Fox News noted margin of error when Bush approval rating fell, but included no caveat when his numbers rose

Written by Josh Kalven

Published

Fox News chief White House correspondent Carl Cameron has repeatedly asserted that the drop in President Bush's job approval rating during his second term represents “not much of a slip when you factor in the ... margin of error.” Cameron's use of this caveat echoed an earlier effort by Weekly Standard executive editor and Fox News contributor Fred Barnes to downplay Bush's sinking approval ratings. But, in reporting on small increases in Bush's job performance numbers since the beginning of the year, Fox News personalities have not once mentioned the margin of error.

On the June 10 edition of Fox News' Special Report with Brit Hume, guest host Brian Wilson cited several polls showing Bush's approval rating below 50 percent. Barnes responded that Bush's job performance figures had all remained within a consistent range that did not exceed the polls' margins of error (typically +/- 3 percent) during the previous year and a half:

WILSON: Here are some presidential polls that have come out recently that show the president's approval rating has dropped below 50 percent. This is the Gallup poll. It shows his approval rating at about 47 percent. There's an AP poll that shows it at 43 percent. Every president wants to be at least at 50 percent.

[...]

BARNES: Let me respond to the presidential thing. You know, it's in the margin of error for where it's been for the last 18 months. Actually went up a point in The Washington Post poll this week.

A week later, on the June 17 edition of Special Report, Cameron used the caveat to downplay the four-point drop in Bush's job performance rating since his re-election in November 2004:

CAMERON: Polls show the president's public approval has fallen, but not as much as many may think. An average of the big national polls shows a dip of only four points since the president was re-elected last year, and that's within the margin of error.

Cameron employed a similar construction to dismiss a six-point drop in Bush's approval during a news report on the August 9 edition of Special Report:

CAMERON: [O]ften, Republicans are quick to say that the president's popularity problems are being undercut by wartime strain. But the truth of the matter is, the president's approval rating has not fallen all that much. When Mr. Bush was re-elected last year, the Gallup poll had his approval rate at 51 percent. Now it's at 45 percent, not much of a slip when you factor in the poll's 3 percent margin of error.

But a Media Matters for America survey* of all references to presidential job approval ratings on Fox News' evening lineup between January 1 and August 9, 2005, found that no Fox News personality mentioned the margin of error when noting increases in Bush's approval rating. In the six instances found during this period, Fox News hosts Brit Hume and John Gibson reported the poll without any caveats:

  • HUME: A new Pew poll taken after last week's terrorist attacks in London shows that President Bush's job approval rating has risen from 42 percent, as you can see last month, to 47 percent now. [Special Report, 7/11/05]
  • GIBSON: Meanwhile, our new poll also shows the majority of voters saying President Bush is doing a good job. His approval rating is up a point from 51 percent to 52 percent, while disapproval went down to 39 percent from 43 percent. [The Big Story, 3/3/05]
  • HUME: A new Gallup poll indicates President Bush's job approval rating is now the highest it's been in more than a year. In this poll, 57 percent say they approve of the way President Bush is handling his job. Last month, 52 percent said that in the Gallup poll. [Special Report, 2/7/05]
  • GIBSON: It isn't just the president speaking, and it just isn't the election November 2. The latest Time poll out today has the president's approval rating up to 53 percent, up four points from last month. [The Big Story, 1/17/05]
  • HUME: A new Fox News/Opinion Dynamics poll out today shows the majority of Americans approve of President Bush's job performance, going from 48 percent last month to 52 percent now, which is about identical to his support on Election Day. [Special Report, 1/13/05]
  • GIBSON: The other thing about this poll is President Bush's numbers are going up. Evidently, people like what he's hearing. In December, his job performance approval rate was 48; it's up to 52 now. [The Big Story, 1/13/05]

In attempting to downplay Bush's declining approval numbers, Barnes and Cameron ignored the far more favorable ratings received by Presidents Bill Clinton and Ronald Reagan at similar points in their second terms. A recent New York Times op-ed co-authored by Andrew Kohut, director of the Pew Research Center for The People & The Press, compared the job performance numbers of the four most recent U.S. presidents to win re-election. Kohut found that while Bush's approval rating dropped six points to the mid-40s during the first six months of his second term, Clinton's rating remained at 59 percent during the same period, and Reagan's dropped two points to 60 percent.

* Search terms used in Nexis search of Fox News evening broadcasts: "(president or bush) w/30 (approv! or job performance)"