Little late there, folks
So, after the constant fellating of Obama by the press, a few outlets decide to shame the media. With a week to go. First up:
The sheer bias in the print and television coverage of this election campaign is not just bewildering, but appalling. And over the last few months I’ve found myself slowly moving from shaking my head at the obvious one-sided reporting, to actually shouting at the screen of my television and my laptop computer.
And from the same bit:
Middle America, even when they didn’t agree with Joe, looked on in horror as the press took apart the private life of an average person who had the temerity to ask a tough question of a presidential candidate. So much for the standing up for the little man. So much for speaking truth to power.
And: Why McCain is getting hosed in the press:
The Project for Excellence in Journalism’s researchers found that John McCain, over the six weeks since the Republican convention, got four times as many negative stories as positive ones. The study found six out of 10 McCain stories were negative.
What’s more, Obama had more than twice as many positive stories (36 percent) as McCain — and just half the percentage of negative (29 percent).
You call that balanced?
Well, they have an election to win.
October 29th, 2008 at 5:29 pm
well, let me throw some flame bait up.
First off, the obvious, our press sucks. One thing is that they are a business and report on what people want to hear about. Apparently, me and most of the readers of this blog don’t fit that demographic. That’s why we see tons of stories about something stupid that some celebrity did lately (i.e. Brittany Spears, Paris Hilton, etc.)
We also see this in the political coverage. Sarah Palin’s $150,000 wardrobe has gotten way more attention (IMHO) than the trooper-gate report..and I think most of us can agree that the wardrobe is a non-story (as is John Edwards $400 haircut, McCain’s shoes, etc.) compared to trooper-gate.
However, the fact that the media has the proclivity to report certain types of stories doesn’t necessarily infer bias.
Now before getting too deep into this post, let me ask that we not rehash arguments about different events. For instance, I don’t agree with most of you on the importance of Ayers, and I’d rather not get into that in this thread or other issues. We can (and have) discussed that in other other threads.
With regard to the coverage on Palin, frankly she’s a horrible candidate. I know many of you disagree, but when we’ve had a steady stream of conservatives endorsing Obama and all of them citing Palin as being a major factor in that decision, I’m clearly onto something.
With regard to the coverage of gaffes, McCain and Biden have both had several gaffes and McCain’s have gotten little coverage as has Biden’s. Palin hid from the press and then did two interviews. Anything that she said in those interviews was going to be amplified and the bad was going to be amplified more than the good. This is unlike the other three candidates who talk to the press all the time. If she had nailed those interviews, that’s what we would have heard. Now that Palin is doing more interviews, her gaffes aren’t being amplified like the misteps in her first two interviews. Beyond that, when you had a couple of National Review columnists telling Palin to resign for the good of her country, maybe the MSM wasn’t stretching.
Beyond that, the press does a story when it breaks and then moves on. Ayers, Resko and Wright have all been done and the press moved on. In the same way, I haven’t heard much about the Keating 5 and McCain’s first wife lately. By the time Obama selected Biden as his running mate, we already knew everything there was to know about Obama, Biden and McCain. When McCain chose an unknown candidate, there was lots to learn about her and thats what we are seeing.
In the last 2 months, there hasn’t been much knew that has come out about Obama or Biden and there is little that either has done which has been newsworthy. Between them, they won all 4 debates as measured by polling.
O.k., flame away.
October 29th, 2008 at 5:45 pm
Reality itself is biased against the McCain campaign. That is to say, it’s been a poorly-run campaign compared to Obama’s campaign, and it’s been full of blunders. Starting from their acceptance speeches, with Obama speaking eloquently in front of thousands of thronging supporters while McCain spoke stiffly in front of a green backdrop to hundreds of mildly enthusiastic supporters—that’s reality, and it’s not the presse’s fault.
Obama’s negatives have been reported on, as have McCain’s. The difference is that, for better or for worse, Obama excites people in a way that McCain simply does not, so McCain’s negatives stand out more.
So? That in itself means nothing. It could mean that the campaigns are equal but the press is unfairly biased against McCain—or it could just as easily mean that there are simply more positive stories to run about Obama. Or it could be somewhere in between.
Surely you’re not suggesting that an equal number of positive and negative stories be run for both candidates, creating an artificial “balance” that may not exist. If the shoe was on the other foot, would you or any of these writers be complaining that McCain was receiving more favorable press—especially if you think he deserved it?
October 29th, 2008 at 7:12 pm
Are you people Blind?
October 29th, 2008 at 9:01 pm
That report pretty much blows up any idea that the media cares about reporting the news. My head is still spinning from Mort Kondracke’s (sp. correct?) explanation of why Palin’s ‘gaffes’ are fair game while Biden’s are not. Or the fact that any time she gets a long interview with the press her words get chopped up mid-sentence or in a way to change her meaning. At least O’reilly did not do something like that.
Most of the support that Obama is getting is a result of the fawning, groveling good press he is getting.
October 30th, 2008 at 4:26 am
Just a damn minute here. All these failed actors, who had not the talent to make it in Hollywood are somehow supposed to be impartial?
Bullshit! They have a role to play and a script to follow, and they are doing their best to secure a long run. After all, the backers of the play are entitled to a return on their investment. Fiction sells better than fact and these people are dedicated to that commerce.
October 31st, 2008 at 3:59 pm
One of the main problems with the media is that they don’t really report that much on the ISSUES—on the policies and the specifics of each candidates actual platforms. They should, because that’s the information that Americans should be using to make their decisions. But they don’t. Election coverage tends to focus on the campaigns themselves. And the fact of the matter is that McCain’s campaign is going quite poorly and Obama’s is going well. Imposing artificial balance on this reality would be a bias of its own.