POLITICO Fails To Fact-Check Rasmussen's Claims...

[MarcATL]

Politico fails to fact-check Rasmussen’s claim that he ‘has never been a campaign pollster or consultant.’

Reporting on criticisms of right-leaning pollster Scott Rasmussen, Politico presented as fact his official bio as “an independent pollster” who “has never been a campaign pollster or consultant.” The article quotes Rasmussen’s critics, but fails to question his supposed independence:

While Scott Rasmussen, the firm’s president, contends that he has no ax to grind — his bio notes that he has been “an independent pollster for more than a decade” and “has never been a campaign pollster or consultant for candidates seeking office” — his opponents on the left insist he is the hand that feeds conservative talkers a daily trove of negative numbers that provides grist for attacks on Obama and the Democratic Party.

According to the non-partisan Center for Public Integrity, Rasmussen has been a paid consultant for the RNC and President Bush’s 2004 campaign. The RNC paid Rasmussen $95,500 between 2003 and 2004 for items listed as “survey,” “survey cost” and “voter data.” Bush’s campaign paid Rasmussen $45,500 for “survey research.”


Think Progress » Politico fails to fact-check Rasmussen’s claim that he ‘has never been a campaign pollster or consultant.’

 

[uscitizen]

Hmmm


but he was a democrat then?

 

[MarcATL]

Rasmussen was a Dem?

 

[CrusaderFrank]

Politico fails to fact-check Rasmussen’s claim that he ‘has never been a campaign pollster or consultant.’

Reporting on criticisms of right-leaning pollster Scott Rasmussen, Politico presented as fact his official bio as “an independent pollster” who “has never been a campaign pollster or consultant.” The article quotes Rasmussen’s critics, but fails to question his supposed independence:

While Scott Rasmussen, the firm’s president, contends that he has no ax to grind — his bio notes that he has been “an independent pollster for more than a decade” and “has never been a campaign pollster or consultant for candidates seeking office” — his opponents on the left insist he is the hand that feeds conservative talkers a daily trove of negative numbers that provides grist for attacks on Obama and the Democratic Party.

According to the non-partisan Center for Public Integrity, Rasmussen has been a paid consultant for the RNC and President Bush’s 2004 campaign. The RNC paid Rasmussen $95,500 between 2003 and 2004 for items listed as “survey,” “survey cost” and “voter data.” Bush’s campaign paid Rasmussen $45,500 for “survey research.”


Think Progress » Politico fails to fact-check Rasmussen’s claim that he ‘has never been a campaign pollster or consultant.’

Center for Public Integrity - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

"...Funding from George Soros

The Center has been criticized for accepting large funds from George Soros, a politically active billionaire and critic of the Bush administration. [25][28][29][30]. The Web site of one of Soros' organizations, the Open Society Institute, discloses four grants to the Center, all made before his entry into the 2004 presidential contest. They are:

* A $72,400 one-year grant in 2000 supporting "an investigative journalism series on prosecutorial misconduct."[32]

* A $75,000 one-year grant in 2001 supporting "an examination of wrongful convictions resulting from prosecutorial misconduct."[33]
* A $100,000 one-year grant in 2002 "to investigate the political spending of the telecommunications industry on the federal, state and local levels."[34]
* A $1 million three-year grant in 2002 "to support the Global Access Project."[35]

The first two grants funded what eventually became the "Harmful Error" report, which was headed by Steve Weinberg. Weinberg is a professional journalist and former director of Investigative Reporters and Editors.

The telecommunications grant supported the launch of the Center's ongoing "Well Connected" project. According to the Center's site, other funding for that endeavor has been provided by The Ford Foundation[36]. The project has won an Online News Association award for enterprise reporting[37] and the Sigma Delta Chi Award for Public Service in Online Journalism[22].

According to its Web site, the Global Access project—now known as Global Integrity—seeks to "collect and disseminate trustworthy, credible, comprehensive and timely data and information on governance and corruption trends around the world." It publishes the Global Integrity Index, "an annual ranking of 50-100 diverse countries in more than 290 indicators of openness, governance, and anti-corruption mechanisms[38]."

Despite their previous connections, the Center documented Soros' political donations during the 2004 political elections as a part of its "Silent Partners" project, which won an Online Journalism Association award for its reporting on the "527" groups that bypassed campaign finance disclosure regulations to funnel millions of dollars to both candidates[22].
[edit] Funding from Bill Moyers and the Schumann Foundation

A 1999 report in the Seattle Times raised questions about the ethical behavior of PBS journalist Bill Moyers by documenting examples of his work that featured sources whose organizations have been funded by the Schumann Foundation, a philanthropic group he heads. Among the recipients of Schumann grants featured in Moyers' journalism has been the Center's founder Charles Lewis.[citation needed]

In 2004, Moyers and the Center were further criticized by Cliff Kinkaid of Accuracy in Media[29], who emphasized that Moyers has also served on the board of the Open Society Institute[39], a foundation started by a George Soros that has itself also funded projects at the Center.

lol yeah, non-partisan