A conservative media watchdog organization says the mainstream media has done such an effective job of trashing Sarah Palin that the public perceptions of the former Alaska governor and 2008 vice-presidential candidate soured substantially in a few weeks.
The Culture and Media Institute (CMI) of the Media Research Center recently released a study entitled "A Study in Character Assassination: How the TV Networks Have Portrayed Sarah Palin as Dunce or Demon." The study cites a poll conducted by the Pew Research Center from September and October 2008 that shows the percentage of the public that saw Palin unfavorably shot up from 32 percent to 49 percent in just one month. "According to a Nexis search, the networks ran 69 news segments covering Palin between September 29 and October 12, a period that included the October 2 vice-presidential debate," says the report. "CMI analyzed all 69 segments and found that 37 portrayed Palin negatively, only two were positive, and 30 were neutral." Colleen Raezler is a research assistant at CMI and one of the authors of the study. She says the continuing negative media reports on Palin are a continuation of what happened during the presidential campaign last year. "This year it doesn't seem to be getting any better," laments Raezler. "We have the Newsweek cover that tries to make her look like a bimbo. They're putting up Levi Johnson, her daughter's ex-fiancé, who's just going on to CBS News programs and basically confirming everything the media had said about Sarah Palin last year -- but they're really not doing any fact-checking on anything that he has to say." In Raezler's opinion, there is one overriding reason why the former Alaska governor has been overwhelmed by a blizzard of negative media reports. "They're terrified," she asserts, "and they know that she does resonate with a lot of people, especially in flyover states in middle America. She has a big impact in that part of the country. So I think they are absolutely terrified that she could eventually rise to power." Raezler says Palin has responded to the mainstream media by basically bypassing it and getting her message out using the alternative media -- such as Twitter and Facebook.
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