Conservatives go all out to ‘win’ NPR poll on WH, Fox war

By Ron Brynaert
Friday, October 30th, 2009 -- 1:57 pm
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the week 15502 27 Conservatives go all out to win NPR poll on WH, Fox warUsing emails, community sites, political blogs and Tweets, conservatives have mounted a strike to "win" an online NPR poll on the war between the White House and Fox News.

A week ago, the NPR poll asked "In White House Vs. Fox News War Of Words, Who Gets Your Vote?"

On Thursday, the conservative watch dog blog Newsbusters featured a post entitled "Really? Online NPR Poll Finds Even Split in White House-Fox News Feud."

Newsbusters' Tim Graham wrote:

In today's example of "Are online polls reliable?" is a poll at NPR.org, which found an almost exact split among readers of the NPR blog "The Two-Way" on whether the White House or Fox News should win the battle over reputations. (As of 5 pm Eastern time.) NPR blogger Mark Memmott asked it this way.Are you supporting:

Story continues below...

-- The White House on this one; Fox News isn't "fair and balanced." 49% (151,983 votes)

-- Fox News on this one; it asks questions others don't and the White House should be able to handle them. 49% (152,482 votes)

-- Neither side. They're both trying to play this "feud" to their advantage. 2% (5,896 votes)

Memmott wrote it in such a way that it did not require NPR fans to suggest Fox News is fantastic, but it does suggest that position is on the side of giving adequate scrutiny to the White House.

However, earlier Thursday morning, the White House had a sizeable lead over Fox, although Mediaite's Glynnis MacNicol thought that the "sixty percent or 118,081" vs. "thirty-nine percent or 76,324" margin was "sort of a low number if you consider that in the big picture NPR listeners tend to skew to the left."

All day long on Thursday, conservatives bragged in Tweets that they were helping spin the poll back in favor of Fox.

A message reading "If you haven't heard this, the White House is accusing Fox News of not being a legitimate source of news, calling them biased, etc. They have tried to block Fox reporters from news conferences, etc., but the other news networks are fighting back (in favor of Fox) and caused the White House to back down. NPR has put a survey online for us to voice our opinion. If you want to vote in this survey, go to the link below and cast your vote. Currently it is in favor of the White House, but there are not that many votes. It has been circulating around NPR folks, but now that it has gotten out elsewhere, let's turn that around. Let's show them how we feel about honest conservative news reporting" spread like wildfire across blogs, email lists and social networks including the RNC Facebook page.

A front paged Free Republic post on Thursday cried out,

Freep this poll

the White House is accusing Fox News of not being a legitimate source of news, calling them biased, etc. They have tried to block Fox reporters from news conferences, etc., but the other news networks are fighting back (in favor of Fox) and caused the White House to back down. NPR has put a survey online for us to voice our opinion. If you want to vote in this survey, go to the link below and cast your vote. Currently it is 71% in favor of the White House, but there are not that many votes ......... less than 2,000 all together. Let's show them how we feel about honest conservative news reporting.

At Democratic Underground, liberals did their best to "Freep" it the other way around.

One DU user named DFW complained in a post he entitled "NOT a true poll, but a Freeper heaven--you can vote as often as you want!!"

If I had as much time on my hands as an unemployed Freeper retard (and from their spelling and grammar on the comments section, they must all have the week off), I could skew the poll against Fox single- handedly. All you have to do is click "back" and vote again--and again and again and again. That's not a poll, it's an endurance test.

Blogs are bragging Friday that they helped win this one for Fox.

Keith Brock at Can You Hear Us Now! gloats, "National Public Radio put up a poll and asked a question: who do you support, the White House or Fox News. Yesterday, because of the liberal views of much of NPR's listeners the White House was winning 55% to 45%. Fox News was down 10,000 plus votes. We have made that up and are pulling ahead - but we want to send a message to NPR, a very strong message: We stand behind Fox News because they are the only ones asking the tough questions. That will send the message to them that they need to start asking a lot tougher questions and stop making Fox News carry all the water."

Curiously, the earliest post Raw Story could find did show Fox News in the lead by a considerable margin, but the email campaign may have preceded it.

npr poll fox news obama Conservatives go all out to win NPR poll on WH, Fox warBut on Wednesday, the blog Moonbattery applauded the then "heartening results" which showed Fox winning by a 2-to-1 margin with less than 13,000 votes.

Over half-a-million more votes have been registered since, and at press time Fox leads with 69% (401,437 votes) over the White House's 29% (167,659 votes).

Perhaps conservatives are "winning" because reports indicate that a meeting between Fox and the White House may have produced at least a thawing of the war if not an out-and-out truce.

Or perhaps more liberals than conservatives feel similarly to DU user newtothegame, who writes

We complain that people can vote more than once in this poll, but then we're posting "DU this Poll" here for every single poll we find online everyday. We complain about unscientific polls, but then we're encouraging our fellow DU'ers to make every unscientific poll out there even more unscientific by flooding it with votes from DU. And for what? And if we're worried about the 'American Public' getting a false impression of the nation's views by a poll being "freeped," then what's our excuse when we flood the same polls with our votes?

Update:

Early Halloween morning, NPR's Mark Memmott, host of the Two-Way news blog, added the following update, which touched upon this report:

I would like to say thanks to all those who were inspired to vote. As Raw Story explains, the poll touched off a competition. That's a good thing, in my opinion. These kinds of surveys aren't meant to be scientific. They're intended to stimulate discussion and give folks another way to express themselves. We certainly accomplished that.

Now, can I make a small request? Perhaps some who came here to vote and comment could come back on occasion and contribute again to the discussions? We value your input.

For those still keeping score, the current tally stands at 22% (175,901 votes) for the White House and 76% (610,350 votes) for Fox News, with just 2% (12,965 votes) voting for neither side.

Since the publication of this article, nearly a quarter of a million votes were added to the total of a poll, which before attracting attention in the last four days had only gotten 13,000 votes in total for its first five days.

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Story comments are below...
  • yvonneo
    Faux noise will do anything to distract people from any real news--something they're not too keen on reporting. A "poll" to see who is most popular--the WH or them? Pretty damn pathetic of them.

    Also, isn't it funny that when the bush gang was in office, the right continuously claimed that "polls" didn't mean anything--now they use them for everything.
  • SouthernYankee
    Well when Bush came in to office they tried to change PBS and put an right leaning leader of the FCC. The republicans have always tried to put th squeeze on PBS, NPR.
  • xdumbocrap
    "LEANING" not outright marxist fools.
  • jimbo92107
    At this point, if NPR retains any shred of journalistic integrity, they will withdraw this hopelessly tainted result.

    Bueller?
  • SouthernYankee
    I am sure NPR realizes that. Just like Quitter Palin's new book that supposedly already on the number 1 list. Yet if you look who is buying the book they are buying in it big lots that way it looks like she has sold allot. Go on some of these right leaning website they are offering you her book for free. Hell it is already on sale and hasn't even hit the book stores.
  • leggs67
    Boycott FOX. Boycott their "news" programs, boycott their entertainment programs and boycott their sports programs or you ARE contributing to the problem.
  • Loonie
    Fox asks the questions other networks won't ask. You know, the stupid and/or dishonest questions.

    PS - is the comment system really really broken, or what.
  • jlewd
    The Comment system seemed like it was headed in the right direction, what with adding options to Like, Report, and an option to Edit your own comments after the fact -- a real benefit, that last one. But then I've seen my own comments, which may get a little heated at times, taken down on a thread about racist posts on the GOP Facebook page -- but oddly, racist comments by the usual suspects coming over from Stormfront and other reichtarded wingnut sites remain in place.

    So, in response to your post, I would say "yes, the comment system is really, really broken." Cool web utility is only half of the game: a good system for review is also necessary. It is ridiculous that TRS would find offensive comments telling offensive reichwingers to "go fuck themselves" or "we look forward to a day when the racist likes of you no longer pollute the earth" are removed, yet clearly fabricated "facts" and delusional rants about "Obama bin Lyin'" and birth certificate bullshit are deemed suitable to remain. This is a huge problem -- one that is already beginning to show itself for the right-weighted corpulence of some of the more egregious articles on this site.

    Free speech is a guarantee regardless of content. If TRS is going to remove posts that are simply sick and fed up with racist rednecks taking over the site, well, then, welcome to your new audience, TRS: racist rednecks. If my swearing is too much for your delicate sensitivities, good luck with the racist shit the wingnuts pollute your site with.
  • morepatience
    I e-mailed RS about their new Disqus system. The response stated that it was because of some recent racist speak. Maybe your comments just got swept up in the mix? I do miss the (more open?) old system at times though. The 'Like' and 'edit' functions do seem to clean up the comment area pretty well though. There are a lot less '+1' type comments to filter through...
  • jlewd
    Maybe. I'm not a big fan of the Disqust system -- I think it dangerous in that it circumvents the anonymity inherent in most blog comment systems and personalizes arguments by bringing them directly to your Inbox. This creates a dangerous precedent that we will someday see fulfilled -- just as Craig's List erotic ads fulfilled the rape and murder their meet-ups fostered by design.

    As for fiery exchanges, flame wars are as much a part of the Internet as is the technology that links it together. If you're going to allow racist comments to stand, why shouldn't the same hold true for the responses to them? Most of these exchanges are innocuous: even at their worst, they're no more than sticks and stones. Anyone who takes the exchanges harder is clearly too thin-skinned to be here in the first place.

    As for being mistaken for racist comments: all of my removed comments were responses to racist remarks. As such, some were a little sharp. I make no apologies. I see no need for civility when one side of the argument is "the president hates all white people" and "there are good ni****s just like there are bad ni****s." That sort of ignorance brings the flaming invective, and well it should.

    Sad that the use of a few (all right: a lot) of cleverly placed swear words and insults is deemed too bilious when the other side of the equation is far worse at its core. I have no problem calling these people racists and worst. We live in a country more apparent in its bigotry today than at any other time in my recollectable life. We owe this hate-filled seperatism to the likes of teabaggers, Glenn Beck, Rush Limbaugh, and Roger Ailes. They are the fuel that feeds these flames.

    I grow tired of the ineffectual, intellectual nut-rubbing that occurs on some of these sites -- the self-appointed "moderator" jumping into the fray and telling everyone to chill out and show each other respect, no matter how inane or inflammatory the comment that produces the vitriolic response. Think of the effectiveness of this passionless moderation during the Civil Rights riots of the 1960s: how much progress was achieved by silence and soft-spoken remonstration? Some? Maybe.

    The Civil Rights movement wasn't achieved by peaceful protest alone. The peaceful marches of MLK were complemented by angry calls to action by Malcolm X and the Black Panthers. Where one movement turned the other cheek, the other employed whatever means necessary. In the end, both movments were assassinated along with their leaders. Regardless, America started to pay attention when Watts, Newark, and Chicago began to burn.

    Sitting idly by and allowing ignorant, racist commentary without letting these knuckledraggers know there is an equally strong America who would knock their dicks in the dirt would be complicitous to that hateful crime. It is why these bigots return to sites in numbers: they have squared their cyberterritory on what present themselves as progressive websites, and they are emboldened by their gain.

    If you think these verbal battles are coincidental (and I return to this thread as example), I'd encourage the skeptic to research how dissent is manufactured via the Internet. One directive from NRA.org can drive a hundred thousand screeching gun nuts to any site in less than an hour. To mistake this traffic as "audience" is a huge mistake. These posters are only there to bully, skew percentages, and sow ignorance. Allow them to do so often enough, and eventually their claims are staked and realized. A website is property just as surely as is a home: if not, why would one rent domain?

    This, then, is my advice to TRS and other progressive sites: focus more on the content of an exchange than on its expression. Also, if you're worried about inflammatory exchanges, don't beg the exchanges by posting strawman stories in the first place. Ask yourselves: Is hosting a balanced, civil debate absolutely necessary when the seed is an inflammatory post that begs the ugliest responses? And is it absolutely necessary to respect all opinions equally when one side of the argument is unapologetically and very vocally racist?

    The questions answer themselves.
  • damixaustex
    "We live in a country more apparent in its bigotry today than at any other time in my recollectable life."

    You can't possibly have lived or recollected long. Let's see, 30...30......4.

    USA resident, mostly, right?

    Northeast US?
    Male.

    Supposition is yet another flaw.

    Thanks for your post. enjoyed it.
  • jlewd
    Wrong on all cases except one. As for my life, it's an opinion based anecdotally. But I stand by it nonetheless: the only time I can envision as worse would have been the early 1960s going back to slavery.

    Thanks for the positive words.
  • SouthernYankee
    Well I am not to much on these different websites you are talking about. But the comments we make here, are they going on these different website too? Just wondering.
  • jlewd
    Not sure what you're referring to. But the Disqus system uses the email address that you're required to enter when you sign up but guarantees won't be visible to commentors. It then forwards from Disqus emails to that Inbox alerts similar to Facebook showing the body of the response and the screen name of the person making it. I'm guessing there was a checkbox at sign-up that I missed -- one that would have stopped these comments from coming.

    In any case, I've since elected to have Disqus stop sending these alerts. The reason? My screen name is pretty simple, so I'm guessing it probably doesn't take a genius to figure out that a response to a comment no longer on the front page probably means that Disqus is notifying an active and frequented email account. It wasn't long after that I started getting email responses not via Disqus, but directly from the sender. And some of those responses were pretty sickening -- stopping just short of physical threats. What doofus forgot: I now know where he or she emails from, so any threats can easily be followed. I quickly let that person know, and the direct responses stopped.

    These are merely my surmises: I don't know how secure Disqus is; I really hadn't paid attention to its addition with to the new Comments system here on TRS. But as I said, it probably doesn't take much security savvy to use they system as a positive indicator of an active account. Friends have since advised that I use an account created only for log-in to Comments sections, and only check the account routinely to delete files in bulk and maintain its activity. It sounds like the secure thing to do, but it sucks that such steps are necessary.

    I'm not sure if this was helpful.
  • xdumbocrap
    My gosh...this liberal state run "media" is now afraid of unofficial polls? You guys are pathetic...
  • SouthernYankee
    Lets see now. You listen to fox and talk radio and all they say is the MSM is liberal, liberal, liberal. Repeat repeat repeat. The more they repeat it the more you believe it. That isn't the case. Many of these MSM are owned by the Murdocks of business. So really its not so.
  • torqdog
    Yeah, and Murdoch is a big Hillary supporter. Look it up.
  • eyeonUSA
    The Obama team didn't seem upset about the biased reporting and opinions of MSNBC through its liberal commentators Keith Oberman and Rachel Maddow before and after the elections. That was because it was favor of the now President Obama. The White house to take is share of the licks, and the attemps at blocking reporting from a news source (Fox) questioning its policies is essentially an attempt to block free speech. What is the White House afraid of? No one seemed to mind when the White House under George Bush was attacked verbally time after time. The present White House has to be brave enough to withstand any scrutiny and crticism. Otherwise, this present government is not about the people or for the people. It is about some people and for some people that tow the line. And contrary to several opinions in this area, conservatives are not stupid or out of work any more than liberals are.
  • pakaal
    "No one seemed to mind when the White House under George Bush was attacked verbally time after time."

    Wrong. The Bush administration castigated MSNBC, the New York Times, any media outlet that dared challenge their "facts" on the war, Katrina, etc., declaring people "traitors" and "un-American" whenever they felt like it.

    Don't think that everyone has such incredible short-term memory loss as yourself.
  • torqdog
    Yes, that may be so...... BUT!...... they did NOT try to deny them access to the WH like Obummer has with Fox. Also, what's worse..... a short term memory or a distorted one like you're sporting?!!!

    Big big difference there amigo!
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