CNN, which I previously considered to be one of the least biased news outlets, revealed itself to be quite biased in its coverage following the Republican Presidential debates on June 13. Not biased toward the left or right, but rather biased toward their preconceived notions.

CNN ran a poll on their web site asking users who they thought won the debate. Texas Representative Ron Paul was the clear winner of the poll with 78% of the votes. Second was a tie between Mitt Romney and Herman Cain, each with 6%. CNN and many other news channels have been treating Mitt Romney as the “presumed frontrunner”. But on what is that assumption based?

CNN’s confirmation bias toward Romney led them to discard their own poll results and go searching on the web for an outcome that more suited their own preconceived notions about who should have won. However, they discovered that almost all the other polls showed the same result: Ron Paul with a commanding lead. CNN finally found a poll they liked, from the National Journal online, that showed Romney the winner with 51% and Michele Bachmann second with 21%. They ignored the fact that this poll was based on only 54 responses while all the others had thousands! Their on-air team used this shoddy poll for their post debate coverage.

One of the major reasons politics in this country never seem to change is this confirmation bias of the mainstream media. The ideas that are different–although popular with those who are aware of them–are marginalized by the media because they don’t trust their own numbers. The media needs to step up and report reality even though it contradicts their long-held views.

Related posts:

• Why the mainstream media should cover Ron Paul