Yesterday we noted that CNN had buried their poll reflecting vast unfavorable public opinion of President Obama.
Indeed, even though the poll was taken by CNN/ORC they didn’t even provide the raw poll data that’s customarily available. Instead they couched their perspective on the information inside an articlediscussing Syria and ISIS:
[...] Obama’s upcoming speech comes as two Americans were murdered and grisly images and stories of the terrorist group needlessly killing enemies have emerged from Iraq and Syria. So far, Americans are not happy with how Obama has addressed the ISIS situation.The CNN/ORC poll shows that only 30% of Americans think that he has a clear plan for dealing with ISIS.
Overall, the President’s approval rating is 43%, while 55% disapprovehow he is handling his role as commander in chief. (link)
Setting aside the fact that oddly 30% of Americans think President Obama has a clear plan for dealing with ISIS – after he said last week he did not have a strategy for ISIS – we can only assume 30% of those polled don’t watch or read the news. I digress…
Occasionally serendipity steps into the room and provides an opportunity to expand on the discussion. This time serendipity is an MRC Study released yesterday which takes an empirical and historical look at media reported polling for President Obama (2014) vs. President Bush (2006). The results are as eye-opening as they are staggering.
(MRC) It’s no secret that television news has long been addicted to public opinion polls; decades ago, all three broadcast networks decided to partner with an influential newspaper (ABC News with the Washington Post; CBS News with the New York Times; and NBC News with the Wall Street Journal) to sponsor their own regular surveys for use in their political coverage.
That’s why it’s so extraordinary that polling news has practically vanished from the Big Three evening newscasts in 2014 as President Obama’s approval ratings have tumbled and the public opposes defining administration policies like ObamaCare.
Just last Thursday, for example, Gallup found Obama’s approval rating at a record low of 38 percent, yet none of the three broadcast networks bothered to mention this on their evening or morning newscasts.
Such coverage is in stunning contrast to how those same newscasts relentlessly emphasized polls showing bad news for George W. Bush during the same phase of his presidency. Media Research Center analysts reviewed every reference on the ABC, CBS and NBC evening newscasts to public opinion polls from January 1 through August 31, 2014, and from the same time period in 2006.
Eight years ago, the networks aired 124 evening news reports which cited public opinion polls about either President Bush’s overall approval rating or his handling of specific policies.
In 2014, those same broadcasts produced only nine reports which mentioned public opinion surveys related to President Obama. In Bush’s case, the networks routinely highlighted his falling approval ratings to illustrate his political weakness, and regularly cited polling data showing public disapproval of policies such as the Iraq war.
This year, even as President Obama has suffered his own political meltdown, the networks have spared him from such coverage. (continue reading the stark and well documented contrasts)
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