You Are Not Alone

Fully 70% of television viewers believe that network television news coverage is politically biased.

A Fox News poll released yesterday found 70 percent of those surveyed say that news reports about U.S. military operations in Iraq focus only on the negative, and "leave out the positive."

That figure is up 10 points since Fox posed the same question in October.

The survey also revealed that the public can detect an "agenda."

When asked where "most problems are being created" regarding the situation in Iraq, 27 percent blamed "the news media." Another 23 percent said they were created in Iraq, 18 percent felt they originated in Washington and 21 percent in a combination of factors.

The poll of 900 registered voters was conducted on May 18 and 19.

In terms of news coverage, 34 percent said the press spent an "excessive" amount of time covering the abuse of Iraqi prisoners; 9 percent said the media had dwelled too much on the beheading of American contractor Nicholas Berg. Another 35 percent felt that both stories were in the news too often.

The poll found that 60 percent were more upset by the Berg story than the prisoner abuse; 8 percent felt the abuse was worse. Another 29 percent rated them "equal" on an emotional scale.