Study: "political press a hidebound institution out of touch with the desires of citizens"

[babylonsister]

Study: Media narrows field of candidates

By JIM KUHNHENN, Associated Press Writer Mon Oct 29, 1:25 AM ET

WASHINGTON - When it comes to presidential politics, the news media loves front-runners. And seems to hate them, too.

Within the first five months of the presidential contest, the media effectively had reduced the field to five candidates, even though there were 17 mainstream Democrats and Republicans, a study of political coverage found.

But the tone of the coverage for the top two front-runners — Democrat Hillary Rodham Clinton and Republican Rudy Giuliani — hardly was friendly. Nearly four out of 10 stories were negative, more than three out of 10 were neutral and only the rest were positive.

The study by the Project for Excellence in Journalism and the Joan Shorenstein Center on the Press, Politics and Public Policy, to be released Monday, also portrays the political press as a hidebound institution out of touch with the desires of citizens.

Among the findings:

• Stories focused more on fundraising and polls than on where candidates stood on the issues, despite a public demand for more attention to the policies, views and records of the candidates.

• The public's attention to campaign news is higher now than it was at similar points in the past two elections, but that interest is only shared by less than one in four people.

• Five candidates — Democrats Clinton and Barack Obama and Republicans Giuliani, Mitt Romney and John McCain — received more than half the coverage. Elizabeth Edwards, the cancer-stricken wife of Democrat John Edwards, received almost as much media attention as her husband.

• Democrats, overall, got more coverage — and more positive ink and airtime — than Republicans.

• Obama enjoyed the friendliest coverage of the presidential field; McCain endured the most negative. That was due in part to the media's focus on fundraising; Obama raised more than expected and McCain raised less.

more...

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20071029/ap_on_el_pr/campaign_media_coverage

[ananda]

1. None of the institutions nor officials..

.. are interested in the needs and desires of real people.

[SpiralHawk]

2. D'oh

See below for an atual documentary image of one of America's crack blowdry journalists at work serving the corrupt cabal of republicon homelander cronies and their occult fat-cat overlords.

Ptoooey on the so-called press, failing America so badly in a time of Constitutional crisis.