Less than half of all U.S. likely voters think the news media are doing a good job of covering the Gaza war between Israel and Palestine, but a majority of Democrat voters give the media a positive rating, results of a new national Rasmussen survey reveal.
Asked to “rate the news media's coverage of the current conflict between Israel and the Palestinians,” nearly one in three voters rated the news media’s coverage “poor”:
- Excellent: 11%
- Good: 28%
- Fair: 25%
- Poor: 30%
- Not Sure: 6%
Democrat voters were the only reason that a higher percentage of all respondents gave media a positive rating than a poor one, as more than half (56%) called the media’s Gaza war coverage either “good” (38%) or “excellent” (18%) – about twice the percent of either Republicans (30%) or Independents (28%).
Among both Republicans (35%-30%) and Independents (38%-28%), more rated the media’s war reporting negative (poor) than positive (good or excellent).
Democrats were also more than twice as likely to say the media’s war coverage has favored Israel (43%) as they were to say the coverage has favored Palestine (20%).
Conversely, Republicans (48%-25%) and Independents (39%-26%) were far more prone to say the coverage has favored Palestine, not Israel.
Among voters who think the media are doing an “excellent” job of covering the conflict, only one in five (20%) think the coverage has favored Palestine – but, 61% of those who deem the coverage “poor” say the media have favored the Palestinians.
Media coverage does, indeed, appear to be greatly favoring Palestine, if the results of a NewsBusters study published Monday are any measure. Hamas terrorists are used as sources for two-thirds of broadcast evening news stories, the study finds:
“In the month following the terror organization’s horrific October 7 attack on Israeli civilians, exactly two thirds of the evening newscasts on ABC, CBS, and NBC cited either Hamas itself or Hamas-controlled entities when reporting on the conflict.
“MRC analysts examined all evening newscasts from October 9 through November 9 on ABC, CBS, and NBC, taking note of every instance in which a reporter or anchor used Hamas as a source in their coverage. Of the 81 total broadcasts that were not preempted, 54 or exactly 66.7 percent contained at least one instance in which a journalist cited Hamas as a source.
“There was near-exact parity among these networks in the frequency of their Hamas-sourced reports.”
More Democrats now sympathize with the Palestinians than with the Israelis in the Middle East conflict, according to Gallup’s 2023 World Affairs Poll (conducted before Hamas’ October 7 attack on Israel).
Democrats’ sympathies have been shifting for the past decade, and this year’s 11-point jump flipped the net score to the Palestinians’ side (49%-38%) – for the first time in the annual survey’s history. Meanwhile, those more sympathetic towards the Israelis and the percent of neutral Democrats (13%) both fell to new lows.