if the choice is between the government and barack obama choosing who shouldet that money and dead forsmc -- ted fo, i'm take ted forsman. that's it for the panel, i'm paul gigot. we'll see you here next week. >> jon: on fox news watch, the presidential election more than one year away. and the first contest in iowa, how has the press painted political candidates. who is on top, who is not and how does the coverage stack up the g.o.p. frontrunners versus the pop democrats? >> good evening, and good morning. >> on the broadcast tonight. >> this as world news tonights. >> getting your daily dose of news has gotten easier, lots of options, lots of outlets and lots of concern about what you can trust. and whose news do you use. >> and is it solid? the today show, good morning america, and the the early

show. what do these programs have in common when it comes to talking politics and covering the g.o.p. field? the holiday shopping season is off and running, will negative media coverage scrooge your holiday spirit? >> three, um, um.... >> and the politicians are making late night television a must-see campaign stop. on the panel this week, writer and fox news contributor judy miller. radio talk show host monica crowley. jim pinkerton, contributor editor the american conservative magazine and bureau chief of talk radio news service, ellen ratner, i'm jon scott, fox news watch is on right now. >> let's start off looking at

polls. four months ago mitt romney in front for the presidential nomination by 9 points, michele bachmann in seconds. a month later, rick perry has the top spot in a cnn poll, knocking romney down a notch and newt gingrich shows up in the top group. in a usa today poll, from september, perry is on top. gingrich in second, ron paul in third. no sign of newt. and then in october, an msn bchmsnbc wall street journal poll, herman cain in the top spot. romney two, ron paul, no perry, no gingrich. this month, a fox news poll has newt gingrich on top, romney tight second and followed by herman cain and then ron paul. what are we to make of all of these polls. we in the media love them. do the viewers? >> probably. we know the media love them. they're cheap and give awe automatic story and you could go on tv and i could go on tv. here is a story. who ahead and who is behind.

don't have to interview anybody or-- >> make hire somebody else and make a bunch of phone calls and it's, it gives you an automatic quote for your story and makes it so-- >> does it give the -- does it affect the outcome, i think, of the races? >> well, we're a long way away from that and what is interesting and consistent is the search within this republican base for anybody, but romney. romney hangs in there, 20%, hard to get over 25. and all of the other candidates, and contenders rise and fall. after an oops moment. but romney is solidly there without any enthusiasm, but there. >> when you look at these results, and the things we just ready about, you know, the way that the polls shifted over time, it leaves people wondering if it depends which organization is doing the polling. >> that's number one, but number two, depends whether

they're polling based on sort of the television polls or as one article pointed out. and ron paul is the winner of the blog primary and i don't have to say that on jim's point about, you know, who is going to win this. the daily beast, they were looking for a story when they said did the republicans overreach? you can tell, guys, know they have to reach a deadline. >> jon: you worked for richard nixon and know something about media targets. >> for sure. (laughter) >> does the guy on top of the next poll become the target. >> anybody who emerges as a front runner at any given time in a presidential race receives the front runner status and scrutiny and it's happening to newt. one thing that's clear and true over the last few decades we've had mass media, mass media loves a horse race and judy is right when she points out the republican field is awash in indecision and a lot

of republican voters don't know what way they're going to go and that's why we've seen the back p and forth. what happens is you get a poll and you get a snapshot at one moment in time and indicates a trend and then of course the media establishes that as the current story line and then creates an impression and perpetuates itself. >> and also, i mean, gingrich at the bottom and all of a sudden toward the polls, do the polls mean anything a month ago. the polls are fine and the people are watching and why the news service does them. there's a limit how valuable they are for reporters, for example, if the polls show romney plus somebody, they love that. and that's the media temp plats they're looking to. the bloomberg poll this month, they don't want to have cain and paul head they want romney plus one. so the bloom berg poll got little attention despite the poll showing gingrich spiking. they want what they want.

>> jon: could that be a media mean? >> it's a filter, the filter the media, there's mean, template. there's narrative. it three or four buzz words we use here. >> jon: as we head for the iowa caucuses what's the media mean for the caucuses? >> oh, we have to wait and see about that. i still just totally focus on romney and the fact that most republicans say that they have not yet made up their minds, so, this could go in any one of a number one-- >> the media like news max did a story how anybody could beat obama basically and it was a politico gw poll and they choose and pick the polls going into their mean to write about. >> jon: well, and that's an interesting, i mean, what's the media treatment going to be of the president, as, you know,s a the republican field winnowed down and it's going to be winnowed down after iowa. >> certainly, i think what we saw in the last go round in 2008, that the media was totally in the tank for barack

obama, they were cheerleading him to no end and that of course is going to continue and once there is a republican nominee for president and then you'll he see the coverage switch to much more positive coverage on barack obama and his presidency and his campaign, less so on the republican side. >> he has referred to himself as an underdog. will the media permit him to maintain that? >> well, i certainly hope not. there's one statistic that should really trouble barack obama's camp and that is that right track, wrong track, country moving in the wrong direction, 75% again and again and again, it's very, very tough. >> if that's the case, then we wouldn't have a congress, because i mean, look how-- >> and they're running, too. >> real quickly, about when it comes to treatment, fair treatment in some of these republican debates, michele bachmann is complaining about the treatment she got at the hands of cbs a while ago in that debate and there was an e-mail that surfaced

inadvertently sent to her campaign from the political director, the new political director at cbs saying okay, let's keep it loose though, she's not going to get many questions and she's nearly off the charts in the hopes that we can get someone else, fair, ellen >> i don't think that was fair, but they're taking polls who is ahead and who is not. why not ask the people who listen to the debate whether or not people ought to get equal time. do a poll of those people. >> there's not a single republican or voters who's voted in any of the primaries yet. for the media to be picking and choosing which candidates based on the polls are going to get maximum attention and which aren't i think is grossly unfair. we have to take a break, first if you want to keep up on media stories during the week, watch the daily bias batch and check out the hot topics. >> jon: lots of place toss get your news these days, but can you trust them? .

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>> a couple of weeks ago we talked about how some members of the press, didn't support the comments benjamin netanyahu and our own president, growing to keep that under wraps and we talked about the child rape scandal on the campus of penn state and it was in the local papers nearly eight months before it erupted in national headlines. fox news was out in front with the coverage of the failed fast and furious gun running and deaths tied to the border

control agent. what eric holder knew and when he knew it. and the media barely touched it. and the green banner, and suddenly failed solyndra, after receiving more than half million dollars in government loans and igniting investigations. that story pretty much ignored by the media in the early going, all examples of the failures of the mainstream and liberal press, which is why we may be showing polls like these and unfavorable opinions of institutions. only the federal government fails more. pew research center thinks that the american media get it wrong more often than they get it right. your reaction to those poll numbers, jim? >> well, i think that they-- that the same pew data showed an enormous change over the last quarter century, they were saying that according to the pew center poll released in september a number of people think the media is

unaccurate from 34 to 66. bias 53 to 77 and influenced by the poll, 53-80. a serious case of mistrust for the media. in my mind justified. >> there are so many sources for news these days, ellen. shouldn't people be happy and-- >> if you look at number of hits that people take, on various websites or watch fox news channel or whatever. they're concentrated and so, yes, people can get the news from a lot of different sources, look, you can go and see every newspaper pretty much front page in the country. and that doesn't mean that people will take the time to look at it. i think that people are reacting to the very few news sources that are consumed. >> every new website has a chance to skew the news. >> certainly, it's directed toward a niche and people have a tendency to g seek out a validation of their own views, so, conservatives will go to conservative websites and liberals will go to liberal websites, but it used to be

decades ago. and decades can go, walter cronkite was known as the most trusted man in america and i think that over time as news unfolded, vietnam war, watergate, investigative journalism and the rise of institutions like fox news, news organizations that give you the other side in a fair and balanced way, i think it's opened a lot of people's minds to the fact that what they've been said for decades is slanted and biased. >> whoa, whoa, whoa, you said in the beginning mainstream media bus the liberals. some of us who are liberal don't think that the press is very liberal, i just want to say that. >> i found despite the numbers and declining assessments of credibility of the news media, people mistrust news they get from the government or from business or from other sources even more. so, yes, they trust us less, on the other hand they don't seem to trust anybody very much, trust, but terrify may

be a good motto for every news source. >> there was one particular case that caught our arey eye recently, it was natasha leonard new york times, pretty much into the gutter for good when she wrote this piece for the left wing salon magazine, why i quit the mainstream immediate yeah, she wrote. journalism must break the chains of objectivity and report truth and the occupy movement led me to do just that. that was her report. >> well, i'm glad she's found truth, as she defines it and let the american people decide what they wish to watch and hear and trust. >> but, i don't know, interesting if you can't report for the new york times in a way that, i guess, makes you feel like you-- >> again, it's always better when they say, flat out i'm giving ip on objectivity. that's at least a useful signal to the rest of us i can

turn this away. >> and whose. >> and we're all inherently without views to shape our opinion in a way to cover our news and emphasize the quote that we pick to write about or broadcast, that's clearly reflects that point of view. >> jon: time for another break, if you see something you think shows evidence of media bias. e-mail us at fox news watch.com. up next, are the media playing scrooge this holiday season? . >> the holiday shopping season is off and running, a chance to spend some cash. the are they suffering due to the are they suffering due to a humbug ♪ ♪ ♪ when your chain of supply ♪ goes fr here to shanghai, that's logistics. ♪ ♪ chips from here, boards from there ♪ ♪ track it all through the air, that's logistics. ♪ ♪ clearing customs like that

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>> just over a month to go until the iowa caucuses. and the candidates are becoming regulars on the big three network morning shows. do the producers and anchors of the programs have an agenda against the republican field? one conservative media watch dog group, the media research center examined 723 campaign related segments, including 101 interviews from this past year. and here are the results. according to the study, republicans were asked to respond to questions with a liberal agenda. 82% of the time. and questions about their conservative agendas were asked only 18% of the time. compare those results to 2007 when democrats were asked about liberal agenda items, 72% of the time, but on conservative issues only 28% of the time. and jim, what's going on here. >> i think it might be be a liberal bias. and i hate to throw-- >> and i hate to-- and here is one that's hard to argue with, that is according to the same data.

they identified republicans as quote, conservatives 49 times, and whereas they've-- and they identified president obama as a liberal one time and they've identified him as a candidate back in 2007 one time and whatever you want to say about the nature of the question to simply use that, automatically and cut you way from a lot of the votes from nonliberals and conservative and to labor somebody as one, it puts them in a box and tries to keep it there. is the immediate research study is correct and i read it just like you guys did, okay, they have a point, but i want to see how they really tag it because i'm not so sure if i were sitting there watching the same clips with the same kind of questions and even the liberal conservatives, i want to sit there with them. >> in fact, define liberal and conservative and how do they define it and how do they do it and-- >> it's required for both of you, using the word. >> i want to sit with them and see what else they're not missing, if they have a media bias and the way that they did

this study. >> i'm sherry they'd he love to have you come over. >> and the other point, too, the use of the terminology among the networks, jim, what you're saying they use the word conservative, but they mean it in a derrogatory way and the l-word, liberal word carries a negative connotation and less likely to use it. wings, left wing, right wing, saying the right wing candidate michele bachmann, but not the left wing president barack obama. >> and that's why liberals are preferring to refer to themselves as conservatives-- as progressives, there is sort after negative attached to that term. >> the gallup poll, 40% of the country is conservative and the rest are modern, that's a gallop and steady data. anytime you label somebody below 50 and everybody who is not a liberal. moderate whatever you are, you and tag nice and do it. >> it's a grand media conservative, jim. >> and the data right here.

>> you guys, let's move on to an interesting topic for a media watch show, holiday shopping, there has always been media hype, surrounding black friday and cyber monday, giving consumers lots of opportunities to spend money. and right between both, but also been a lot of negative news about the state of our economy, has that put the brakes on those who want to help boost the economy and find a good sale as well? what do you think. >> i don't think so. i think that people understand whether or not they're hurting and making calculations whether or not they're going to the stores after thanksgiving, based on a lot of other things, and i don't believe that what the super committee does or doesn't do is going to quote, spook them as one of these articles suggested. i do think that there's a great deal at stake here and this is 20% of all the year's retail sales, but i'm not sure we can-- >> with the marked headlines, holiday sales growing at a lackluster or expected to grow at a lackluster 3%, what's

wrong with a 3% growth. it's down 7% from last year, it's growth, guys. 3% over a period of ten years, a lot of growth. >> and forbes that same week reported that retailers were expecting sales to only increase 1.6%, so the numbers are sort of all over the map and nobody is really gotten out there except for this weekend, probably on holiday shopping. >> jon: we have to take one more break. when we come back, a new stop on the campaign trail. >> hey, listen, you try concentrating with mitt romney smiling at you, that's one handsome dude. >> political candidates making time for late night laughs, in a highly charged campaign season. season. is it helping or hurting theirir [ male announcer ] all over the world, there's a battery that's relied on to help bring children holiday joy, and while it doesn't travel by sleigh or reindeer, it does get around... in fact, every year duracell sends loads of batteries to the mattel children's hospital, u.c.l.a.

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>> jon: is it good when politics and comedy collide. they have always used politicians as fodder for jokes. what effect does it when they go toe to toe with the likes of letterman and kimmel. >> it was fantastic, the whole presidential thing doesn't work out. i think it's generally always good for politicians to go out and show a more human side. laugh at the audience. they are reaching a different audience. >> jon: and president has done it. >> this president has done it, bill clinton was a complete bomb at the democratic convention went