Critic Commentary

Dear Mr. Tom Hannon,

As executive director of political coverage for CNN, you of all people probably know that media bias is a constant problem, in the news especially. It so seems that most of the media outlets, be it written or televised, do not manage to see themselves as taking sides in various events. Obviously, during a time of war between Iraq and your country, I entirely understand that your stations favor the American troops and do your best to keep a sense of patriotism. However, what I’m having trouble understanding is your bias (CNN in particular) during your last presidential election.

After reading a review posted by Media Matters, I’ve noticed that your station had a peculiarly strange manner of reporting the polls. Most precisely, polls that were showing more positive results for the current president, George W. Bush, have been getting a lot more air time and coverage than polls that were showing a less encouraging outcome. To add insult to injury, numerous moments have proven that CNN has reported a poll that shows an optimistic outcome for President Bush whilst polls taken in recent times illustrate a less flattering result. For example: on the day of October 19th 2004, your CNN television host Rick Sanchez made referral to an old poll that illustrated a comfortable 7 point lead of the current president over his rival in the state of Ohio. However, should you refer to a more recent ballot, you can clearly see that John Kerry has obviously caught up to Bush and even, in one case, surpassed him by two points. In addition to that, two days later, on the 21st of October, your anchor examined a sequence or poll results all of which have turned out to be encouraging for the president. Unfortunately, after looking around, I realized that the state of Michigan, one of the states you analyzed on the air, showed more grim news for George Bush.

It is understandable that in certain cases, the use of sound bites may contaminate the information the media try to convey. Nevertheless, bias or not, some sound bites used during your coverage of the election displayed completely misleading information. Take October 18th for example, during a sound bite you displayed we were able to view a graphic that read “Polls: Bush’s favorability rating rose from 51% to 55%”. To my astonishment, I later realized that CNN misrepresented their affirmation. What really happened is that your company misused the plural from of the word “Poll”