Good guys 1, lying "pollsters" 0

Good guys 1, lying "pollsters" 0
Media Matters 10/3/04

After complaints from Media Matters for America, as well as criticism from progressive blogs (including Daily Kos and Atrios/Duncan Black) and their readers, MSNBC has "canned" Republican "pollster" Frank Luntz, whom the network has repeatedly used as an analyst - without disclosing his partisan ties.

MSNBC had planned to use Luntz as an analyst, conducting "focus groups" after this year's presidential debates. If recent past is any indication, the network wouldn't have identified him as a partisan Republican and certainly wouldn't have noted that he has been reprimanded by the American Association for Public Opinion Research.

MSNBC has used Luntz in this capacity before; he appeared on the network three times during the 2004 political conventions - but wasn't identified as a Republican any of those times, even after he participated in a GOP strategy session at the Republican National Convention.

In 2000, an MSNBC anchor did note Luntz's partisanship -- or, at least, he started to, as The American Prospect's Jeffrey Dubner noted:

It almost seems like MSNBC goes out of its way to avoid identifying Luntz as a Republican. Searching through his 2000 and 2004 appearances, I've only been able to find one instance of somebody calling Luntz a Republican on-air:

BRIAN WILLIAMS: All the while, Republican -- I should say political pollster Frank Luntz, yes, he's done a lot of work for Republican candidates over the years, has been gauging the reaction of his group of voters in Louisville, Kentucky tonight.

That from after the vice-presidential debate on October 5, 2000. Brian Williams actually stopped himself mid-sentence and rephrased his comments to avoid calling Luntz a Republican pollster. (Luntz went on to say that 18 members of his focus group thought Joe Lieberman won the debate and 18 thought Dick Cheney won -- and then arranged the on-air conversation so that three pro-Cheney groupers spoke before the first pro-Lieberman voice was heard.)

Fortunately, viewers won't be subjected to Luntz's partisan hackery disguised as objectivity during this year's debates, and MSNBC anchors won't have to bend over backwards to avoid mentioning it.

Thirty years of conservative assaults on the media have created an environment in which MSNBC has used an ethically challenged practicing Republican pollster as its on-air analyst without disclosing his partisan ties; CNN's "independent" polling guru is American Enterprise Institute fellow Bill Schneider; and CBS actually spikes a story critical of the Bush administration for partisan reasons and virtually no one in the media makes a peep (see below).

It doesn't have to be that way. If progressives and moderates fight back, as we learned this week, we can have a positive effect on media coverage of politics and policy.