Does the extent to which people's opinons are so swiftly and discreetly altered and controlled by tv/radio media outlets disturb you?

One of my part-time jobs includes doing national polls, so i get to hear the publics opinion on national and local issues quite often, and sometimes quite loudly.Having been doing this for just over a month there’s a somewhat disturbing trend i’ve noticed.

When asked about a broad topic or talking point, let’s say healthcare, most respondents have a quick, near-certain, positive or negative opinion to deliver (“Oh yes, I support it!”, “Oh I Certainly DO NOT! not at all!”). And yet when it comes to finer points about said talking points—in this case, maybe provisions w/n healthcare reforms, like having a the gov’t health care compete with private healthcare, or taxing people who refuse to buy health insurance at all respondents often fumble. their responses fall generally into one of three categories:
1.) one that addresses the pros/cons of said finer point (least likely)
2.) one that simply repeats their one-liner opinion about the broader talking point (“I support health care reform”/“I dont’ support health care”) without actually giving or having an opinion about that specific point. (more likely)
3.) giving an opinion which seemingly contradicts their support/disapproval of the original topic (just as likely as #2, and more likely than #1).

now, obviously my observations are not exactly scientific, but they are interesting to me no less, especially because i also often have to ask where and how the respondent’s receive their news from. hands down the most popular response is TV news (ABC, CNN, MSNBC, Fox, etc..). Thus, it seems a reasonable deduction that those are the places people are “learning” “information” and making “decisions” based off of.

However, the language respondents use when giving me their opinion is strikingly similar in tone and even phrasing as pundits. And while it might be argued that the pundits are there to argue on the behest of the public (the conservative guy in there spouting how the “real” conservatives in “america” think; the liberal guys doing the same), the second, maybe more troubling trend i’ve noticed is that frequently, i’ll hear the pundits, and anchors (is there a difference anymore???) spin news reports ahead of the public making changes in their attitude.

this is all to say, in short, that the public no longer gets “the news” from News Tv, or Radio, or the internet, but rather, they get telegraphic messages (yes, telegraphic, because they’re short, less than 8 words per issue, and without much deep research) on how to feel about an issue.