Rasmussen Poll: Voters Are Divided over Media Involvement in Creating National Division

By Brenda Walker

09/06/2017

Another was the apparent growth of influence from the media, which is supposed to report the news, not lecture and browbeat to keep the little people in line. The MSM has long been a monster definer of acceptable opinion, but the election left it standing alone as the top liberal voice by a mile. So it’s like the Democrats weren’t the leading liberal parade after all — the talking heads are.

Rush Limbaugh noticed this political rearrangement in a some radio segments over the last few months including Evidence: The Media Runs the Democrats (May 8) and The Media Sets the Narrative — and the Democrats Follow (May 12).

RUSH LIMBAUGH: The point being that everybody thinks the Democrats run the show. The Democrats are the power in Washington, they hold elective office, and the media operates in a supporting role to bolster them, to prop them up, to encourage them to go out and attack their opponents. It hit me that it’s the other way around now. I mean, the Democrats are losing elections. Now, don’t get mad at me. This is undeniable. Democrats are losing elections, but you would not know it.

That fact simply isn’t reflected in our modern news political coverage. If you didn’t know any better, if you just landed from Mars, you would think that there has been a coup and that a couple Republicans took over the country led by Donald Trump and they’re running it against the public will. And that the mass majority of the people are still in favor of Democrats, still wish Obama was president or wish Hillary was and that what we have here is an illegitimate governing minority. You would never know that the Democrats have been losing elections dramatically since 2010.

And that, to me, says that it is the media running the Democrats and not Democrats running the media, because there is simply no reflection of that reality in any of daily what is called news. And it actually isn’t news. What it is is the onward march of the leftist progressive agenda as led by the media. The Democrats take their talking points from the media. The Democrats take their talking points and their message from the media. We’ve always thought for the longest time that it was Democrats, like Harry Reid or Pelosi, giving phrases and words and ideas to the media, and that they ran with it.

Voters Are Strongly Divided Over Media’s Role in Dividing Us, Rasmussen Reports, August 29, 2017

Voters admit America is a more divided place these days, and Trump supporters overwhelmingly agree with the president that the media is to blame. But Trump opponents just as strongly disagree.

The latest Rasmussen Reports national telephone and online survey asked Likely U.S. Voters if they agree or disagree with this statement from President Trump’s speech last week in Phoenix: “If you wanted to discover the source of the division in our country, look no further than the fake news and the crooked media which would rather get ratings and clicks than tell the truth.” Forty-three percent (43%) agree, and 51% disagree. (To see survey question wording, click here.)

But a closer look perfectly illustrates the level of division in the country. Ninety-two percent (92%) of likely voters who Strongly Approve of the job the president is doing agree with him that “the fake news and the crooked media” are the source of that division. Eighty-six percent (86%) of those who Strongly Disapprove of Trump’s job performance disagree with the statement.

It’s important to note that Rasmussen Reports did not say in the question who made the statement, but the president has been outspoken for months in his criticism of the media and “fake news.”

Interestingly, separate surveying finds that 63% of Americans believe most major news organizations are more concerned with getting a story first than with getting it right.

(Continues)

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