The Cable Gamer has mostly thought of the Poynter Institute as a repository of high-minded but mostly conventional liberal-media thinking--not surprising, since it seems to be staffed up J-School types, sprinkled in with laid-off and bought-out refugees from the MSM. But there's always interesting stuff on the site, notably Jim Romenesko's media gossip page.
And now there's fresh evidence that Poynter is moving with the times--moving toward seeing that the MSM is a musty liberal relic decayed into increasingly irrelevance as the public seeks out new, more honest, and more trustworthy voices. Another Poynter staffer, Mallary Jean Tenore, has made a significant contribution to our understanding of the contemporary media--old, new, and newer. She has highlighted a new public opinion survey that must have upset some Old Guard-ers at Poynter. But Poynter ran it anyway:
Results from a national Sacred Heart University survey released today reveal that many news consumers believe the media played a significant role in electing President Barack Obama and that the media continue to promote his presidency.
"Media continue to promote his presidency." Something to chew on. And that's not all:
"A large majority, 89.3 percent, suggested the national media played a very or somewhat strong role in helping to elect President Obama," according to a summary of the findings. "Just 10.0 percent suggested the national media played little or no role. Further, 69.9 percent agreed the national news media are intent on promoting the Obama presidency while 26.5 percent disagreed. Some, 3.6 percent, were unsure."
And 86.6 percent said they believe the news media try to influence public opinion and that they have their own public policy and political positions.
So to sum up: Between seven in ten, and nine in ten, Americans think that the media are biased on behalf of Obama and his liberal agenda. Any more questions? Before we turn this over to Glenn Beck?
Oh wait--there's more in the poll, as dug out by Tenore:
The most-trusted television news organization was Fox News (30 percent), but it also was cited as the least-trusted (26.2 percent). Also listed as most-trusted were CNN (19.5 percent), ABC News (7.5 percent) and NBC News (7.5 percent).
Now that's certainly interesting: Fox is the most trusted news brand in television. Its 30 percent far exceeds CNN, which was founded in 1980, sixteen years before Fox, and NBC, which has been on television since 1940. Yes, Fox is mistrusted as well, but that's the effect of being high-profile in a polarizing environment. If you walk the point, as Fox has done, people will shoot at you.
So hats off to Tenore, and to Poynter, for highlighting this news from Sacred Heart University, and its up-and-coming polling unit!
The complete survey data are here at the SHU website. And we find other nuggets, such as:
Researchers asked respondents which television news organization they turned to most frequently. The top five news organizations were Fox News (28.4% - up from 26.5% in 2007), CNN (14.9% - down from 16.0% in 2007), NBC News (10.6% - down from 11.8% in 2007), ABC News (9.3% - down from 11.0% in 2007), and "local news" (7.6% - down from 8.5% in 2007). Other organizations respondents turned to most frequently included CBS News (7.4%), MSNBC (4.3%), PBS News (1.3%), CNBC (0.6%) and CBN (0.1%).
So Fox is on the rise--and seems to be the only news outfit that is on the rise.
Thus the irony of the MSM's shilling for Obama. It helped him, but it hurt them.
