Leading the list of favorites, just under one-quarter (23%) of Americans cite Fox News Channel ’s Bill O ’Reilly as one of their three favorite news and current affairs personalities, followed by the host of ABC ’s World News Tonight, Charles Gibson and CNN ’s Anderson Cooper (17% each).

Leading the list of least favorites, a plurality of Americans (42%) say Conservative radio talk show host Rush Limbaugh is one of their least favorite news and current affairs personalities. The same number who cite Bill O ’Reilly as one of their favorites also say he is one of their least favorites (23%) and 19 percent say CNN ’s Larry King is one of their least favorite news and current affairs personalities.

These are the results of a nationwide Harris Poll of 2,302 U.S. adults surveyed online between January 15 and 22, 2008 by Harris Interactive ^®.

Rounding out the top five favorite news and current affairs personalities is NBC Nightly News anchor Brian Williams (16%) and then with 13 percent each is Meet the Press host Tim Russert, CBS Evening News anchor Katie Couric and 60 Minutes host Mike Wallace. On the other side, 17 percent say that CNN Headline News ’ Nancy Grace is one of their least favorites and just under that (16%) cite Katie Couric. In looking at the two lists, there are a number of the same people who are in the top ten on both. Bill O ’Reilly, Katie Couric, ABC ’s 20/20 ’s Barbara Walters, Rush Limbaugh and Fox News ’s Sean Hannity all are in the top half of the favorites and the least favorites list.

Partisan Differences

It ’s not just the backing of candidates that show partisan differences, their choices of favorite and least favorite news and current affairs personalities are also very different. For Republicans, their top three favorites are Bill O ’Reilly (42%), Rush Limbaugh (28%) and Sean Hannity (27%). Perhaps, not surprisingly, Democrats have a very different list of favorites – Anderson Cooper (22%), Brian Williams (20%) and Charles Gibson (19%). One thing to note is that Republicans are more united behind their favorites while the Democrats are a bit more fragmented.

Where the Democrats do show stronger support is in the list of their least favorites as three in five Democrats (60%) say it ’s Rush Limbaugh, followed by one-third (34%) who say Bill O ’Reilly and 17 percent who say Nancy Grace. For Republicans, just over a quarter (26%) each says Larry King and Katie Couric are their least favorites. Rush Limbaugh definitely inspires mixed emotions for Republicans as 24 percent say he is one of their least favorites.

So What?

With the rise of online news and information sites and the 24 hour nature of news, there are many more places for Americans to get their news. This means that just having the anchor seated behind the table isn ’t enough to grab viewers or listeners. These news personalities are competing for these viewers and each must try to stand out in some way. Maybe they focus on a single issue, trying to be the dominant news source on it. Maybe they go extremely high tech for announcing elections or, as in Tim Russert ’s case, very low tech and just carry around a white board and marker. Whatever it may be, the dissemination of news has changed and the Cronkites, Brinkleys and Huntleys are no longer around.

TABLE 1

FAVORITE NEWS PERSONALITY

“Thinking now of the media in general, of the news and current affairs personalities listed below, which three would you say are your favorites? ”

TABLE 2

LEAST FAVORITE NEWS PERSONALITY

“Of the news and current affairs personalities below, which three would you say are your least favorites? ”

Methodology

This Harris Poll ^® was conducted online within the United States January 15 and 22, among 2,302 adults (aged 18 and over). Figures for age, sex, race/ethnicity, education, region and household income were weighted where necessary to bring them into line with their actual proportions in the population. Propensity score weighting was also used to adjust for respondents ’ propensity to be online.

All sample surveys and polls, whether or not they use probability sampling, are subject to multiple sources of error which are most often not possible to quantify or estimate, including sampling error, coverage error, error associated with nonresponse, error associated with question wording and response options, and post-survey weighting and adjustments. Therefore, Harris Interactive avoids the words “margin of error ” as they are misleading. All that can be calculated are different possible sampling errors with different probabilities for pure, unweighted, random samples with 100% response rates. These are only theoretical because no published polls come close to this ideal.

Respondents for this survey were selected from among those who have agreed to participate in Harris Interactive surveys. The data have been weighted to reflect the composition of the adult population. Because the sample is based on those who agreed to participate in the Harris Interactive panel, no estimates of theoretical sampling error can be calculated.