The Los Angeles Times is continuing its fawning and glowing coverage of Democratic freshman Senator Barack Obama. Only 11 days ago, after Obama announced the formation of his presidential exploratory committee, the Times commemorated the event on the top of its front page with 1,469 words, a color text box, and photos (see this).
Yesterday (Sat. January 27, 2007), the Times published its latest adulatory piece, "Early on, Obama showed talent for bridging divisions." It was on the front page, and it featured a nice, smiling photo of a youthful Obama with more pics inside. (See an image of the piece.) It runs a generous 1,204 words, and let's just say the Obama camp won't be calling the Times to complain. It's a pretty sweet profile. ("Interviews with more than a dozen people associated with the law review, both liberals and conservatives, found no one who did not profess respect for Obama." You get the idea.)
A search of "Obama" in the Times' archive since March 2004 returns 300 results. One quickly notices that Obama is a central figure in lots of the articles.
Meanwhile, a search of "Brownback" (as in Sam, the Republican Senator from Kansas running for President) over the same time period returns less than half of that number, 146 results. And unlike Obama, who is a major focus of several articles, Brownback is simply cited or mentioned by name in a vast majority of the pieces.
Only a week ago, I profiled how the Times is granting far superior coverage to Democrats than Republicans in the 2008 race (read it here). Its latest invigorating piece on Obama only adds to the evidence.
[If you haven't yet, check out the piece I penned two years ago, in Jan. 2005, called, "Los Angeles Times Launching 2008 Obama Campaign??" The Times has been swooning over this guy since (before) Day One.]
