Media Bias Seems to be Apparent

So, there is media bias?:-

Poll: Media favors Kadima, hostile to Likud
By Anat Balint, Mazal Mualem and Gideon Alon

The media is widely perceived as sympathetic toward Kadima, but hostile toward the Likud and Shas, according to a new poll conducted by the Chaim Herzog Institute for Communications, Society and Politics.

The poll found that more than half the public believes that media coverage of Kadima has been supportive in the run-up to the elections, while only 10.8 percent view the media as hostile toward the party. In contrast, some 48 percent of respondents said that the media was hostile toward the Likud, while 52.6 percent said that it was hostile toward Shas.

With regard to Labor, however, the public was split: Some 32 percent said that the media was sympathetic toward Labor, while 22 percent said that it was hostile.

The survey also revealed that 62 percent of the public is unhappy with the media's coverage of the campaign, similar to the percentage that expressed dissatisfaction with coverage of the 2003 campaign. In particular, the survey found, 31.7 percent of respondents said that they would like to receive information about the parties' and candidates' plans and positions, while only 9.6 percent felt that the media was actually providing such information.

In contrast, only 16 percent of respondents said that they were interested in polls indicating how many seats each party was likely to win, yet 38.4 percent said that such polls seemed to be the media's main interest. Another 24 percent thought that the media has focused primarily on the candidates' personalities, while only 16 percent said that this issue was of interest to them.

Despite their unhappiness with the campaign coverage, however, 44.4 percent of respondents said that they were following it, while only 15.4 percent said that they were completely ignoring it.

See IMW's site for previous coverage. Here. And here.