Was the Press Really 'In the Tank' for Obama?

[DeepModem Mom]

Editor&Publisher: Was the Press Really 'In the Tank' for Obama?
By Greg Mitchell

NEW YORK (November 10, 2008) -- (Commentary) This past Sunday, with the race for the White House finally over, Deborah Howell, the Washington Post ombudsman, examined the results of her paper's study of the fairness of its own election coverage in the past year. Soon articles, or links, relating to her piece were carrying headlines suggesting that the study had found that the Post had clearly “tilted” to Obama (this was Howell’s headline) or even showed a “major tilt” to Obama (that’s how Mark Halperin at his popular “The Page” blog at Time.com had it, as did many others, especially conservative outlets).

On top of the widely-publicized results of the recent Project for Excellence in Journalism news coverage survey, this seemed to amount to a slam bunk proving press bias against McCain.

But is that really what these studies show? It’s an important question because once any conventional wisdom is set, it is almost impossible to dislodge it.

It may yet turn out that major, exhaustive studies will prove that the media were grossly unfair to John McCain. Bring them on. But these studies don’t do that.

Since I’ve already written about the PEJ study, whose results were wrongly interpreted by many -- let me stick close to Howell’s report here.

First, like the PEJ survey, the numbers are thrown off by the fact that both studies found that "horse race" angles (including polling) thoroughly dominated the overall coverage in their samples -- 57% of the stories in the PEJ and much higher than that in the Post’s study (1,295 horse-race stories and only 594 issues stories).

This disgraceful proportion is worth its own critique about the media’s priorities, but the fact is: Except for a week after the end of the GOP convention, before Palinmania collapsed, Obama was ahead in the polls, eventually by a lot, and he always led in the fundraising (overwhelmingly), in the size of his crowds (ditto), and in putting more states in play. He couldn't help but lead in favorable coverage -- if that coverage was thoroughly dominated by these horse race angles (and it was). And McCain had to gain mainly "unfavorable" coverage.

My complaint about the Post and PEJ handling of their own results is not that they ignored this but that they did not make that key aspect clear at the very top of their analysis, not a few paragraphs down and without (in my view) enough emphasis. It is unquestionably the single leading factor affecting both studies.

So we will be reading for years about the strong media "bias" against McCain -- look at all those "unfavorable" stories about him -- when it was mainly (although perhaps not completely) a matter of Obama leading the horse race and getting credit for that by reporters who were, surprise, not deaf, dumb and blind. Does anyone doubt that if McCain had roared to the lead in October and stayed ahead until the end that the results of the studies would have been completely different?

Yes, the press is biased – in favor of recognizing who is winning and stating that perhaps too often.

Also: Can the media be faulted if one candidate is committing the major share of gaffes or (in this age of fact-check sites) making the most inaccurate statements in speeches and in ads? Is it “bias” to recognize that? Or to vet a candidate for vice president who (we now know) had not been vetted by anyone else?...

Then there’s this. Howell dryly relates one seemingly significant gap in the number of news stories on each candidate, going back to last November: 946 stories about Obama compared with McCain's 786. But this can be easily explained by the fact that McCain's primary race ended almost four months before Obama's! Of course, there were more stories about Obama from March to June, thanks to Hillary Clinton’s spirited fight....

***

PEJ and the Post can claim that they can only put the tallies out there, they can't control how pundits and reporters interpret or spin them or what they write in their headlines. True enough. But those who produce the findings need to explain clearly, and right at the top, what exactly was tallied, the "horse race" context, and other crucial factors, such as providing a list of which articles were viewed as favorable or unfavorable for a candidate so others can judge their standards.

Strong bias in news coverage of the 2008 campaign may yet be shown -- but it's not proven so far.

http://www.editorandpublisher.com/eandp/columns/pressingissues_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1003889222

[Traveling_Home]

1. Personally

I think we should just say Thank YOU!!!!!! and move forward.

[tularetom]

2. I heard about Rev Wright and Bill Ayers almost daily

I almost never heard anything about Keating 5, 5 trashed aircraft, dumping an injured wife for a younger wealthier model. And I fucking SOUGHT OUT the media I thought would favor Obama.

Nope, I ain't buying this.

[charlyvi]

3. Making up for their partisan lynching of Big Dawg?

They were a total disgrace during that spectacle. I'm still ashamed of them for doing it.

[napoleon_in_rags]

4. People felt strongly about this election.

I remember sensing emotion on the part of reporters at having seen Obama .. You can certainly argue about how appropriate that was, but its good to remember regarding it that they are all human too, they will have their own impressions.