Yes, it was and ABC supressed the results of the poll.
1) ABC News suppressed its poll conducted after Saddam Hussein's
capture which showed a ten point jump in approval for how
President Bush is handling the situation in Iraq and a 4 point up
tick in his overall approval rating, with Peter Jennings not
uttering a syllable about it on Monday night. But NBC showcased on
Monday's NBC Nightly News its survey finding that in the wake of
Hussein's capture Bush's approval rating jumped by 6 points while
his margin over Howard Dean expanded from 12 to 21 points.
2) ABC worried again about how a trial for Saddam Hussein could
prove "embarrassing for the United States" because "we supported
him for so long" and "gave him some of the instruments that he
used to terrorize his own people." That concern on Monday from
Good Morning America co-host Charles Gibson came 24 hours after
his colleague, Terry Moran, expressed the same sentiment from a
snowy White House lawn.
3) Does Peter Jennings follow Reuters in coming up with a
negative/European elite spin or is it the other way around? It's
often hard to tell. But on Sunday and Monday it looks like Reuters
followed Jennings. During ABC's Sunday night prime time special on
the capture of Saddam Hussein, Jennings declared that "there's not
a good deal for Iraqis to be happy about at the moment. Life is
still very chaotic, beset by violence in many cases, huge
shortages." The next morning, Reuters correspondent Joseph Logan
opened a dispatch from Baghdad: "Joy at the capture of Saddam
Hussein gave way to resentment toward Washington Monday as Iraqis
confronted afresh the bloodshed, shortages and soaring prices of
life under U.S. occupation."
4) Peter Jennings conceded that the capture of Saddam Hussein
represented the "triumph" of good over evil. On Monday's World
News Tonight, he acknowledged: "There are moments in history when
good triumphs over evil and this was clearly one of them."
Naturally, however, Jennings felt compelled to ad a caveat.
5) The day after the Bush foreign policy team had a major success
in Iraq, CBS's Hannah Storm brought on a critic of the Bush
administration's Iraq policy, but instead of quizzing Senator Joe
Biden about how maybe his views are misguided, she simply prompted
him to elaborate on how the capture of Saddam Hussein presents an
opportunity to pursue Biden's quest to "internationalize" the
effort. She also fretted about how Russia and France have "been
excluded as of last week from bidding on these large contracts in
postwar Iraq, so, what is their motivation, why get in the game
now?"
6) Letterman's "Top Ten Questions Asked by Saddam Hussein When He
Was Captured."
> 1) ABC News suppressed its poll conducted after Saddam
Hussein's capture which showed a ten point jump in approval for
how President Bush is handling the situation in Iraq and a 4 point
up tick in his overall approval rating, but NBC showcased on
Monday's NBC Nightly News its survey finding that in the wake of
Hussein's capture Bush's approval rating jumped by 6 points while
his margin over Howard Dean expanded from 12 to 21 points.
Though the findings of the new ABC News/Washington Post poll
were recounted in a story in Monday's Post, ABC's Peter Jennings
didn't utter a syllable about them on Monday's World News Tonight
or before or after Bush's 11:15am EST press conference which
Jennings introduced and wrapped up. (Nor did Jennings cite any
poll numbers when he anchored Sunday's World News Tonight or ABC's
prime time special that night, both of which aired before the poll
results were probably available.)
The only hint as to the good news for Bush came in a small
graphic on screen for a few seconds on Monday's Good Morning
America as Claire Shipman tried to diminish the impact of catching
Hussein. She highlighted how "ABC News has a new poll out today
that shows most Americans don't believe Saddam's capture means the
job is done there" as she warned that if "if the situation isn't
stabilized," the capture of Hussein "is not going to seem decisive
for this administration."
As she was saying that, the MRC's Jessica Anderson noticed,
GMA put up a picture of a bearded Hussein which filled three-
fourths the screen with the left-hand fourth showing a graphic
citing a single poll number from an "ABC News/Washington Post
poll" on "President Bush's Approval Rating," listing it at 58
percent after Saddam's capture compared with 48 percent in mid-
November. In fact, the numbers were for approval of how Bush is
handling the situation in Iraq.
(Shipman in full. During the 8am half hour discussion with
Charlie Gibson about the political implications of Saddam's
capture for President Bush, Shipman observed: "And look, this is a
personal victory and a political coup for President Bush, but
interestingly, Americans are still very cautious. ABC News has a
new poll out today that shows most Americans don't believe
Saddam's capture means the job is done there; in fact, far from
it. So I think six months from now, if you still see exploding
violence there, if the situation isn't stabilized, Saddam's
victory [sic] is not going to seem decisive for this
administration.")
In that morning's Washington Post, reporter Claudia Deane
recounted how a "Washington Post-ABC News poll conducted
yesterday" found that "President Bush received immediate credit
for his handling of the situation in Iraq, with his approval
rating in that area jumping to 58 percent, from 48 percent in
mid-November." Deane added in her December 15 story that "Bush's
overall job approval rating in the Post-ABC News survey was 57
percent, 4 percentage points up from a survey conducted last week
and the same as this time last month."
Deane also explained: "The Post-ABC poll was conducted
yesterday afternoon and evening among a randomly selected sample
of 506 adults nationwide. The margin of sampling error for results
is plus or minus five percentage points." For the article:
washingtonpost.com
As of late Monday night, I could not find any story on the ABC
News Web site, outside of something buried in "The Note" political
rundown newsletter, about the poll. Usually, ABC News/Washington
Post polls earn a regular story posted on the ABCNews.com site.
The Polling Report, however, has posted the results:
pollingreport.com
NBC wasn't so reluctant to reveal the results of a new NBC
News/Wall Street Journal survey which documented a bump in support
for President Bush on Sunday over Saturday. Tim Russert came
aboard Monday's NBC Nightly News to run through the findings with
anchor Tom Brokaw who cautioned that the fresh numbers represented
only a "snapshot" of the public mood in the hours after the news
of Hussein's capture.
The pollsters were in the midst of taking the poll when the
news broke, so they compared their numbers from those surveyed on
Saturday with what answers they got with those reached on Sunday.
On whether the nation is "heading in right direction," that jumped
from 41 percent on Saturday to 56 percent on Sunday, Russert
noted, with "on the wrong track" falling from 48 percent to 30
percent.
Bush's job approval, Russert relayed, went up 6 points on
Sunday, moving from 52 percent to 58 percent while his disapproval
fell from 41 to 34 percent.
Russert soon got to the Bush versus Dean head-to-head numbers:
"George W. Bush versus Howard Dean. On Saturday, it was 51 to 39.
On Sunday, 52 to 31. Eight percent of Dean support drifted away
from him after the capture of Saddam Hussein. As you've been
saying all program long, these are only snapshots of Saturday and
Sunday. It's very volatile. A lot of things can change. But that's
where we are tonight."
For MSNBC.com's article summarizing the poll results:
msnbc.msn.com
> 2) ABC worried again about how a trial for Saddam Hussein
could prove "embarrassing for the United States" because "we
supported him for so long" and "gave him some of the instruments
that he used to terrorize his own people."
That concern on Monday from Good Morning America co-host
Charles Gibson came 24 hours after his colleague, Terry Moran,
expressed the same sentiment from a snowy White House lawn.
As recounted in the December 15 CyberAlert, barely an hour after
Paul Bremer had announced the capture of Saddam Hussein, Moran
reminded viewers how "Secretary Rumsfeld was over in Baghdad
meeting with Saddam Hussein years ago" and "there are allegations
that the United States provided weapons to Saddam Hussein's regime
during the Iran-Iraq war. And all that could spill out in a big
show trial." For more on ABC's approach on Sunday morning:
mediaresearch.org |
