PressEthic

Each year, especially during election season, hundreds of political polls are conducted by universities, think tanks, pollsters and news organizations. Some ask the same question, but come up with different results. How does a news organization choose which one to report? Or are they on shakey ethical ground if they don't report on all results?

Media Matters, a left-leaning non-profit that monitors conservative views in the media, brought up a recent case about a USA Today/Gallup poll that gave Bush a 44 percent approval rating, "the highest it's been in a year." But four days earlier the Pew Research Center released a poll that showed Bush's approval rating at 37 percent.

Throughout the day on September 19, many television news outlets -- such as CNN, Fox News, MSNBC, and NBC -- touted the poll as a success for Bush, describing Bush's "bounce" in the poll as "good news," asserting that his rating is "the highest it's been in a year," claiming the poll is "bolstering GOP spirits and rattling Democrats" while illustrating that Bush is "gaining in popularity" with the American public, and stating that the poll demonstrates how Bush "has rebounded." Overall, on September 19, CNN referred to the USA Today/Gallup poll nine times, Fox News seven times, and MSNBC and NBC together five times. But on September 14, four days before the release of the USA Today/Gallup poll, all four news organizations completely ignored a Pew Research Center poll released that day showing Bush's approval rating at 37 percent, unchanged from Pew's previous poll and the lowest of all polls conducted within the last month.

Some might speculate that the conservatives at Fox News used the poll to give Bush a boost. But what if CNN, which has been called a "left-leaning" news channel, reported on the Pew poll but didn't mention the Gallup poll? Would that make them biased as well?

Did they choose the poll over the Pew Center's because Gallup is more reliable? Was it just out of habit? Or maybe Gallup and USA Today just have more PR power. Whatever the case, I'd like to sit on the editors' meeting discussing which poll to post.