The polls are indeed a big lift. This targeted a random sample of 1,006 adults via landlines and cell phones. An ABC News document presenting the findings and analysis is 16 detailed pages. Only a corrupt and militant news operation would invest in such a data operation and then proceed to “bury” the disadvantageous findings.
A look back at ABC News’ online transcripts and postings reveals that the network buried the poll results by presenting:
· An online story on Sunday at midnight, scheduled for the publication of the poll results. The bad news for the president was buried in the headline: “Biden struggles, so does his party, as most Democrats look elsewhere for 2024: POLL.”
A three-minute video package on ABC News Live – the network’s 24/7 streaming channel – in which political reporter Brittany Shepherd noted that “especially with voters under 30 – I think it’s about 75% of those voters who want someone new – but I think there’s no real alternative right now for those voters, and I think the big question is, will they just give up voting entirely?” Here is a screenshot of this package:
· A prominent mention in the poll on the network’s flagship Sunday morning show “This Week” with George Stephanopoulos. “We’re coming on the air this morning with our brand new poll done with The Washington Post,” Stephanopoulos said at the start of the show. “This shows major challenges for President Biden and Democrats as they approach the midterms.” Viewers saw this graphic buried on their screens:
· A three-minute dossier on the results of the “World News Sunday” poll. White House Correspondent MaryAlice Parks noted that a majority of Democrats want “the party to replace President Biden at the top of the leaderboard in 2024.”
Only 35% of Democrats and Democratic-leaning independents support Pres. Biden for 2024 nomination, new @ABC News/WaPo poll results.
56% want the party to choose someone else.
Learn more: https://t.co/cT55JDxDK0
— ABC News (@ABC) September 26, 2022
(The Post also reported Biden’s numbers on Sunday in a story leading to the midterm election poll results.)
If all this activity appears to Perino as suppression, what would the hype look like?
The Erik Wemple blog asked Fox News to cite the basis of Perino’s claim. Fox News declined to release a statement about it.
Perino is a Fox News veteran, having joined the network in 2009 as a contributor after serving as press secretary to President George W. Bush. These days, she co-hosts the morning show “America’s Newsroom” – part of the network’s so-called direct news side – and participates in the afternoon roundtable “The Five”, where she often saves the discussion from madness and flight with a pointed fact or two. In a network whose primetime anchors — especially Sean Hannity and Tucker Carlson — launch frequent, vicious, and baseless attacks on the media, Perino has long stood out as a relatively healthy voice.
And that is precisely the point here. Not only did Perino sniff out the empirical question in question — which ABC News did not report on its own poll — but she paired that bogus suggestion with a mention that the allegedly deleted material was “super bad news for the President”. With that comment, Fox News’ cartoonish portrayal of mainstream media moved an inch or two forward.
A few lessons here. The first is that you should never, ever accept at face value any claim on Fox News. — except when it comes from the network voting operation or the election night office.
Second, the crisis of confidence in the American media will not ease until the shady comments from Fox News ease. At industry conferences each year, journalists and academics wring their hands on what the media can do to bolster dwindling trust levels in the industry. There’s certainly plenty of work they can and should do, even as they face an unrelenting force in Fox News. Because somewhere out there, there are network viewers who have just learned that ABC News buried the poll results unfavorable to Biden.
And no one will ever convince them otherwise.
