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Fair and Balanced? Rasmussen Found Biased and Inaccurate

November 8, 2010 By steven-j-gulitti 16 Comments

In contrast to Rasmussen that had the highest combined error and bias scores, the top tier firms surveying voter sentiment in this election had error scores below 4 points and most had bias ratings below 1.0. These results were obtained even though Rasmussen conducted far more polls than any of its competition. The methodology employed by FiveThirtyEight was to analyze all the polls for average accuracy in predicting the margin of victory for the top two vote recipients and then to see to what extent the polling consistently missed the trends. Thus a very fundamental question comes to the fore. To what extent are the folks who rely primarily on Fox News for their political views being led astray by consistently faulty information? Or to put it another way, how can anyone who is interested in forming an unbiased conservative political opinion do so if Fox News is his or her primary information source? Don’t these findings call into question the very integrity of Fox’s political and news presentation? How can the Fox News Network continue to display its “fair and balanced” byline given its heavy reliance, if not its incestuous relationship with Rasmussen Reports? Based on the evidence produced by FiveThirtyEight, there is little reason to believe that the conservative audience is being well served if it is spending its evenings watching Fox News in search of fair and balanced programming upon which to shape its opinions. In fact one could conclude that America’s conservatives are being deliberately led astray.

Steven J. Gulitti

11/8/10

Sources:

Rasmussen Polls Were Biased and Inaccurate; Quinnipiac, SurveyUSA PerformedStrongly;

http://fivethirtyeight.blogs.n…

emc=eta1

Pollster Ratings v4.0: Methodology; http://www.fivethirtyeight.com…

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Filed Under: User Tagged With: 2010-elections, barack-obama, fivethirtyeight, fox-news-network, pulse-opinion-research, rasmussen-reports, rupert-murdoch

Comments

  1. johnd says

    November 8, 2010 at 7:52 pm

    TV NEWS RATINGS: 25-54 DEMOGRAPHIC (L +SD)

    time slot
    Fox News
    CNN
    MSNBC
    Headline News

    5 pm
    Beck
    477
    Blitzer
    125
    Matthews
    149
    Showbiz
    91

    6 pm
    Baier
    345
    Blitzer
    151
    Ed Show
    163
    Prime
    78

    7 pm
    Shep
    372
    King, USA
    180
    Matthews
    196
    Issues
    146

    8 pm
    O’Reilly
    861

    ParkerSpitzer
    112
    Olbermann
    218

    Grace
    93

    9 pm
    Hannity
    569
    King
    127
    Maddow
    253
    Behar
    62

    10 pm
    Van Susteren
    382
    Cooper
    166
    O’Donnell
    224
    Grace
    110

    11 pm
    O’Reilly
    464

    Cooper
    115
    Olbermann
    150

    Showbiz
    116

    TOTAL DAY
    375
    131
    137
    104

    PRIME TIME
    604
    135
    232
    86

    TV NEWS RATINGS: TOTAL VIEWERS (L +SD)

    time slot
    Fox News
    CNN
    MSNBC
    Headline News

    5 pm
    Beck
    2018
    Blitzer
    516
    Matthews
    566
    Showbiz
    170

    6 pm
    Baier
    2056
    Blitzer
    502
    Ed Show
    677
    Prime
    261

    7 pm
    Shep
    1815
    King, USA
    414
    Matthews
    677
    Issues
    494

    8 pm
    O’Reilly
    3163

    ParkerSpitzer
    332
    Olbermann
    936

    Grace
    446

    9 pm
    Hannity
    2181
    King
    419
    Maddow
    894
    Behar
    240

    10 pm
    Van Susteren
    1745
    Cooper
    434
    O’Donnell
    749
    Grace
    299

    11 pm
    O’Reilly
    1605

    Cooper
    296
    Olbermann
    501

    Showbiz
    332

    TOTAL DAY
    1486
    403
    457
    272

    PRIME TIME
    2365
    395
    862
    319

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    • christopher says

      November 8, 2010 at 8:11 pm

      Truth is not determined by ratings, however.  As for your friend Keith Olbermann – He’s baaaack! (as of tomorrow night)

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      • johnd says

        November 8, 2010 at 10:03 pm

        There’s still hope the new owners (Comcast) will review the above numbers and reconsider everyone’s contract.

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        • kbusch says

          November 8, 2010 at 10:11 pm

          Before he switched over to Fox, Mr. Beck suffered very low ratings on CNN. At Fox, he’s become a popular prophet and profit.

          <

          p>The lesson from that is that conservatives watch Fox. Other cable stations cannot improve their ratings very much by trying to sway conservative loyalists away from their media home.

          <

          p>So I wouldn’t expect MSNBC to become markedly more conservative. Note that they do quite well in the non-Fox demographic.

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          • jim-gosger says

            November 9, 2010 at 9:21 am

            those numbers show is that conservative thought is monolithic and that centric and progressive thought is more diverse.

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            • kbusch says

              November 9, 2010 at 10:34 pm

              Or perhaps, while liberals are poring over social science journals in the quiet of their book-filled studies, conservatives are watching T.V. A lot of T.V.

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              • stomv says

                November 10, 2010 at 12:50 pm

                Maybe they’re the hip young crowd, who watches hulu and streams Netflix and watches Comedy Central online instead of watching traditional television.  Maybe it’s the Hispanics, who may be more likely to be working cleaning jobs or farming jobs or laborer jobs and simply aren’t around to watch television during those time periods.  Maybe it’s those overeducated folks in their book-filled studies to which KBusch alludes.

                <

                p>Liberals are far more diverse than conservatives.  Maybe for what ever reason, conservatives are very similar when it comes to the time, method, quantity, and style of television they watch… whereas liberals are just plain more diverse in their viewing.

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                • johnd says

                  November 10, 2010 at 7:25 pm

        • christopher says

          November 8, 2010 at 10:29 pm

          …they’ll value the truth, or at least a different point of view, over ratings.  I’ve heard the Comcast CEO donated a lot to Bush, so who knows.

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          • johnd says

            November 9, 2010 at 12:13 pm

            Yes I know you aren’t a conservative and don’t like conservatives slants… but the black/white distinction between Fox (lies, lies and more lies…) and MSNBC (truth which is white as the driven snow) is naive. Watch Olberman tonight is tell me he won’t come off “extremely” partisan and anti-conservative… nothing about truth! He’ll probably enjoy his highest ratings since the last time he had to apologize for something.

            <

            p>As for differing points of views, watch MSNBC for a week and count how many opposing views are heard on it. Many here have criticized the liberals who do show up on Fox but at least hey have them. All the MSNBC shows would do well to at least get some opposing views since they really are the epitome of an echo chamber with the hosts on the far left and then the guests in the same zone.

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            • christopher says

              November 9, 2010 at 12:46 pm

              …are not mutually exclusive.  MSNBC has plenty of opposing views on Ed Schultz, Hardball, Lawrence O’Donnell, and occasionally Rachel Maddow, although what I meant was having a differning viewpoint compared to other networks.  At least Olbermann does apologize when appropriate unlike his nemesis Bill O’Reilly.  Regardless of viewpoint MSNBC at least has standards of fact checking.  You can’t, or I suspect won’t, distinguish between what is opinion and what is fact.  MSNBC has plenty of the former without sacrificing the latter; Fox doesn’t – that’s all there is to it!  I don’t mind conservatives having and stating conservative opinions; I do mind them not getting their facts straight.

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              • johnd says

                November 9, 2010 at 2:21 pm

                but let’s watch MSNBC tonight and see how many “opposing” views are aired? Let’s see many snarky goofy smiles Rachel Maddow makes talking about George Bush’s book, or Christine O’Donell… and has nobody there to rebuke anythig she says. The only time this happens is when she apperars on Meet The Press which I find so refreshing becuase it’s not the usual echo chamber of her show. I don’t think she knows how to react when someone challenges her partisan snarks or tells half truths.

                <

                p>But let’s both watch the MSNBC shows tonight and see if there is anything “fair and balanced”? The question is, even if we witness what I refer to, will you blow it off as an “unusual” night?

                <

                p>Jon Stewart is right, Fox and MSNBC are about the same.

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                • christopher says

                  November 9, 2010 at 3:39 pm

                  …Ed, Hardball, Last Word almost always have conservative panelists; Keith and Rachel less often, but it’s been known to happen.  Check the archives of shows if you have time.  Rachel tries to get other viewpoints on her show, but gets declined; I understand Bill O’Reilly has faced similar dilemmas.  I had a conservative Republican high school history teacher who drilled into us that opinions are only as valid as the facts used to back them up.  So no, I don’t need your challenge, nor am I going to stop defending the journalistic standards that MSNBC has and Fox so often appears not to.

                • christopher says

                  November 9, 2010 at 5:24 pm

                  …but here2010 archive_nav is her take on Keith Olbermann and how it demonstrates the difference between Fox and MSNBC.  I check neutral factcheck sites when I question an assertion on either side; Fox gets called out a lot more than MSNBC.

                  <

                  p>(There appears to be a formatting issue with the link, but it still works.)

    • kbusch says

      November 9, 2010 at 10:38 pm

      According to the New York Times’ most conservative columnist, that lesson is “I don’t know”:

      This is even more true today. The United States is facing three overlapping crises – the short-term challenge of a jobless recovery, the long-term crisis of entitlement spending and, in the medium term, an economy that wasn’t delivering for the middle class even before the financial crisis struck. The Democratic Party may have the wrong answers to these problems. But the Republican Party as an institution often seems to have no answers whatsoever.

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  2. millburyman says

    November 9, 2010 at 3:21 pm

       In giving peope the benefit of the doubt in a statement, unless I can cite a reference to show them thir error. That said, when someone tells me they’re “fair and balanced”, that gives me pause for thought.  

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