Supporters of Vice President Al Gore and Texas Gov. George W. Bush have found one issue to agree upon - the press is hostile to their favorite candidate.
Most studies indicate there is pretty balanced coverage of the two major candidates.
If the media tries to hold a middle-road position, any partisan will see that very attempt as being hostile to their viewpoint. The average person is not calculating how biased they, themselves, are. The survey found that the more strongly voters identify themselves as Democrats or Republicans the more likely they are to perceive bias in newspaper coverage of the presidential race. Only 41 percent of people who said they are independent of any party loyalties said they believe their newspaper took sides in the presidential campaign. People who hold strong views on abortion, religion or any other public issue would tend to believe the media is hostile to their own views.