The Harris Poll asked members of the public to pick their three favorite news personalities from a 26-member list, and Diane Sawyer grabbed the top slot by a fairly comfortable margin, named by 23%. Rush Limbaugh was tops on the negative least favorite list by a very wide margin.
Sawyer beat out Anderson Cooper and Brian Williams, who each scored 19%. All three did best with Democrats, then independents, then Republicans, and due to the fact that they focus on news reporting rather than delivering opinions, none of the three scored high on the least liked poll.
Limbaugh’s lines are very different. His overall liked rating was only 9%, but Republicans gave him a 22% rating. However, he scored a miniscule 2% among Democrats and only 7% among indies. On the negative side, almost two thirds of Democrats mentioned his name, as did almost half of independents. To top it off, almost one in four Republicans named him as least favorite. His overall score was 46%.
Among opinion-oriented news figures, Bill O’Reilly scored the best with a 15% total in the like column. However, it was balanced by a 31% dislike rating, again fueled by a high number of mentions by Democrats, a healthy vote from independents and even some problems among Republicans.
The highest rated avowedly liberal personality is Rachel Maddow, who scored a 7% on both charts – her favorable rating was fueled by Democrats and her unfavorable by Republicans.
Here is the list of favorites:
| Total | Rep | Dem | Ind | |
| Diane Sawyer | 23% | 17% | 28% | 25% |
| Anderson Cooper | 19% | 12% | 24% | 21% |
| Brian Williams | 19% | 13% | 24% | 20% |
| Bill O’Reilly | 15% | 29% | 4% | 15% |
| Barbara Walters | 15% | 10% | 22% | 13% |
| George Stephanopolous | 14% | 10% | 18% | 14% |
| Matt Lauer | 13% | 11% | 14% | 14% |
| Katie Couric | 13% | 9% | 16% | 12% |
| Rush Limbaugh | 9% | 22% | 2% | 7% |
| Sean Hannity | 9% | 25% | 1% | 5% |
| Rachel Maddow | 7% | 1% | 16% | 5% |
| Nancy Grace | 7% | 6% | 7% | 8% |
| Christiane Amanpour | 7% | 3% | 9% | 9% |
| Greta Van Susteren | 7% | 13% | 2% | 6% |
| Ann Curry | 6% | 6% | 8% | 5% |
| Neal Cavuto | 6% | 12% | 1% | 7% |
| Lester Holt | 6% | 5% | 8% | 5% |
| Wolf Blitzer | 6% | 4% | 8% | 6% |
| Bob Schieffer | 5% | 2% | 8% | 7% |
| Shepard Smith | 5% | 10% | 1% | 7% |
| Chris Matthews | 5% | 4% | 8% | 5% |
| Scott Pelley | 4% | 3% | 5% | 4% |
| Charlie Rose | 4% | 1% | 5% | 5% |
| Piers Morgan | 3% | 2% | 3% | 3% |
| Joe Scarborough | 2% | 1% | 1% | 4% |
| John King | 1% | 0% | 2% | 1% |
| None of the above | 20% | 18% | 16% | 20% |
| Source: The Harris Poll |
And here are the least favorites:
| Total | Rep | Dem | Ind | |
| Rush Limbaugh | 46% | 24% | 66% | 49% |
| Bill O’Reilly | 31% | 17% | 45% | 31% |
| Nancy Grace | 23% | 25% | 21% | 25% |
| None of the above | 22% | 21% | 18% | 20% |
| Sean Hannity | 14% | 6% | 23% | 13% |
| Barbara Walters | 10% | 16% | 5% | 9% |
| Chris Matthews | 10% | 18% | 4% | 9% |
| Katie Couric | 10% | 17% | 4% | 10% |
| Piers Morgan | 10% | 13% | 8% | 10% |
| Rachel Maddow | 7% | 13% | 2% | 9% |
| Wolf Blitzer | 7% | 7% | 7% | 8% |
| George Stephanopolous | 6% | 13% | 4% | 7% |
| Greta Van Susteren | 6% | 4% | 9% | 6% |
| Diane Sawyer | 5% | 8% | 2% | 5% |
| Anderson Cooper | 4% | 5% | 3% | 4% |
| Christiane Amanpour | 4% | 8% | 1% | 3% |
| Matt Lauer | 4% | 8% | 2% | 4% |
| Ann Curry | 3% | 1% | 4% | 3% |
| Brian Williams | 3% | 6% | 2% | 3% |
| Charlie Rose | 3% | 2% | 3% | 5% |
| Joe Scarborough | 3% | 3% | 3% | 5% |
| Neal Cavuto | 3% | 4% | 3% | 1% |
| Shepard Smith | 3% | 3% | 2% | 3% |
| John King | 2% | 2% | 1% | 3% |
| Bob Schieffer | 1% | 2% | 0% | 1% |
| Lester Holt | 1% | 0% | 2% | 2% |
| Scott Pelley | 1% | 1% | 2% | 2% |
| Source: The Harris Poll |
