ONT #2: There's #FakeNews and #FakeNews

The regularly scheduled ONT is bulging up faster than Megyn Kelly's sense of self-importance, so here is an emergency ONT which I hope will tide us over until morning. Open thread, of course, and I've managed to scare up a wee bit of content.

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There's actually two kinds of #FakeNews. The first occurs when CNN reports stuff that isn't true. The second is when CNN doesn't report stuff that should be reported, stuff that really is kind of noteworthy, stuff that they'd report if circumstances were different. Such as this article from Investors Business Daily, Here's One Poll The Press Doesn't Want You To See:

Gallup report that came out last Friday, which took a final look at the President Obama's popularity over his eight years in office.

That poll found that Obama's overall average approval rating was a dismal 47.9%.

Only three presidents scored worse than Obama since Gallup started doing these surveys in 1945: never-elected Gerald Ford (47.2%), one-termer Jimmy Carter (45.4%), and Harry Truman (45.4%).

But, but... How could this be? Hasn't CNN been continually assailing us with poll numbers for Obama that make him sound like he's right up with Kim Jong Un? Didn't CNN highlight these high numbers for 8 years, just as they highlighted the low numbers for George Bush during the 8 previous 8 years?

Didn't they? I feel so, so... cheated, I guess the word is. It makes we wonder what else is out there waiting to be reported, now that Obama out of the picture and CNN doesn't have to suck up to him anymore.

By the way, how did 'W' do, compared with Obama?

Obama even did worse overall than Richard Nixon, whose average approval was 49%, and was less popular overall than George W. Bush, who got an average 49.4%.

Alrighty then. So basically CNN has been lying to us all this time. Good to know.

Actually, we already did.

Theologians divide sin into two categories, sins of commission, wherein you do wrong things, and sins of omission, wherein you don't do right things. We could name them #FakeNews1 and #FakeNews2, which would give us a little more information about what form CNN's malfeasance is taking.

But kudos to IBD for covering this Gallup report. I'm sure it will be on CNN Real Soon Now.

posted by OregonMuse at 01:52 AM

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