« | »

October 2nd 2008     

Media Bias #79

Posted by: Laer at 09:40 am

WaPo Staging A Fall On Palin

How are we going to feel about Sarah Palin’s performance in the debate tonight? Who knows? It hasn’t happened yet. But the Washington Post is sure working hard to influence you toward thinking less of her this morning, before the debate begins.

In a niftily timed piece, WaPo screams this morning, “Skepticism of Palin Growing, Poll Finds.” They make no bones about tying their suspiciously timed release of the poll data to tonight’s debate:

With the vice presidential candidates set to square off today in their only scheduled debate, public assessments of Sarah Palin’s readiness have plummeted, and she may now be a drag on the Republican ticket among key voter groups, according to a new Washington Post-ABC News poll.

But a check of the poll data shows a terribly biased set-up that’s pretty much guaranteed to skew the results negatively. Question #7 asks, “Do you approve or disapprove of the way George W. Bush is handling his job as president?” Question #8 then asks, “Do you approve or disapprove of the way George W. Bush is handling the economy?”

Then, incongruously placed, is this: “Do you have a favorable or unfavorable impression of (Joe Biden/Sarah Palin)? Do you feel that way strongly or somewhat?” I say it’s incongruous because it’s followed by 32 questions about McCain and Obama, then launches into a series of Biden/Palin questions.

Why wasn’t question #8 moved to after the Obama/McCain questions, with the rest of the series? Why was it asked immediately after the poisonous Bush questions? Do you really have to ask?

Media Bias 2008 covers pro-Obama media bias. Items are listed from most recent to oldest; the numbering reflects this and is not a ranking. Send Media Bias 2008 examples via “comments”‘ below, or to email2laer [@] yahoo [dot] com.

Share

Posted in Media Bias 2008 | No Comments yet » | |

Post URITrackback URI

Leave a Reply

[The "Comment Box" is WYSIWYG except that you have to double space between paragraphs!
Type it the way you want it to look -- Just remember to double up those line spaces.]

You must be logged in to post a comment.

« | »

With Obama winning the presidency by seven percent, we can't blame the media. Their laudatory coverage and refusal to extensively probe into Obama's background and [lack of] experience was at best responsible for five percent of his vote, the pundits tell us. Here is a compilation of over 100 significant instances of pro-Obama/anti-McCain bias during the 2008 campaign.

For all 'Media Bias 2008' – Click Here