Wednesday, October 17, 2012

You pays your money


Interesting watching the end of the debate this morning and then switching between channels to see how the media were covering it. Whoever does win you feel working Americans will lose out somehow but blimey if Mitt Romney were to win you'd have to assume that Americans had taken leave of their senses, he's the sort of person your mother told you not to talk to on the way to school just in case.

Anyway first up in the reaction stakes were the right wing rabid dogs of Fox and I have to say that should Obama win in three weeks time I will be tuning into Fox the morning after just to see the faces of 'the Five'. Anyway Fox were announcing that CBS were running a live poll (why couldn't Fox run their own?) which said that 65% of viewers believed that Romney had won, cut to a live Fox audience where some guy in Las Vegas proudly announces that Romney had won 2 to 1. Hum, no excuse me 65-35 is not two to one, perhaps that's why the world economy is so screwed you have guys in Las Vegas thinking that if you multiply 35 by 2 you get 65. Anyhoo, after announcing this he turns to the studio audience and asks for a hand show, even that isn't 2 to 1 so he quickly decides to explain how the studio votes are collected using a keypad.

Over on Sky they announce that Obama has won the debate,  according to a poll by CBS - that's the same CBS which according to Fox was showing a win for Romney. So how was CBS reporting it? Well the CBS home page headline is "In CBS News instant poll, 37 per cent say President Obama won the second presidential debate, 30 per cent say Romney won with a margin error of 4 points.

How could Fox claim that CBS were reporting something that even CBS weren't reporting? Well the interesting point is that after the initial excitement Fox actually toned down their exuberance, perhaps too much caffeine at an early hour had upset their ability to read facts, by just after 9 a.m (UK time) the lead on the Fox website read as follows: Americans on Tuesday night saw a more aggressive President Obama in his second debate with Mitt Romney, as political analysts appeared split on a clear winner after predominantly giving Romney the edge in the first debate. “I think it’s a split decision,” Democratic strategist Joe Trippi, a Fox News contributor, said after Tuesday's town hall-style debate at Hofstra University.

The BBC were reporting the debate as 'spiky' and at the time of writing didn't seem to be backing either candidate, although there are of course sites on the Interweb which will point to supposed incidents where they can accuse the BBC of bias.  Incidentally reading that site I have to agree with one or two posts that it seems to have lost sight of any mission that it might have once believed it had, it seems to have lost any sense of humour and now comes across as a rantfest, simply berating the BBC for beratings sake.

2 comments:

Span Ows said...

missed it all! Very busy. Re B-BBC the same thought has crossed my mind and I did comment there my thoughts a few months back when they were revamping: I suggested that less is more: these days they seem to want several posts a day so go out to find it whereas before it as maybe one a day max but 'quality bias'!

Paul said...

I like B-BBC in the same way I like Guido, when it makes me think about something. I think a lot of the 'bias' is subjective but I can see that when it gets to the point where I find it annoying it must be very biased!