Forty-five percent of Americans believe that the news media are too liberal.
That’s what the Gallup Organization reported last week after surveying 1,025 adults in September. The poll, with a margin of error of plus or minus 3 percentage points, also found that only 14 percent see the news media as too conservative.
I would have liked to know if those numbers apply equally to print and electronic news media. And, in the case of print, do they apply to news coverage or editorial opinion — or both?
News coverage, regardless of the medium, of course, should be impartial. Editorial opinion is designed to take a stand.
And perceptions of philosophical leanings often depend on the perspective of the perceiver. Gallup found that about 40 percent of those surveyed regard themselves as conservative, a similar percentage moderate and about 20 percent liberal.
We hear all the time from readers who think the Sentinel is either too liberal or too conservative. We haven’t kept track, but I don’t think it’s as lopsided as what Gallup found nationally. I’m always intrigued, though, by the views of readers who find this newspaper’s editorial opinions too liberal — particularly regarding national politics. They often seem incredulous to learn that the Sentinel:
* Endorsed George W. Bush for president.
* Backed a Republican in every presidential election in which the newspaper endorsed except 1964 in the past half century.
* Called for Bill Clinton’s resignation.
That doesn’t mean that the Sentinel would hesitate to criticize editorially actions it found unwise by someone the newspaper endorsed — or to praise good performance by someone whose election it opposed.
I sometimes wonder, though, if those who perceive liberalism run amok have applied to this newspaper something they heard about the news media on the radio — which brings us to the issue of misperception. The results of another survey released in recent days found plenty of that among consumers of news about the war in Iraq.
Polling conducted by the Program on International Policy at the University of Maryland and Knowledge Networks involved 3,334 people from June through September and found that:
* 48 percent believe that clear evidence has been found that Iraq was working closely with al-Qaeda. (It hasn’t, but President Bush insists a link existed.)
* 22 percent believe that weapons of mass destruction have been found in Iraq. (So far, they haven’t.)
* 25 percent believe that world public opinion favored the United States going to war with Iraq. (Most countries polled didn’t.)
Viewers of Fox News had the highest rate of misperceptions; viewers of the Public Broadcasting Service and listeners to National Public Radio the least; and readers of magazines and newspapers came in next best but still with nearly half holding at least one of those misperceptions.
Whether conveying editorial opinion or just delivering information clearly, the news media seem to have some work to do in getting their message across.
