Want to talk media bias?
A new study from the Project for Excellence in Journalism found that since the Republican National Convention, there have been three times more negative press reports about John McCain than positive ones.
By contrast, during the same period, media coverage of Obama has been more positive than negative.
Think this might be impacting voter perceptions?
Here are the study's key findings (emphasis added):
[C]overage of McCain has been heavily unfavorable—and has become more so over time. In the six weeks following the conventions through the final debate, unfavorable stories about McCain outweighed favorable ones by a factor of more than three to one—the most unfavorable of all four candidates—according to the study by the Pew Research Center’s Project for Excellence in Journalism.
For Obama during this period, just over a third of the stories were clearly positive in tone (36%), while a similar number (35%) were neutral or mixed. A smaller number (29%) were negative.
For McCain, by comparison, nearly six in ten of the stories studied were decidedly negative in nature (57%), while fewer than two in ten (14%) were positive.
Fascinating. Yet, what's most interesting about this study is it appears media indeed responded to complaints that Obama was getting all their attention.
Their solution?
Add negative reports about McCain:
McCain did succeed in erasing one advantage Obama enjoyed earlier in the campaign—the level of media exposure each candidate received. Since the end of August, the two rivals have been in a virtual dead heat in the amount of attention paid, and when vice presidential candidates are added to the mix the Republican ticket has the edge. This is a striking contrast to the pre-convention period, when Obama enjoyed nearly 50% more coverage.
Well, at least they evened out the amount of coverage, right?
*****Update: Previous headline and text changed a bit. In my flu-weakened condition, I transposed "times more" for "times as many."
If there were 57 percent negative reports compared to 14 percent positive, this either means four times as many or three times more. Sorry for the confusion.
—Noel Sheppard is the Associate Editor of NewsBusters. Follow him at Facebook and Twitter.
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Comments Policy
Difficult to glean from the PEJ study, how
October 23, 2008 - 10:34 ET by Gary HallDifficult to glean from the PEJ study, how absolute censorship of investigative news reports on Obama and Biden play into these numbers, Noel. How do you count something which is not there. Where are the dozens and dozens of stories; the in-depth investigative reports on Obama and Biden, on the dozens of issues which we here know all too well now?
Out here in lala land: A typical day in the LA Times, for instance, will have 1 - 2 additional stories on Palin. This is in addition to the ususal match up of one or two very negative stories on McCain vs. one or two very positive stories on Obama (with the pictures matching the theme). The attack stories on palin are often run several times on the same item - from various angles - still waiting for the next several variations on the damn bridge to nowhere. The creativity of some of these are beyond imagination; who dreamed up that angle?
While the LA Times can show that it has included in some of it's in-depth looks at Obama, a few qustions on issues here and there; they have never set out to print "hit pieces" on Obama or Biden. The paper carries daily hit pieces on McCain or Palin that run against daily tales from paridise on the Obama road show.
Pie in the sky.
October 23, 2008 - 10:34 ET by CrashBeing that the left can't function basic tasks like reporting news honestly. How will they ever manage to divide the pie equally amongst tax payers?
They know what feels right
October 23, 2008 - 10:54 ET by NorthCoasterand will divide the pie so that their power and control is strengthened.
To me, this is the money
October 23, 2008 - 11:07 ET by AuH20girlTo me, this is the money quote though:
"Much of the increased attention for McCain derived from actions by the
senator himself, actions that, in the end, generated mostly negative
assessments. In many ways, the arc of the media narrative during this
phase of the 2008 general election might be best described as a drama
in which John McCain has acted and Barack Obama has reacted."
In other words, "It's McCain's fault we're covering him so negatively. If he weren't so nasty and racist, we wouldn't have to write these stories about him."
Kinda like a guy telling his wife if she wouldn't nag him so much, he wouldn't have to hit her.
http://goldwatergirl...
Close
October 23, 2008 - 13:50 ET by mbuel"Kinda like a guy telling his wife if she wouldn't nag him so much, he wouldn't have to hit her."
I would say it's more like:
"Stop trying to sell us Socialism!" (since Joe the plumber)
"McCain is being a race baiter!","Socialism is a race baiting term" (Rush talked about this one yesterday.)
Palin has accomplished great things, while Obama has continued to make empty promises that the world owes you a living.
This study understates the bias
October 23, 2008 - 11:24 ET by Anchor89This study only counts stories that cover McCain or Obama specifically. It doesn't count other stories related to the campaign such as the avalanche of critical stories about Joe the Plumber versus the lack of any stories about people such as Bill Ayers. Go one step further and compare the stories that report that the cause of the current financial crisis is Wall Street (and therefore Republican greed, deregulation, etc) versus stories that blame the crisis on Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac and their diasterous policies that were the result of Democrat meddling.
I have been hearing on the news that the economy is on the verge of recession for years now. Whenever it FINALLY happens, they will say "See we told you so" and then blame it on Bush (unless McCain wins, and then they will blame it on him). The bias is so bad that even John McCain is apologizing for the last eight years in his television ads. I don't know if McCain actually believes that the last eight years "didn't work out so well" or whether he realizes he can't compete with years of biased anti-Bush reporting, but the time to start getting the truth to the American people isn't the weeks before the election, it is a fight that must be waged continuously against the MSM.
Again, for journalists who just don't get it: Bias and Balance is more often about what you don't report than what you do report.
Latest case in point...
October 23, 2008 - 11:26 ET by cest moiHave you seen the article from Sky News clickhere, wherein the "reporter" calls the video of a young, tortured John McCain "tarnished" because he's holding a cigarette??????? In 1967 he's holding a cigarette, and that nullifies the content?
Crock Obama smoked crack, bums cigarettes from folks - but McCain gets ink because he had a cigarette in 1967.
Freakin' strange times, no?
Doesn't Barack owe MSM some $$$$$$
October 23, 2008 - 11:30 ET by Roscoe MendagoIs the media a cheering section? It seems that every day of this election the people in the MSM are rooting for an Obama win and are actively reporting in such a way to achieve that end. The way I see it maybe there should be funding extracted from the Obama campaign to cover the endless, favorable "ads" they're running to benefit "their" candidate. It's a miracle McCain is as close as he is.
So What?
October 23, 2008 - 12:01 ET by pbthinkerThe media seems to believe that, if they keep on putting out a story about how fair the coverage, that's sufficient to solve the problem. The problem is the coverage is unfair and overly negative and it's still that way. Wasn't there an article, in the Washington Post, a couple of weeks ago, on the same thing.
Hell, Sarah Palin's clothes purchase is only a few dollars more than the hush money Mahoney paid out and yet this is a big story. Look at the questions Brian Williams asked McCain/Palin and compare them to what he asked Obama. If Brian Williams believes that's fair, he needs to go back to school.
Democrats: Stuck on Stupid since 2000.