A week after a Pew Research Center for the People and the Press survey determined that a much higher percentage of Democrats than Republicans prefer to get their news from the broadcast networks, CNN, MSNBC and NPR, a new Gallup Poll released today provides additional evidence that Democrats look more favorably upon the "mainstream media" as Gallup showed how “Democrats are more favorable than Republicans in their views” of eleven of 17 news personalities respondents were asked to assess. Dan Rather had the greatest net difference -- 38 percent -- with 86 percent of Democrats viewing him favorably, compared to just 48 percent of Republicans. Only two of the 17 news personalities (Bill O'Reilly and Geraldo Rivera) got more favorable evaluations from Republicans than Democrats. (Hat tip to Romenesko)
Others with a significant Democratic versus Republican approval gap include the incoming CBS Evening News anchor and the new co-host of NBC's Today: 17 points for Katie Couric (68% vs. 51%) and 15 points for Meredith Vieira (45% vs. 30%). Some others: Anderson Cooper (49% vs. 36%); Matt Lauer (65% vs. 53%), Barbara Walters (71% vs. 59%), Diane Sawyer (86% vs. 74%), Larry King (62% vs. 53%) and Bob Schieffer (54% vs. 47%).
Gallup reported: “Republicans are more likely than Democrats to rate Fox News personality [Bill] O'Reilly more favorably (65% vs. 31%), while [Geraldo] Rivera has a slightly -- but not statistically significant -- more positive rating among Republicans (37% vs. 31%). All other personalities are either rated equally by partisans of both parties, or more favorably among Democrats.” The Gallup summary noted: “There are essentially no partisan differences in views of [Regis] Philbin, [Lou] Dobbs, [Charles] Gibson, and [Brian] Williams.”
For a rundown of the partisan results for all 17 news personalities in the summary titled, “Americans Rate Television News and Talk Personalities: ABC's Diane Sawyer tops the list,” scroll down to the last section of the August 8 rundown of poll results: “Opinion of Television Personalities by Party Affiliation.”
An August 1 NewsBusters posting, "Pew: More Dems Than Repubs Get News from ABC, CBS, NBC, CNN, NPR, MSNBC...", recited:
Liberal media critics dismiss FNC as biased to the right, pointing to how Republicans prefer to watch it, but a new poll completed by the Pew Research Center for the People and the Press found that by the same margin that Republicans choose to get their news from FNC, Democrats prefer to learn their news from the broadcast networks and, to a somewhat lesser extent, CNN and NPR. In the survey released Sunday, 34 percent of Republicans reported they watch FNC regularly, compared to 20 percent of Democrats -- a 14 point spread. As for the broadcast networks, Pew reported: “The gap between Republicans and Democrats in regular viewership of the nightly network news on ABC, CBS, or NBC is now 14 points, nearly three times as large as it was in 2004; currently, 38 percent of Democrats regularly watch compared with 24 percent of Republicans. There is a slightly smaller gap in the regular audience for NPR -- 22 percent of Democrats listen regularly, compared with 13 percent of Republicans.” A higher percentage of Democrats than Republicans watch CNN, MSNBC, network morning shows, Sunday morning interview programs and TV news magazine shows....
