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Press Favored Obama Throughout Campaign
narcberry writes "After complaints of one-sided reporting, the Washington Post checked their own articles and agreed. Obama was clearly favored, throughout his campaign, in terms of more favorable articles, less criticism, better page real-estate, more pictures, and total disregard for problems such as his drug use. 'Stories and photos about Obama in the news pages outnumbered those devoted to McCain. Reporters, photographers and editors found the candidacy of Obama, the first African American major-party nominee, more newsworthy and historic. Journalists love the new; McCain, 25 years older than Obama, was already well known and had more scars from his longer career in politics. The number of Obama stories since Nov. 11 was 946, compared with McCain's 786. Both had hard-fought primary campaigns, but Obama's battle with Hillary Rodham Clinton was longer, and the numbers reflect that. McCain clinched the GOP nomination on March 4, three months before Obama won his. From June 4 to Election Day, the tally was Obama, 626 stories, and McCain, 584. Obama was on the front page 176 times, McCain, 144 times; 41 stories featured both.'"
I'm glad someone is finally stating the obvious.
I don't see this as evidence of bias on the part of reporters, I see it at evidence of the Democratic Primary running as long as it did.
Also, the Republican campaign(s) threw a lot of mud which of course prompted coverage. If Mccain hadn't put Obama in the news so much, he wouldn't have been in the new so much. If the accusations had more merit the resulting coverage wouldn't have been as positive as it was.
Samsung took back my unlocked bootloader because Google wants me to rent movies. They're both evil.
The media (with the exception of Fox News) has always had a pretty large liberal bias.
Really? To the rest of the world (or at least western Europe), even 'left wing' American newspapers appear hilariously conservative.
The goal of the media to sell advertising and papers. They do this by 'sexing' up the news as much as possible to make people want to read it. If it bleeds, it leads as they say. Why read boring stories about real substance when you can read Exciting! Stories! About Stars!
So its no surprise Obama had more favorabe coverage. He was by far the 'sexier' candidate.
(Tho Palin was hotter)
Do the numbers factor in Sarah Palin at all? I'm too lazy to sign up for the Post.
She was in the news quite a bit, at least a HECK of a lot more than Biden. I'm not saying her press was "good" but there was a lot of it.
Comparing Obama+Biden vs McCain+Palin probably results in closer numbers.
Besides, are we really surprised? Obama running as the Democrat nominee was history in the making. Of course he would get more press.
That's not "a pretty large liberal bias".
That is the Washington Post focusing on the easiest stories to "write". The ones that don't require any research. The ones that don't require any knowledge of the issues.
I can't speak for other countries, but that was certainly the case here in Australia - Obama was being discussed as if he were already president, and McCain was rarely mentioned (the Americans being interviewed had to keep reminding the Australian reporters that McCain even existed). Perhaps it has something to do with the excitement of the possibility of the first black president, or perhaps the political alignment of Australia made us favour Obama, who knows?
Commodore64_love: I don't comprehend people who're so frightened of death that they'll bankrupt themselves to stay alive
I'd say you've pretty much nailed it with that comment. A lot of the coverage of Obama was prompted by attacks that he was "pallin' around with terrorists" and whatnot. The press investigated, found that the concerns were baseless, and the result was what ammounts to a positive story for Obama. Then, of course, McCain keeps up the attacks and the press writes what ammounts to a negative story about how McCain is slinging mud on the campaign trail. It's not really that the press was biased (though I will give you that the media does tend to have a leftist tilt), so much as that they covered what was happening on the election trail. How was anyone supposed to spin the facts as a positive story for McCain? Obama, on the other hand, didn't give the press much chance to cover McCain. His attacks were far fewer, and according to most fact checkers nearly every one of them had merit.
Here's a personal account of an election worker in Iowa dealing with voter "purges":
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/11/10/precinct_elections_official/
Do not start talking about "fair" without also addressing those purges.
And from TFA:
So you're talking about a difference of 160 stories. Over almost a year. Let's just call it a year. That means we're talking about a difference of less than 1 story every two days.
Meanwhile, McCain's 786 stories equates to just over 2 stories every day for a year.
Compared to Obama's 946 which equates to ... just over 2 stories every day for a year.
But every THIRD day, Obama would get THREE stories and McCain would only get TWO stories.
Yeah, and you're going to complain about the press "favored" Obama?
Sure, you can survey the number of times this candidate was mentioned in a positive or negative light and give an `objective' metric to compare to other candidates. The problem is that such a methodology ignores whether or not a candidate deserves those positive or negative mentions. To take extreme cases, consider either Alaska's Ted Stevens or Louisiana's William Jefferson. One would claim that if media coverage of these two men wasn't disproportionately negative that this would show bias. Sometimes a candidate is deserving of being attacked (or lauded) more frequently than his or her opponent.
Compare the CNN to the CBC in Canada and you'd swear Canada is a quasi-Socialist country!
The CNN only 'appears' to be left-biased because the rest of the media is actually right-biased. In my eye, the CNN is quite centrist.
I don't think there really is a media outlet with a left-bias in the US... But I'm speaking as a Canadian with only a passing interest in American politics.
52 52'23" W 47 32'07" N
Meh.
You often hear hard-right folks complaining about liberal media bias. And I also often hear hard-left folks whining about the media's conservative bias.
Here's the reality: the media is fairly centrist, vaguely center-left. Obama isn't a hard-left liberal. He's pretty much center-left. Most voters are vaguely center-right, with a significant center-left contingent. The folks that complain the loudest are usually either hard-left, hard-right or some minority political position.
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If you have watched the campaigns of both McCain and Obama, there is also a clear difference in what has been said on both sides. It was even more clear for the month leading up to the election.
The Obama campaign has spent the most time saying what Barack Obama felt were the solutions to the problems, and talking about the problems out there. There was very little McCain/Palin bashing from the campaign. It may have been the press coverage, but I didn't see the Obama camp really stirring up anti-McCain feelings with fairly few advertisements saying why people should not vote for McCain.
On the other hand, EVERY rally that McCain and Palin were at showed no solutions, just reasons why they said not to vote for Obama. This shows why McCain lost, because he didn't show he was focused on why people should vote for him.
So, in the press, why should they cover, "Republican candidate bashes Obama but says nothing about how to deal with the issues" day in and day out? If McCain was more presidential BEFORE his concession speech, he would have done better.
Also, when a candidate ONLY focuses on his/her "base", it makes anyone not in that group feel that there is no reason to support that person. If people in the press have a normal bias toward a more moderate to liberal candidate, then those who are focused on ONLY targeting the conservative people, it just makes for there being no real news if that conservative candidate doesn't say anything new.
Did McCain EVER talk about having real solutions, or just how people should be afraid of having Obama as president?
But the reactions here (on Slashdot) to articles about the candidates various technological positions did seem to do fairly well from a "number of comments" point of view.
I'd say that this is more a matter of the same phenomena that we see in every election now. The "pundits" talk about whatever is easiest for them to talk about. And they're words get coverage because it's easier for the "reporters" to just regurgitate whatever they've heard.
So, rather than research a subject and ask INFORMED questions of the candidates THEMSELVES we get the topic de jour from the pundits, then echoed by the reporters, then echoed by other reporters and then echoed by other pundits. Since all of the pundits and reporters are talking about it, it MUST be an important issue, right?
I think that is why we saw so many websites pop up this election that did independent fact-checking of the candidates' public statements.
Is there any surprise? The media (with the exception of Fox News) has always had a pretty large liberal bias.
Having said that, Obama is young, charismatic, and is promoting the change America wants. He would have won either way.
Reality has a well-known liberal bias!
Tomato wedge sperm darts that are Republican.
Being apologetic is not a sign of cowardice. It is actually a sign of great courage that many leaders have the skill to do so.
----- You know you have ego issues when you register a domain in your name.
To the US, much of Western Europe (minus perhaps the BBC) appears hilariously liberal - this coming from a regular reader of the NY Times (and who lives in New York) and someone who voted for Obama.
I do emphasize 'appears,' though, because I don't think this necessarily means there is a bias on the part of the reporters or the editors. By any objective measure I can think of, Obama was incredibly newsworthy. I wanted to vote for McCain (I'm a small business owner) but I couldn't stomach Palin; still, McCain received plenty of coverage around here. I think that the newspapers do their best to report stuff that they think is newsworthy, and having some arbitrary rule like 'we must publish an equal number of pieces about each candidate' is the type of gesture-laden but meaningless decision that is all too regular these days -- and it would ultimately result in fluff pieces or lowering the standards of what makes the news just so you get an even count.
My biggest beef with the NY Times is that, particularly since Obama was elected, it's been piece after piece about the 'barrier-breaking' historical significance of the event; the guy has gotten a big pass on making substantive policy statements just because he's such a 'game-changer.' I don't mean to take away the gravitas of the historical situation, but I think we've been congratulating ourselves so much on our enlightened stance that we've indirectly said that, had we elected McCain instead, it would've been nothing more than backwards racism at work (since electing Obama was so forward-thinking of us). We get quotes from people around the world like 'There is the feeling that for the first time since Kennedy, America has a different type of leader' (http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/11/05/reactions-from-around-the-world/?scp=3&sq=america%20president%20rest%20of%20world%20follow&st=cse) and similar comments praising the basic fact of the event itself.
So it comes as no surprise to me that McCain would have to work twice as hard to get attention from such a 'landmark' event. I like and respect Obama, and I'm very interested to see how he'll do - but I think we let him skate by, particularly in the debates, with a lot of vague promises. I'll celebrate him being a game-changer once the game has actually changed.
As for your original point, though, a (more liberal) friend of mine pointed out that, even in spite of the semi-regular absence of substance -- these were campaign promises, after all, and he's hardly alone in making vague ones -- there is an unavoidable perk in our reputation abroad not because Obama is a proven diplomat (he isn't) but because he's not George Bush and not a Republican.
Except they didn't...
Even in their own countries people opposed those dictators. Some didn't even know (their own fault in part I admit) the extent of the evil those men did. Most people were bystanders, who might have done something, but choose to stand aside because they didn't want to have their families hurt.
And seriously, how is four men, from four countries, "most of the world"? A large part of the rest of the world fought against them you know?
Not to count how the heck you can justify such a statement and how it relates to modern European and worldwide sensibilities, when most European countries are social-democrats, when those countries that lived under such monsters are now stable democracies (Russia excluded). Maybe you should pay more attention to what goes on in the world now, instead of wearing your post-WW2 rose-tinted Made in USA glasses (hint: they're Made in China now).
If he explores all forms and substances Straight homeward to their symbol-essences; He shall not die.
A story about an American newspaper, dealing with American politics, and an American scale of liberal/conservative bias has nothing to do with the rest of the world.
i only wish that were true. the fact that you think it is only goes to highlight how ignorant some americans are about the ramifications of the behaviour of their government with regards to everyone else in the world. I'll clue you in. THEY'RE MASSIVE. And the behaviour of your government can only be influenced by the will of the american populace - so your attitudes as reflected through your media are of great interest to everyone else in the world.
(1.21 gigawatts) / (88 miles per hour) = 30 757 874 newtons
Oh, and one more thing:
"Then I tried to think of cases in recent decades where world opinion differed significantly from the US media's dominant spin. I can't think of a single one."
Umm, there was this tiny little thing called Iraq, where basically noone agreed with you, or believed your claims of evidence. That might not be the impression you got from your domestic media, though.
International opinion was also much quicker to oppose the Vietnam war than the domestic majority.
We all laughed our asses off at how it is possible to let a president's fling almost overthrow the country.
I think you might find also find that international opinion on your christian right and neocons is far less accepting than in the US.
sudo ergo sum
Sometimes, I really wonder if any of you people "get out" and "see the world".
You want liberal bias? Watch or listen to PBS/NPR?
Although that said, it was NPRs in depth coverage of who Obama
actually is and where he actually came from that started to
demystify him considerably. If you scratch beneath the surface
he seems a lot less unreal (imagine that).
This is a good example of how journalists should be providing
a lot of useful information, so much so that there's enough
real information there to allow the audience to make up their
own mind and counteract whatever bias might be obvious in those
presenting it.
Enough information will eventually destroy all bias.
Of course Americans tend to be lazy and generally anti-intellectual.
So if the news is anything more than a sound bit or two it might just
get filtered out. Commercial media has to account for this.
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
The guy who makes my sandwich at lunch for minimum wage works harder than I do. Maybe he didn't work as hard in school, or isn't as smart or whatever, but you know, somebody has to make the sandwiches. I personally appreciate the people who do that (or who take out the trash, mow the grass at the park, etc). I don't mind paying 4% higher taxes so that they can be taken care of when they get brain cancer or something.
Conservatives need to get over this nonsense idea that rich business owners are the hardest-working members of society and the only ones who deserve all the perks. My salary is not determined entirely by how hard I work; a large part involves market forces outside my control. I'd be a moron to not realize that I'm at least a little bit lucky. This argument over who is working the hardest does not favor the wealthy.
I have seen the future, and it is inconvenient.
FWIW: historically, when there is a serious economic downturn in an election year, the incumbent's party will lose. It does not matter if the incumbent is Democrat or Republican; voters often want change.
$nice = $webHosting + $domainNames + $sslCerts
Oh, and when asked about his drug use back in October 2006 said "Of course I inhaled. That was the point". On video.
No, I have no idea why the media would not want to spend reporting resources and column inches covering this repeatedly.
And would you agree that Obama has been far more open about his illegal substance abuse than certain other presidents?
But then the "red" states would suffer. You see, they take from the economically more productive "blue" states, on average. It is ironic that the GOP whines about income redistribution, when their states benefit from it.
http://money.cnn.com/magazines/fortune/fortune_archive/2004/11/29/8192719/index.htm
Really? To the rest of the world (or at least western Europe)
Amerocentrism bad, eurocentrism good!
If the Democrats had nominated an old guy who'd been around forever and the Republicans had nominated someone fresh and dynamic whose candidacy was historic, the coverage disparity would have been the other way around. It's a mistake to say this is evidence of media liberal bias. Obama was simply more newsworthy and interesting.
That would have been a mistake. Unless your business is insanely profitable, you would've gained nothing from McCain
My business is not insanely profitable (though it is profitable) and you are incorrect. I stand to benefit considerably in the short term from Obama's policies - I'll get a tax cut and my health care will be cheaper, but I'm not convinced that it will be better, as I'm leery of government stepping in to the health care arena even more than it already does. I believe that healthcare is a responsibility and not a right and my lowest point with respect to Obama came when he gave the all-to-easy 'health care is a right' answer during one of the debates. I pay $320/mo for moderate (not great) health insurance right now and I'd be lying if I said I wasn't looking forward to that going down, but at what long-term cost? I don't want Canada's health care system, or the UK's, and I don't buy Obama's assertion that we can provide a single-payer national system while still keeping private insurance -- sooner or later the Dems are going to make it even more difficult to be a doctor in this country than they already have. My SO is altering course from medical school to Physician's Assistant school just so she can get a regular salary and regular hours (even if it's under $100k) rather than establish a Byzantine bureaucracy in her own eventual practice to double- and triple-book patients just so she can run a profitable practice.
If Obama's tax plan passes then it will create a dis-incentive for me to perform beyond a certain point. Right now I deal exclusively with contractors. As a NYC-based business I already have very little incentive to grow a business with full-time employees -- and I'm originally from Delaware, where the opposite is true.
McCain's tax and health care plan made quite a lot of sense to me. I am always delighted to hear people who do not run businesses tell me what I would or would not have gained, though, but the reality is that you don't know until you run the numbers. Because I support just myself right now, I'm in the clear - but the last thing I want to do is to be running a small business that does gross over a million or so a year (gross, not net, and that's still 'small') because then I'm squarely in the crosshairs of the 'big business' that liberals love to hate and love to tax, regardless of how big a business I think I am.
'Just invest that surplus money into expanding the business' sounds a bit pithy and easy, like there's some magical button I press to keep my capital expenses up and my profits down. It's not always up to me.
Finally, I have read Obama's web site (and McCain's). I want to do the best that I can and I have no problem paying taxes - but I could've planned much more for what McCain planned to do than I can from what I know about Obama's initiatives. Both guys have a big problem telling us how they're going to pay for any of their plans, but I had confidence that McCain is going to be a, well, conservative spender, based on a clear record. Obama's simply unproven.
If I'd voted just in the interest of my small business then I would've voted McCain. But there's more to being an American than my bottom line, even if that's my only source of income. I'd consider myself a 'Republican Reptile' ala PJ O'Rourke - fiscally conservative (in the 'small government' sense) but socially liberal - and neither party has represented my views for so long as I've been eligible to vote. The McCain of 2000 was probably the closest I've seen.
I guess what I'm saying is that I'm not an ideologue - I really do respect both Obama and McCain and I think either one is fundamentally better for the US than Bush. I try to deal in day-to-day stuff that affects me while not losing sight of the shape the country and its finances are in. I saw just as much (if not more) anti-White racism during the campaign as I did anti-Black, and right now I'm looking through the congressional record to find the exact votes between 2002 and 2004 wher
It wasn't an issue of "balance", the Obama visit was simply the bigger story.
And generally, Obama was a far bigger story than McCain. I mean, "My God, our next president may well be an elderly white man who married into money! Who'd have ever thought that such a thing could happen!" honestly doesn't make for such an interesting news discussion.
If journalists were discussing the potential significance of someone with Obama's background becoming president, it was difficult not to be positive. It was difficult to think of as much positive material relating to the idea of someone with McCain's background becoming president.
So Obama's campaign won a lot of positive news coverage by providing news stories that were difficult not to cover positively.
Where the situations were reversed was with the choice of VP. Biden was a hellishly boring VP candidate, and consequently didn't get much coverage. Old white guy with worthy credentials and a lot of tedious experience. Snore. Nothing to see, move along.
McCain OTOH deliberately chose an "exiting" VP candidate, and consequently got huge amounts of media coverage off the back of it.
Unfortunately for the McCain camp, there was a lot more to say about Palin that was potentially negative than potentially positive, and even a lot of republicans winced at the idea of "President Palin", because the person honestly didn't seem to know enough to be considered presidential material. And Palin seemed to love the attention - the McCain people couldn't complain that news people were putting undue emphasis on Palin, because that's why McCain chose Palin - to get headlines and try to stir up some excitement. But other than McCain himself, it was difficult to find anyone in the Republican Party with any experience who was prepared to stand in front of a camera and declare that they thought that Palin would actually be a competent President if anything should happen to McCain. So that then generated a further tendency for negative stories about the McCain campaign compared to the Obama campaign, and that in turn generated discussions about the relative judgement of the two candidates, since Obama was generally considered to have run an excellent campaign despite his relative inexperience, and since McCain seemed to have made at least one critical error, in his VP choice.
If that was the situation, then reporters were obliged to report on it. They weren't obliged to try to impose a corrective bias onto the news in order to force an artificial 50:50 balance in airtime, if the available stories and information didn't justify that balance.
Eric Baird