NATIONAL POLL COMPLETED THURSDAY GIVES BUSH 5% LEAD

By: Greg Mitchell Newspaper Readers Find Bias, But Rate Overall Coverage Good





An Editor & Publisher/TIPP national poll of more than 2,200 potential voters - an unusually large sample and completed just five days before the election - finds that likely voters favor George W. Bush over Al Gore by five percentage points. TIPP is a product of TechnoMetrica Market Intelligence, a national polling firm based in Oradell, N.J.



More than 72% of Bush backers say they support him "strongly," while only 64% of Gore backers say the same thing.



Fully one in three voters declare that newspapers show bias in their campaign coverage - and by a wide margin most of them say the favored candidate is Al Gore. Nevertheless, more than six out of 10 readers rate overall newspaper coverage of the campaign as "excellent" or "good." Only about 7% of readers rated the coverage "poor."



A finding in the September E&P/TIPP poll, suggesting that about four in 10 likely voters believed that newspapers tend to show bias in their coverage this year, drew wide public attention, and we revisited this issue in the latest poll. The new poll finds the number of bias detectors shrinking a bit, to 34%, and a larger number than in September now say that Bush got a clear break from the press. Still, 59% of this group continue to charge that the press favored Gore.



At the same time, even more voters - nearly 40% - charge that they found bias in TV coverage of the race, again with Gore as the beneficiary.



Despite these claims of bias, likely voters give high marks to newspaper coverage this year, with 11% calling it excellent and 51% good and just 7% poor. This cuts across all categories. Despite their frequent protests about "liberal" media favoritism toward Gore, Bush backers are only slightly behind the national norm in praising newspapers' performance this year.



"It's loud and clear that overall assessment of newspaper coverage is pretty good," said Raghavan Mayur, president of TIPP. "Probably there is an acceptance of a certain amount of bias, as human nature, in covering a campaign, but there also is a general feeling that the reporters do a good job. Also, people may accept that, say, The New York Times and Fox News have a certain bias, yet recognize that they sometimes break stories that may help a candidate they do not seem to favor."



In another surprising finding, the E&P/TIPP poll found that nearly 20% of the sample said that they received most of their information on the campaign from the press, not from network or cable television.



Interestingly, those who say they rely on newspapers as their main source of campaign coverage back Gore by nine percentage points more than Bush. In stark contrast, Bush easily takes the vote of those who mainly followed the race on cable TV news channels (a 10 percentage-point margin for him) or network TV (a four percentage points edge).



Presidential preference



Overall, likely voters favor Bush over Gore by 47.8% to 42.2%, with Ralph Nader drawing 3% of the vote and 5% still undecided. (The sampling error is less than 3%.) This a significant shift since September, when the previous E&P/TIPP poll found the two candidates in a dead heat among newspaper readers.



Our latest poll was largely completed, however, before the "November Surprise" - the report of Bush's arrest for drunk driving back in 1976 - and at press time it was uncertain what effect that development might have on Tuesday.



Those we classify as "regular" newspaper readers (defined as those who read a paper five to seven days a week) give Bush that same five percentage-point edge; in the previous poll, they backed Gore by two points.



This seven-point swing to Bush could be attributed to the general gains in popularity he has made - or perhaps to a change in newspapers covering the candidate more favorably.



Most undecided voters nationally say they now "lean" toward Gore, which could be significant. Otherwise, Bush does well across nearly all age groups, carries every section of the country except the Northeast, and wins the vote of the wealthiest by almost 2-to-1. Yet he inspires a huge gender gap, with Bush taking the male vote by 19 percentage points, but losing among women by seven percentage points.



Newspaper coverage



Nearly one in five likely voters, as we observed, got most of their news about the campaign from newspapers, which puts the press in a strong third place behind cable and network TV. But there was an important shift since September. Our previous poll found that the cable news networks were the favorite place for campaign coverage, but cable slipped behind broadcast network news for attention as the campaign progressed.



Finishing far back in fifth place for campaign coverage was the Internet, with less than 6%. Among this group, Bush outpolled Gore by 2-to-1.



Further, a significant number of the overall sample, about one in three, say that newspaper reporting on the presidential race helped them in choosing a candidate. Gore got most of these votes.



"This is significant," Mayur said. "It shows that people really are affected by the news coverage even if endorsements are another matter."



And despite early indications that the public was tuning out the campaign this year, the E&P/TIPP poll found that two out of three voters said they were "extremely interested" in the presidential race.



Endorsements



By every measure, including our own poll of editors and publishers, the nation's newspapers have, by a fairly wide margin, thrown their editorial backing to Bush. Yet our poll of readers suggests that most readers pay little attention to this.



The first indication of this is that most of them told us that their newspapers had endorsed Gore, not Bush. More than one in four said they were not sure who their paper had picked. (Even regular readers often drew a blank.) That suggests that most readers either don't recall, or remember incorrectly, whom their newspaper endorsed. Further, only 4% said that their newspaper's endorsement would affect their vote in the presidential race. (This number was two to three times higher for local and state races.)



In fact, nearly three out of four said that newspapers "should refrain" from making any endorsements. Ironically, more Gore than Bush backers favor the endorsement concept - even though this year, most papers endorsed his opponent.



"Endorsements are clearly not kingmakers," TIPP's Mayur said. "Only a handful of readers pay attention, and those who pay attention say it has no impact. Further, they favor newspapers ending this practice." The public is basically saying "they want a more objective media," Mayur added.



Readership



Overall national circulation numbers may continue to decline slightly but, clearly, newspaper readers are not going away.



Our survey finds that almost two out of three of all likely voters read a newspaper regularly (five to seven days a week), with 53% reading a paper every single day. Only about 7% say they do not read a paper at all. The daily readers back Bush narrowly; and those who read papers rarely, if at all, give him a 13% margin over Gore.



A closer look at the regular newspaper readers reveals that they tend to be male, and they express a higher level of interest in the presidential campaign than others. By far the highest percentage of regular readers are in the 65-and-over group; heavy readers among young people 18 to 34 are few and far between.



The E&P/TIPP poll confirmed that newspapers, in this multimedia age, still play an enormously significant role in election races. About one in three likely voters said that newspaper coverage helped them make up their mind about whom to vote for. Better than 60% said they read a newspaper five to seven days a week.



Further, the poll reveals that these regular newspaper readers are more likely to vote than the general public, express interest in the campaign, and support their candidate strongly.







Greg Mitchell (epic1934@aol.com) is the features editor for E&P. He can be reached by phone at 646-654-5282.



Related stories:



NEWSPAPER EDITORS AND PUBLISHERS PREDICT BUSH VICTORY (11/02/00)

E&P'S NEWSPAPER ENDORSEMENT ROUNDUP

E&P POLL FINDS VOTERS FEEL PRESS BIAS FAVORS GORE (09/19/00)







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