I’m not a frequent visitor to the Daily Kos site, but a new survey posted there seems to confirm something any reporter who covers politics already knows: the public doesn’t like us.
A friend posted a link to the survey on a social media site, along with his rather smug observation (I thought) that the web allows him to filter out political reporting (he put a bit more succinctly, but I’m not allowed to use words like that.)
Anyway, waaaay near the bottom of the latest Daily Kos/SEIU Weekly State of the Nation Poll, after all the questions about approval ratings and which candidate’s family would you rather go to dinner with (Obama, 51%, Romney, 41%, Not sure, 7%) we get to this:
“In general, do you have a favorable or unfavorable opinion of the political media?”
Would it surprise you to learn that only ten percent of those surveyed felt favorably? Democrats were 65% unfavorable. Republicans were 91% unfavorable.
Of course, using a broad stroke term like “political media” begs the question – who gets to define what we’re talking about? No doubt there would be different responses if the survey question had been “do you have a favorable or unfavorable opinion of Face the Nation, or Here and Now or The Rush Limbaugh Show?” Presumably, the public would be much more pleased with the entertainment media, yet many of the same outlets that keep us up to date with the Kardashians will also cover politics. (Hello, network and cable television morning shows.)
The survey results are responses from 1000 adults – 500 men and 500 women. I’d love to survey 1000 members of the political media, and ask a similar question. “In general, do you have a favorable or unfavorable opinion of the media consuming public?” Now that would be interesting.
