By Tim Graham via The Daily Signal | March 06, 2025
The national media pay for national polls to measure public opinion. But often, they aren’t just measuring public opinion. Their selection of polling questions carries an agenda, and tests how the liberal media arguments are faring in all 50 states. Their questions change depending on which party’s president is in the White House.
There are generic measurements—the president’s approval rating, right direction or wrong direction. But pay attention to the ones that change with “the times.”
This week, PBS and NPR are promoting their latest poll with Marist University. They devoted special attention to this question: “Since taking office, Trump has (A) rushed to make changes without considering their impact or (B) Done what’s needed to get government back on track.”
The anti-Trump media have certainly pushed the angle that Trump’s attempts to cut the federal work force are horrible and chaotic. The poll by the taxpayer-funded networks found 56% agreed Trump has rushed it without considering everything, while 43% said he’s doing what’s needed.
PBS reporter Lisa Desjardins pushed this finding: “So we did ask, do you think checks and balances, that system, is working now? Right, today, 56% in the last week or so believe, no, our checks and balances system is not working.” They were secretly cheering because this is the message they are pushing. There’s no checks of balances for these taxpayer-funded networks.
NPR touted the poll under the headline “Majorities say state of the union is not strong, and Trump is rushing change.” NPR political analyst Domenico Montanaro pushed other negative poll findings for Trump: “Most said the cuts to the federal government are doing more harm than good (55%), and 60% said federal employees are essential, including two-thirds of independents.”
Montanaro also reported their poll found Elon Musk “continues to be unpopular. Just 39% had a favorable opinion of him in the survey, roughly unchanged from January.” They’re doing monthly approval ratings for Musk! PBS and NPR despise Musk, who has openly advocated for defunding PBS and NPR.
Now rewind four years and ponder how they covered the PBS/NPR/Marist poll in early March of 2021. Guess which questions weren’t included. They didn’t ask if former President Joe Biden “rushed to make changes without considering their impact.” They didn’t ask if checks and balances were working. There was no need to ask if federal employees were essential, since the Democrats were in charge.
They asked this question about Biden and Congress: “In general, is it more important for President Biden to: (A) Compromise with Congress and find solutions, or (B) Stick to his position on issues even if it means gridlock?” It wasn’t close: 68% picked compromise, and only 21% picked the gridlock risk. So, PBS didn’t report that.
This is the poll finding that PBS repeatedly chose to highlight, and it had nothing to do with Biden. They found Republicans were substantially more hesitant to take the COVID-19 vaccine—41% of Republicans, and 49% of Republican men.
Then-PBS anchor Judy Woodruff threw that question to two Republican senators on two different nights, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell and Sen. John Barrasso, R-Wy., a medical doctor. On another night, they sent out reporter Yamiche Alcindor to do a whole story on the poll finding, and then asked Jonathan Capehart and David Brooks to address those backward Republicans.
Why are these networks even paying for polls if they’re begging for taxpayer dollars? Public opinion isn’t so much asking the public what they think. They’re telling them what they should think in choosing the tilt of their questions.
Tim Graham is director of media analysis at the Media Research Center and executive editor of the blog NewsBusters.org.
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