to both: 25%
MyDD: 29 votes
Pro-Hillary/Anti-Obama: 23%
Pro-Obama/Anti Hillary: 3%
Fox has been pretty fair: 20%
Fox has been equally unfair to both: 51%
I was most interested in this poll over the other two, and was disappointed in the low participation: 166 (Kos), 29 (MD). But this too is telling. People read diaries that thy find to be interesting. There is nothing new or particularly interesting about somethig entitled "FoxNews bias in the Democratic primary," hence the low turnout. Unfortunately, the participation in MyDD was so low that the results may be misleading. But there they are anyhow.
I was particularly interested in seeing how many respondents from MyDD believed that Fox's coverage was fair, in light of Ed Rendell's recent praises. I was disappointed that the result was as high as it was - 20%. But again, due to low participation this may be inflated (or, it may be under represented).
There are of course more things to say in terms of analysis, but I'm more interested in other people's impression of these results. I will sign off with the following note, however:
I wish people of all stripes would stop crying about media bias. I saw so many comments where people were pissing and moaning about how Keith Olberman loves Obama and therefore MSNBC is biased - these people seem to forget that Pat Buchanan and Joe Scarborough work for the network as well. Similarly, people get all bent out of shape about how Wolf Blitzer loves Hillary (I never noticed this, by the way) and therefore CNN is biased towards Hillary. But then they forget that Donna Brazil is a frequent contributor to the network.
It seems that people often make these kinds of judgments about media bias when they see one or a few instances where reporting was done that they didn't like. This, of course, stands out in their minds and, ironically, biases their perception of the network forever and ever.
Crying about media bias is a Republican's game. It's what the GOP has been doing in order to distract people from the negative news stories that they actaully merit. The media is not biased towards anything but sensationalism (with the exception of FoxNews, whose very existence is predicated on the eroneous notion that the media is biased, which results in their correcting a media bias that does not exist, which in turn results in biased reporting - another beautiful irony).
My 2 cents.