- The Fox News/Google debate was the highest-rated debate yet.

Last night’s Fox News/Google GOP debate was the highest-rated primary debate yet, averaging over six million total viewers during both the 9 and 10 PM hours. In the key adults 25-54 demo, the debate ranked second behind MSNBC’s September 7 debate.

- Pew Research’s annual poll shows exactly what we all know: people really, really don’t trust the media:

The Pew Research Center for the People & the Press has been tracking views of press performance since 1985, and the overall ratings remain quite negative. Fully 66% say news stories often are inaccurate, 77% think that news organizations tend to favor one side, and 80% say news organizations are often influenced by powerful people and organizations.

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Meet Sarah Seltzer.

She’s one of the great untold stories of the internet — that invention that allows everyone to have a voice whether they make good use of it or not.  And, regrettably, she does not.

To wit, her essay on Alternet.org (“16 of the Dumbest Things Americans Believe – And the Right-Wing Lies Behind Them”) where she writes:

“Americans are often misinformed, occasionally downright dumb, and easily misled by juicy-sounding rumors.”  Of course, it is only the “right wing…that takes full advantage of this reality.”

Setting aside that Ms. Seltzer is just your garden variety rude, insulting self-perceived elitist (Americans are neither dumb nor easily misled), the evidence she provides readers to support her case would not pass muster in a 7th grade debate class.

“Polling data during and after last week’s midterm elections suggested that many Americans genuinely believe President Obama has raised their taxes — even though the reality is that our president actually lowered them for most of us.”

Here are the facts.

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It’s like watching your childhood home being destroyed.

The bulldozers move a little slower in this destruction, but the outcome is still the same. A pile of junk hauled off to the landfill.

Oh, maybe I’m a bit extreme with that comparison, but truth is, it’s hard to tell whose ratings are falling faster—those of the Cold-Hearted Social Engineer in the White House, or the activist old media that adore him so (oh, just for the record, the Democrat Congress is actually at the bottom in this survey.)

Gallup just completed its annual Confidence in Institutions survey and things do not look good for the news media. Also, a recent Pew Research study points out the biggest decline in audiences is with the network newscasts, local newscasts and newspapers. Hmmmm, wonder why?

Those who took the poll ranked journalists right near the bottom with bankers in lack of confidence. Interesting — bankers have been demonized and destroyed by Democrats and their activist Old Media for the last four or five years and now they all share the room in the basement.

Yes, it pains me. I look back on a career of 30 years and think back on the times when I was free to report as a journalist. Take a story from start to finish, investigate it, report it, and actually right a wrong. That rarely happens anymore. (more…)

Caramba!

This phrase, in the New York Times article, about pro-life advocates encouraging greater black participation in the right-to-life cause and taking on the legacy of Margaret Sanger, got my attention: “ … the anti-abortion movement, long viewed as almost exclusively white and Republican … ”

Viewed by whom? The mostly melanin-challenged, liberal editorial board of the New York Times? Yeah, right.

First, two words to all of you icky white, colorblind Republicans who have been déclassé enough to take a stand against the assassination of voiceless unborn children throughout the years: Thank you. You are doing the Lord’s work. Keep it up!

Second, Latinos are eager to add some spice to this just cause.  Polls consistently show that a majority of Hispanic voters (full disclosure: my mami and papi are Central American) describe themselves as “pro-life.”  A Pew Hispanic Center survey reports that while 57% of Hispanics believe abortion should be “illegal,” the number rockets to 77% when the Hispanics describe themselves as “evangelical.” Meanwhile, one Zogby International poll revealed that: (more…)