Fox News Panelist Defends Trump Blasting Fox Impeachment Poll: ‘Not Wrong for People to Be Skeptical’
Fox News host Howard Kurtz declined to defend his network’s polling on Sunday as Mediabuzz discussed how much of the country wants President Donald Trump impeached.
Kurtz used a portion of his show to address Trump’s complaints about Fox’s polling last week, after the network found that most voters want the president impeached and removed from office. Kurtz questioned “why was there so much attention to this poll? It wasn’t that out of line with other recent polls.”
Kurtz should absolutely know why it’s interesting that Fox News — Trump’s favorite news outlet whose content he consumes and regurgitates on a daily basis — has tracked an increase in support for the president’s impeachment. To underscore this, Mediabuzz ran a chyron in this segment that said “Media Tout Fox Impeachment Poll But President Rips It as Unfair.”
Gillian Turner defended the poll by dismissing the “insanity” of the insinuation that Fox News’ polling unit is tainted by bias or Democratic politics. Federalist writer Mollie Hemingway countered that it’s “not wrong for people to be skeptical” of polls, saying Fox got it wrong when they polled that Indiana Senator Joe Donnelly would win his race for re-election. Hemingway also argued that polls are “used to push certain story ideas.”
While Fox’s polling was smacked around on the network’s own air, it was also slammed yesterday by the New York Post, another News Corp property which accused Fox’s pollster of misrepresenting its data. While Trump’s allies have run with the article, critics are thrashing it online by pointing out the flaws in its assertions:
No proof of a conspiracy but the NY Post article in question (https://t.co/J8J82BcPvu) compares partisan numbers that include leaners to Gallup’s partisan distribution w/o leaners. Um, not the same. Also attacks the call center rather than the pollster, bizarrely, per @skoczela. https://t.co/ZWNGnPZ6D8
— Brendan Nyhan (@BrendanNyhan) October 13, 2019
This may be the worst article about polling I’ve ever read. Just chock full of errors in analysis, interpretation, and fact. https://t.co/0DsRWSqolo
— Steve Koczela (@skoczela) October 13, 2019
Watch above, via Fox News.
UPDATE: Fox News provided Mediaite with a statement from the network’s Vice President of Public Opinion Research Dana Blanton:
“Our polling unit has long been held in high regard for being a nonpartisan source of research. Under the joint direction of Beacon Research (D) and Shaw & Company (R), the latest FNC poll included interviews with randomly chosen registered voters and – as is our standard practice – we reported the partisan distribution we found among the electorate. Braun Research is solely our data collection partner. We stand by our latest poll.”
