Wednesday, May 11, 2011

Obama gets the bump. Where’s the news coverage?

President Obama approval rating hits 60 percent, a two-year high, in the AP-GfK poll*.  Fifty-two percent (52%) of Americans give him credit dealing with a stubborn economy, and the numbers get better when it comes to national security.

Seventy-three percent (73%) of Americans trust him to handle terrorist threats.  Forty-five percent (45%) say the country is headed in the right direction. That’s up from thirty-five percent in March.  Fifty-three percent (53%) now say he deserves re-election, which is the same percentage that got him elected. 

AP-GfK poll* finds that 69 percent (63%) say he will keep America safe, 65 percent (65%) say he is a strong leader, 63 percent (63%) believes he understands the problems of ordinary people and 63 percent (63%) say he cares about people like them, and 63 percent (63%) view President Obama favorably. Sixty-one percent (61%) disapprove of his handling of gas prices, even though there is nothing he or any President can do about it.

What is so significant about the AP-GfK poll* is that it included landline and cellphone interviews.  Young people ages 18-34 are not always included in national polls because their primary number is a cellphone.

If you believe that our news media is truly fair and balanced, then it would only be natural to think that with impressive poll numbers like those the news would jump at the chance to correct their previous days’ analyses that the President did not get a significant boost from ordering the killing of Osama bin Laden. They surmise that Americans care more about the state of the economy than our security.  They were wrong again.  I wonder do Americans realize how often the news media’s analyses are wrong…that their dire consequences don’t come to fruition. They will never admit that they were wrong, but they criticize politicians and presidents for not admitting failure or wrongdoing.  Blatant hypocrisy.

These high poll numbers for the President created a conundrum for the news media.  They will now have to devote more time praising Obama for a job well done. That gets them in hot water with Fox News and the GOP.  

During the height of Donald Trump’s daily attacks on the President, CNN, FN, and MSNBC lead with his hateful, racist rhetoric. They spent more time on Trump in a single news broadcast than they have today reporting that President Obama poll numbers are through the roof. Today, they're spending time reporting on media manufactured controversy of rapper/poet Common performing at the White House tonight. So what Sean Hannity disapproves. That's not new nor is it news. 

Fox News producers will leave it to Beck, O’Reilly, and Hannity to discredit the AP-GfK poll* tonight on their respective shows by falsely accusing them of being left-leaning.  CNN will wait to see what FN does before they do anything.  They compete for Fox’s viewers and have to walk a fine line not to offend Tea Party viewers.  The evening crew at MSNBC, Cenk, Chris, Lawrence, Rachel, and Ed, will expose the facts about President Obama poll numbers.  Of course, their critics will blast them because they dare to inform the public of facts that support what most of us already believe, President Barack Obama is doing a damn good job as leader of the free world.

It is fair game to analyze President Obama’s poll numbers, and it is fair game to give him just as much credit for high poll numbers as criticism for low poll numbers.  Equal time. 
* AP-GfK poll conducted May 5-9, 2011 of 1,001 adults nationwide, landline and cellphone interviews

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