It’s time for another edition of NewsBusters Time Machine. MSNBC journalists make a lot of statements that are highly mockable. But it was ten years ago today, on March 23, 2009, that fill-in host David Shuster derided the obvious liberal love affair for Barack Obama as a “fantasy.”
Guest hosting for then-anchor Keith Olbermann, he introduced a segment this way: “Even though independent reports have shown the media was more critical of Barack Obama than John McCain during the presidential contest, there is still a fantasy that the press is gaga over now-President Obama.”
What independent reports? He didn't say. An August 2008 Media Research Center investigation found much different results. After looking though 1365 evening news broadcasts (going back to Obama's first appearance in 2000), the MRC concluded that the then-candidate received almost seven times more positive stories than he did negative.
Here’s what the MRC’s Rich Noyes said when looking back at a decade of “media drooling over Barack Obama”:
As President, reporters touted his “prodigious talents,” his “amazing legislative agenda,” and his “huge achievements.” And as an individual, journalists fawned over Obama, calling him “one of our brightest presidents,” a “huge visionary,” “the perfect American,” “our national poet,” and “the most noble man who has ever lived in the White House.”
