Are Election Media Polls Trustworthy?

The general feeling seems to be that Barack Obama has this presidential run in the bag. Possibly. How do we know this? Well the media polls tell us who is right leaning and who is left leaning. Pretty simple right?

Scared Heart University did a study on how much people trust the media. Less than 19% of adults said they trust or believe most of what the media tells them. 24% said they believe little or nothing of what is told to them. Most people believe the media is out to influence the public more than informing the public.

How does the public feel about the various media companies?
New York Times: Left Leaning (42%)
National Public Radio [NPR]: Left Leaning (40%)
MSNBC: Left Leaning (39%)
CNN: Left Leaning (12%)
Fox News: (49%)

How does the public feel about the accuracy of what is being told to the public?
Fox News: 27%
CNN: 14%
NBC: 11%
ABC: 7%
CBS: 7%
MSNBC: 4%
PBS: 3%

Those figures are staggering. The lack of confidence in our media is glaring. From the whole “weapons of mass destruction” debacle to the extra attention ABC/NBC vs FOX bias have gotten during this presidential campaign, it is not surprising to see public confidence falling. These media polls are now often looked at as an effort to gather important information, rather to create news for the sake of creating news. It doesn’t help when media companies funnel millions and millions of dollars to particular party.

40% of Americans now claim they pay little or no attention to opinion polls. 50% of people think polls are somewhat accurate while 20% say not very accurate. 10% say, they are not accurate at all!

Maybe McCain is onto something when he says he is still in the race and the media is getting it all wrong. Maybe not.

Do you think the media polls are trustworthy?
Do you think the media stations do a good job maintain objectivity or is it bias?
Share your opinions below!

Related: Media’s Financial Contributions to Political Parties

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