Campaign Shocker
Study finds coverage of the McCain camp three times more negative than Obama press. Washington Post’s Howard Kurtz with the stunning news:
Media coverage of John McCain has been heavily unfavorable since the political conventions, more than three times as negative as the portrayal of Barack Obama, a new study says.
Fifty-seven percent of the print and broadcast stories about the Republican nominee were decidedly negative, the Project for Excellence in Journalism says in a report out today, while 14 percent were positive. The McCain campaign has repeatedly complained that the mainstream media are biased toward the senator from Illinois.
Obama’s coverage was more balanced during the six-week period from Sept. 8 through last Thursday, with 36 percent of the stories clearly positive, 35 percent neutral or mixed and 29 percent negative.
Hold up, Howie. Not to get semantic, but I think we’ve just established that balance = imbalance in this case.
McCain has struggled during this period and slipped in the polls, which is one of the reasons for the more negative assessments by the 48 news outlets studied by the Washington-based group …
Yeah, a couple of points in a race that has remained a virtual deadheat and the the news reports start screaming about “panic” and “disarray” in the McCain camp. A more qualitative study might start looking not only at the overall positive and negative, but the kind of langauge that has been employed. That, and the out-and-out shilling.
… But the imbalance is striking nonetheless.
OK, now that that’s been established, a more interesting study when this is over with might be how the reading and viewing public responds to that, and whether the Obamist elements of the media actually did their guy any favors. We already know the public views the press as more disreputable than lawyers, and there is enough anecdotal evidence out there that people have noticed the bashing.
Meanwhile, the report goes on to claim that McCain was getting positive press prior to the economic downturn, although it goes on to note the massive Palin bash that preceded that, as if the two can be separated. I’d suggest again that assessment re McCain wouldn’t withstand a closer look below the headlines. Neither would this:
While some will seize on these findings as evidence that the media are pro-Obama, the study says they actually contain “a strong suggestion that winning in politics begets winning coverage, thanks in part to the relentless tendency of the press to frame its coverage of national elections as running narratives about the relative position of the candidates in the polls … Obama’s numbers are similar to what we saw for John Kerry four years ago, and McCain’s numbers are almost identical to what we saw eight years ago for Democrat Al Gore.”
Hate to say it, but the Obama adoration has preceded indepedent of and disproportionate to any of the polling shifts in what remains a tight race, as evidenced not least by the study’s own finding that McCain is getting whacked at three times the rate Obama is. How about “a fawning press begets fawning coverage.”
Posted by Jules Crittenden at 9:38 am on Thursday, October 23, 2008
3 Responses to “Campaign Shocker”
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October 23rd, 2008 at 10:33 am
Jules, keep your eye on Powerline for an Obama campaign scandal that should be carried by every news outlet out there, but won’t be. Here’s the first part, but I’m sure they will have more very soon:
http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2008/10/021856.php
The implications of this are shocking, to say the least. This should be big news, but I’m sure it will be ignored or “debunked” like everything else that exposes Obama’s dishonesty and disdain for our electoral system.
October 23rd, 2008 at 10:48 am
How about the fawning Howard Kurtz was still fawning over the messiah when McCain was ahead in the polls shortly after his convention. Excuse upon excuse upon excuse.
October 23rd, 2008 at 11:37 am
Apologies for the nonsensical response. I meant to say: The fawning Howard Kurtz and the fawning media were still fawning over the messiah when McCain was ahead in the polls and that the polls therefore had nothing to do with the media’s negative reporting. Rather, Kurtz and media are agenda-driven, i.e., take out McCain at any cost. This piece by Kurtz is simply another lame excuse.