Poll: More Respondents Find Hillary Clinton Coverage Fair

Pew Research Center Sees 58% of March Respondents Say Coverage of N.Y. Senator and Presidential Candidate is Fair, vs. 48% in February; Obama Numbers Steady

By John Eggerton -- Broadcasting & Cable, 3/6/2008 4:10:00 PM

The surge appears to be working.

That would be the surge of complaints by the Clinton campaign that media coverage of the campaign had been unfair, giving Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) a much easier time than Sen. Hillary Clinton (D-N.Y.).

According to a Pew Research Center poll of 1,000 adults 18-plus, while 48% of respondents in a February poll said the coverage of Clinton was fair, that number rose to 58% by March.

But while Obama did start getting some more media scrutiny -- of an aide's comments about NAFTA and Obama's own Chicago land dealings -- the public did not appear to notice.

Asked if the coverage of Obama was too tough, 8% said yes in February and the percentage didn't change in March. In fact, the percentage of people who thought the coverage was fair was the same 58% for both candidates, although that was a 3% drop for Obama February to March as opposed to Clinton's 10% boost.

Coverage of Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) got even higher fairness marks at 64% in March (63% in February).

The vast majority of survey respondents said they wanted more coverage of domestic-policy (78%) and foreign-policy (74%) positions, with only 35% saying they needed more coverage of the horse race -- i.e. who is leading in the polls.

The campaign and economy have also pushed the war in Iraq down the nation's news-agenda list, with 47% of the survey group saying the campaign was the story they followed most closely, 17% the economy and only 12% saying it was Iraq.