FOX News Channel and syndicated radio host Bill O'Reilly touted poll results that indicate a slightly larger percentage of Americans consider FOX News Channel unbiased than consider ABC and CBS unbiased. (A slightly larger percentage of Americans consider NBC and CNN unbiased than consider FOX News Channel unbiased.) But when the same poll showed that 34 percent of Americans believe that FOX News Channel is trying to help President George W. Bush, O'Reilly dismissed the result as “perception.”

Discussing a recently released Rasmussen Reports poll examining perceived bias in TV news on the September 23 edition of The Radio Factor, O'Reilly eagerly drew conclusions from the data that favored FOX News Channel, but rationalized away data when it proved unflattering to the channel:

O'REILLY: 33 percent of Americans think CBS has no bias whatsoever. None. One out of three. 36 percent of Americans think ABC has no bias. 38 percent think FOX News has no bias, so we're better than CBS and ABC in the bias department. 39 percent think NBC and CNN have no bias. So it's pretty much a tie between NBC, CNN and FOX has no bias.

[...]

And CNN, 25 percent think they're trying to help Kerry, 12 percent help Bush. FOX, 7 percent of Americans think that we're trying to help Kerry, 34 percent think we're trying to help Bush. All right.

Now, I think a lot of that is on perception because I go and I -- and I talk to people who don't watch FOX and they say well, you're GOP TV, and I say, “When was the last time you watched a FOX show?” Never.