The Harvard Shorenstein Center has done a series of analyses over many elections. Their recent study was trumpeted by conservative media and websites as proof of liberal bias: "Even Harvard Finds the Media Bias. Unsurprising a deeper review of this and other years does not bear this out. Instead of a consistent partisan bias, the media has a rotating, pack-mentality bias. (I do not say the media is without permanent bias on individual issues: whether dealing with those who take religion as all-important (evangelical, Moslem, or atheistic), corporate business issue, free trade etc.)
But the most significant finding are not the tone of media coverage but the subjects.
The October 29th Project for Excellence in Journalism Study
Note the period covered is is the initial period before the breakthrough of the "Hillary is inevitable" meme.
Topics of Coverage
Strategy polls, fundraising, "inside politics" 64.3%
Personal topics (Marriage, health, religion, etc.) 17.3%
Domestic Policy 7.2%
Foreign Policy 7.5%
Public record 1.4%
Other 3.1%
(to drive Dems crazy 24% of Dem coverage was personal issues while only 13% of Republican coverage was). These numbers are similar to, but worse than 2000 and 2004. At those times, 55% of the coverage was strategy, polls, etc and and in 2000, 24% of the coverage was issues. In sum, Onion had the analysis correct: the principle issue of the campaign is BS; the press does a superb job covering BS, and the commentators give their personal evaluation that Hillary is the master of BS.)
No wonder the Pew polling show that 77% of the public wants more coverage of issues while a 45% plurality want less coverage of polls.
Other Key Findings from Early Campaign
* Just five candidates have been the focus of more than half of all the coverage. Hillary Clinton received the most (17% of stories), though she can thank the overwhelming and largely negative attention of conservative talk radio hosts for much of the edge in total volume. Barack Obama was next (14%), with Republicans Giuliani, McCain, and Romney measurably behind (9% and 7% and 5% respectively). As for the rest of the pack, Elizabeth Edwards, a candidate spouse, received more attention than 10 of them, and nearly as much as her husband.
* Democrats generally got more coverage than Republicans, (49% of stories vs. 31%.) One reason was that major Democratic candidates began announcing their candidacies a month earlier than key Republicans, but that alone does not fully explain the discrepancy.
* Overall, Democrats also have received more positive coverage than Republicans (35% of stories vs. 26%), while Republicans received more negative coverage than Democrats (35% vs. 26%). For both parties, a plurality of stories, 39%, were neutral or balanced.
* Most of that difference in tone, however, can be attributed to the friendly coverage of Obama (47% positive) and the critical coverage of McCain (just 12% positive.) When those two candidates are removed from the field, the tone of coverage for the two parties is virtually identical.
* There were also distinct coverage differences in different media. Newspapers were more positive than other media about Democrats and more citizen-oriented in framing stories. Talk radio was more negative about almost every candidate than any other outlet. Network television was more focused than other media on the personal backgrounds of candidates. For all sectors, however, strategy and horse race were front and center.
The findings about who got the most favorable coverage and the focus on horse race in many ways reinforce each other. Obama, the first candidate of color to be a major White House contender, performed better in polling and fundraising than expected in these early months. McCain, in contrast, was a former presumed front runner who fared far worse in the polls and in fundraising than anticipated.
Clinton's profile (from the study) was identical to Guiliani (approximately 27% positive to 37% negative). It is undeniable that Obama and Clinton get way more coverage than all of the other candidates, but last year McCain was getting huge coverage as the leading candidate for President, including Time and Newsweek covers, Hillary is more of a celebrity than the dwarfs on the Republican side, and Obama is a breakthrough candidate. This imbalance was not present in prior years.
In 2000 the positive v. negative coverage showed no difference between the parties. Here were parallel results for individual candidates in 2000- you will see that Bush and McCain got most of the coverage in the early campaign with Bush getting more coverage than Hillary has and McCain and Bardley getting the same % coverage as Obama this year. In contrast Gore got only 11% of the coverage. 2000 PEJ study
Rotating Bias - the pack mentality
In case you think that there is a permanent partisan bias in the tome of media coverage, compare the 2000 and 2004 studies on the end of the campaigns:
In the closing weeks of the 2004 presidential race, the period dominated by the debates, President George W. Bush has suffered strikingly more negative press coverage than challenger John Kerry, according to a new study released today by the Project for Excellence in Journalism.
More than half of all Bush stories studied were decidedly negative in tone (1). By contrast, only a quarter of all Kerry stories were clearly negative.
This is the mirror image of what happened four years ago, when then-Governor Bush benefited from coverage in the closing weeks, particularly from the debates, enjoying twice as many positive stories than his rival Vice President Gore (2). Indeed, the percentage of negative Bush coverage is almost identical to the level of negative Gore coverage four years ago.
2004 PEJ report on debate period
None of us can miss that in the period subsequent to this study's coverage, about 2 1/2 months ago, Hillary was able to swing the coverage of the press to the "inevitability meme," and the press followed as a pack into favorable coverage for Hillary for nearly two months. She was able to do this partly due to skill, partly celebrity (not everyone can command performances on all talk shows the same week), and partly because the press loves to write about the horse race - of it is an easy subject to divert them into. Then came the Philadelphia debate, and the press loved the chance to again pivot on a horse race issue again - this time the wonderful story that it was a horse race. This despite the fact that only 2.5 million nationwide saw the debate and when averaging the polls and viewing margin of errors there was no noticeable effect across a sampling of polls). But during those two week Hillary and Bill laid the foundation for a new meme - "Hillary's Back" - or "That's Why The Lady is a Champ"; on Thursday, she executed well enough to have the press follow as a pack her pre-prepared story line.
This is obviously good execution by Hill, Bill and the whole Clinton team. Hillary has a well-established brand with average Democratic voters. Not just Bill and Hill, but all of the Republican advertising (against the "feminazi") gives her a well established brand as liberal, pro average- Joe (actually Mary), women, minority, etc., despite the views of some political junkies such as on this site. ("We love h[er] for the enemies [s]he has made"). So to the degree the coverage is about the horse race, and particularly if favorable, it is all to her benefit. But don't overestimate the effect. Hillary's national support grew by a third, firmed up in level of commitment, and reduced in negatives in a period of moderately hostile coverage, while Obama's rapidly peaked and declined during positive coverage. In the face of more favorable coverage, her numbers have actually leveled out. Gore moved from behind to ahead (in popular vote) in the face of 2-1 hostile media coverage in 2000 while Bush won in the face of hostile coverage in 2004. It's not the hostile coverage that hurts the candidate - its how they deal with it. Successfully overcoming hostile coverage and getting one's message through despite it appears to leave a candidate stronger than ever.
Also the press has a vested interest in taking her back down a peg to accentuate the horse race. Tim Russert shows how the professional challenge will work. On H-Sunday, at the beginning of her favorable press period, Hillary scheduled appearances on all 5 major talk shows at once, when on them, handled all the gotcha questions without a single punch landing and got the same coverage from each show: "Did you see how smoothly she handled my tough questions - the lady is a master." Thereafter, Timmy took this as a personal challenge and at the next opportunity they fought to a draw. Finally, by the time of the Philadelphia debate, his entire objective was to score points on Hillary, he carefully polished his traps, and he succeeded. After the debate going after Hillary was old news, so logically it was time to see if they could embarrass those going after her as hypocrites. So whereas in Philadelphia it was set up that Hillary couldn't have a good answer to licenses, in Las Vegas it was nearly pre-ordained that Obama couldn't have a good answer. In Philadelphia, let's help Edwards show Hillary as a flip-flopper, by Las Vegas, that's old, so let's show Edwards as a flip-flopper. But in both cases, try to make the question as gotcha as possible because we wouldn't want any sort of nuance in dealing with the issue - that would interfere with the story line and actually focus on an issue rather than a horse race.
So take heart, Obama-Edwards fans, now that the Lady is a Champ again, I'm sure Timmy and other press stars will be constructing new verbal ambushes for her.