Throughout the recent election season, media bias was at an all-time high. This is no new phenomenon. Bias has always been evident in the media, and today, the debate continues surrounding the effect of media bias on voters. The media’s effect on this election is shown by a Zogby Poll released today in which Zogby conducted a telephone survey of 512 randomly selected known Obama supporters. The survey asked 12 multiple choice questions regarding the negative coverage of the Obama/Biden ticket versus the negative coverage of the McCain/Palin ticket.
The results are far from surprising.
According to Zogby International, “Ninety-four percent of Obama voters correctly identified Palin as the candidate with a pregnant teenage daughter, 86% correctly identified Palin as the candidate associated with a $150,000 wardrobe purchased by her political party, and 81% chose McCain as the candidate who was unable to identify the number of houses he owned.” Also, 87% of Obama Supporters identified Palin when asked which candidate said they could “see Russia from their house.” Interestingly enough, Palin never made that statement. The statement was actually made by Tina Fey when portraying Sarah Palin during a skit on Saturday Night Live.
Obviously Obama voters are well versed in negative aspects of the Republican candidates. How about negative aspects of their own candidates? According to Zogby International, “Nearly three quarters (72%) of Obama voters did not correctly identify Biden as the candidate who had to quit a previous campaign for President because he was found to have plagiarized a speech, and nearly half (47%) did not know that Biden was the one who predicted Obama would be tested by a generated international crisis during his first six months as President.” In addition, “83% failed to correctly answer that Obama had won his first election by getting all of his opponents removed from the ballot, and 88% did not correctly associate Obama with his statement that his energy policies would likely bankrupt the coal industry. Most (56%) were also not able to correctly answer that Obama started his political career at the home of two former members of the Weather Underground.”
The final question in the survey is the most telling of all. The question simply asked which political party controlled the majority in the house and the senate. Accoring to Zogby International, only 57% of Obama Supporters correctly answered that the Democratic Party controlled both the House and the Senate.
The Zogby Poll opens an entirely new door of media bias. Media bias isn’t about the number of liberal commentators in relation to the number of conservative commentators. Media bias isn’t about the number of liberal guests and analysts in relation to the number of conservative guests and analysts. True bias lies in media coverage and reporting, the two areas in which journalists should ideally strive for objectivity. This election, the media displayed negative coverage of McCain at a much higher rate than Obama. The media chose to cover (or not cover) certain stories based completely on their own interests. Most media outlets ignored Obama’s ties to William Ayers or his comments regarding his plan to bankrupt the coal industry, but chose, instead, to turn their focus to issues such as Palin’s pregnant teenager.
Is this the type of journalism meant to encourage democratic debate in our nation? It is impossible to foster debate when one side is underrepresented or completely nonexistent.
Knowing the bias of the mainstream media, the Republican Party needs to take a tough stance against biased media agendas in future elections. People tend to think that media bias is an intangible thing that is difficult to spot and even more impossible to prove. This is far from the truth. Organizations like the Media Research Center, the nation’s largest media watchdog organization, were founded for the sole purpose of analyzing media coverage and exposing bias. In the future, the Republican party should work closer with these types of organizations to expose bias to the American People.
In addition, the Republican Party needs to utilize other available media resources. Conservative talk radio is vastly popular across the country. By encouraging young, new faces within the party to get involved in talk radio, the GOP will ensure its hold on talk radio far into the future. Also, the internet is another media sources unlimited by the strains of biased media conglomerations. By becoming more active on the web, the party can unite people from across the country in one click.
Poll Data can be found at:
http://www.zogby.com/news/ReadNews.cfm?ID=1642
Last 5 posts by Katie Small
- Reviving the Republican Party - November 11th, 2008
