Wed, Nov 15, 2006 1:25pm ET

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SURVEY: How the Media Portray Pelosi

Survey Refutes Pinkerton's Claim that Media Depict Pelosi as "Moderate Grandmother" from Baltimore

Washington, DC - A survey conducted by Media Matters for America of media coverage of House Speaker-Elect Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) for 90 days prior to the 2006 midterm elections found that the instances in which Pelosi was "presented" by the media as a grandmother from Baltimore were far outnumbered by those in which the media portrayed Pelosi as a San Francisco liberal. The new survey directly contradicts claims made by James P. Pinkerton on Fox News Watch.

During the November 11 broadcast of Fox News Watch, Pinkerton claimed the best example of a supposed liberal media bias is how Pelosi is "being presented to the American people as this moderate grandmother ... from Baltimore" instead of "from San Francisco and represent[ing] the left wing."

"Those who suggest the media have laid out a red carpet for Speaker-Elect Pelosi are flat-out wrong," said Jamison Foser, Managing Director of Media Matters for America. "The fact is that the media routinely mischaracterize Pelosi as having extreme liberal values and being outside the mainstream. In reality, her legislative agenda and views on key issues enjoy broad public support."

The Media Matters survey found that newspapers, broadcast networks and cable news networks repeatedly characterized Pelosi as a "San Francisco liberal" or a purveyor or symbol of "San Francisco values" while rarely mentioning the fact that Pelosi was a grandmother or that she was raised in Baltimore. Fox News showed the greatest disparity, with 19 characterizations of Pelosi as a "San Francisco liberal" and only one mention that Pelosi was a grandmother. The Fox News program Hannity & Colmes accounted for 11 of the 19 Fox News characterizations.

Lexis/Nexis database searches: "Pelosi w/20 San Francisco," "Pelosi w/20 Baltimore or grandmother" in Major Newspapers, ABC, CBS, NBC, CNN, FOX News and MSNBC. Editorials and foreign sources were omitted from the newspaper search. Items which used "San Francisco" only as an identifier of Pelosi's congressional district were omitted.

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