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Politics : Politics for Pros- moderated -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: LindyBill who wrote (87884)	11/23/2004 9:01:33 AM
From: LindyBill	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 793559

I commented on this headline and lede when I posted the "Times" story. RCP - POST-ELECTION COCOONING AT THE NEW YORK TIMES: The election is over - but the liberal cocooning at the New York Times is not. Compare the following treatment of the latest CBS News/NY Times poll: CBS News (No byline) Title: "Poll: Bush's Next Four Years" Lead Paragraphs of Story: "The majority of Americans feel optimistic about the next four years with George W. Bush as President, but they disagree on whether Bush’s second term in office will bring Americans together or further divide them. Most are confident that President Bush will make the right decisions to protect the U.S. from terrorist attacks, and just over half think he will be able to end the war in Iraq successfully. " New York Times (Adam Nagourney & Janet Elder) Title: "Americans Show Clear Concerns on Bush Agenda" Lead Paragraphs of Story: "After enduring a brutally fought election campaign, Americans are optimistic about the next four years under President Bush, but have reservations about central elements of the second-term agenda he presented in defeating Senator John Kerry, according to the latest New York Times/CBS News Poll. At a time when the White House has portrayed Mr. Bush's 3.5-million-vote victory as a mandate, the poll found that Americans are at best ambivalent about Mr. Bush's plans to reshape Social Security, rewrite the tax code, cut taxes and appoint conservative judges to the bench. There is continuing disapproval of Mr. Bush's handling of the war in Iraq, with a plurality now saying it was a mistake to invade in the first place." Burying the lede seems to be a genetic predisposition among New York Times reporters. This time, Nagourney and Elder ladle on eight paragraphs of honey before slipping their readers the bitter pill: And even after this tense and vituperative campaign, 56 percent said they were generally optimistic about the next four years under Mr. Bush. Mr. Bush's job approval rating has now inched up to 51 percent, the highest it has been since March. I'm not suggesting this poll is full of fantastic news for President Bush. It has some good and some bad. But there's a difference between reporting the numbers straight - which is what CBS News did, to their credit - and constructing an article to present the numbers in the worst possible light. That's not objective reporting, it's an instinctive, reflexive bias against the President. And while it may serve as a nice piece of therapy for reporters in the New York Times newsroom, it doesn't serve the paper's reputation or its readers very well at all. - realclearpolitics.com