I regularly read news from the BBC and Reuters since they will always provide a slightly different point of view from US news services. So I was a little disappointed to read a misleading statement worthy of FOX News in a Reuters article.

The article was discussing how Americans are diassatisfied with the Bush administration and Congress based on the latest Reuters/Zogby poll. Buried in the article I came across this gem of obfuscation:

A majority of voters asked about former Vice President Al Gore said he should not run for the White House in 2008 despite winning the Nobel Peace Prize. About 51 percent said he should not enter the race and 40 percent said he should.

The Nobel award on Friday came halfway through the polling period. The Gore question was asked of 485 likely voters with a margin of error of plus or minus 4.5 percent.

Let me start with the first two words. "A majority" IMPLIES that a large number of Americans think Gore should not run for president. However, in the VERY NEXT SENTENCE we learn that the Reuters/Zogby definition of "a majority" is the smallest possible margin of 51%. A "majority," yes, but not the number evoked by the word.

But wait. There's more. That same sentence goes on to say Gore should not run "despite winning the Nobel Prize," which once again clearly IMPLIES that the Americans polled said no despite KNOWING he had won the Nobel Prize. But in the next paragraph Reuters admits that the polling began before the Nobel Prize was awarded, so it is possible that half of those polled were not aware of the award.

I expect better reporting from Reuters than I do American news services. Perhaps it is not better reporting I get from Reuters but merely the same sometimes-self-serving reporting, but from a different point of view. I take everything I read with a grain of salt, and I typically look for confirmation of important things anyway. But I am saddened to see such sloppy reporting by Reuters. On the bright side, though, at least Reuters disproved their own bias with facts included in the article. That still puts them above FOX News.

The article is here.