Fox News vs. The White House

Since mid-presidential election of 2008 I have heard plenty of debate about how Fox News is too conservatively-biased resulting in a not-so-"fair and balanced" presentation or how the White House shouldn't be afraid of the one news organization willing to ask the tough questions. No matter the perspective, it isn't new for a president to have a particular known view about a news outlet. What is interesting is that NPR is weighing in by asking people to voice their opinion in a poll asking the public who they are more likely to side with.

Before I show you the snapshot, two items worth mentioning:

First, it isn't a one-sided battle with Fox News picking on the silent suffering Obama Administration. The White House Communications Director recently said "let's not pretend they are a news network the way CNN is" when referring to Fox News. There are many regular news shows on Fox News, and they aren't all The O'Reilly Factor or The Glen Beck Show. I am certain we could list at least two non-conservative news commentary programs to compete.

Secondly, statistics might prove that the White House Communications Director is simply showing political bias and demonstrating he is out of touch with America when claiming Fox News isn't a real news network. The numbers show that Fox News trumps all other news networks when you consider basic viewership. In fact Fox News typically has as many viewers in a day as all of the other news networks combined (Daily: Fox News = 1,375,000 as compared to 1,392,000 = CNN, MSNBC, CNBC and HLN combined; at primetime, Fox News beats all other news networks combined by over 100,000 viewers.)

So, you might already be guessing where the results of this NPR poll are headed (as of 10am October 21st, 2009):

At the bottom of the poll there is disclaimer information about how the poll is not scientific and an appeal for more people to more regularly get involved in these web conversations. I think, even though the poll is not scientific, it is interesting that 2/3rds of the NPR voting public would side with Fox News rather than the White House. NPR has never been famous for attracting a conservative audience so I wonder what this poll really reflects about this little war between the Obama Administration and Fox News?