New study shows: Media bias -- against Obama?
Tue Mar 04, 2008 at 08:55:49 AM PDT
Yes, the Clinton campaign's "working the refs" seems to have worked. The much-respected Project for Excellence in Journalism (PEJ), which has been charting mainsteam campaign coverage every week, is out with its latest today, and it finds that, indeed, Obama did get more attention that Hillary in the past week -- but much of it negative.
Almost 70% of stories focused on Obama, compared with 58% related to Clinton. But the Obama coverage was more critical and in-depth, the survey revealed, stating: "The media scrutinized everything from his legislative record to his connections to Louis Farrakhan, and frequently addressed the question of whether journalists have been too soft on the frontrunner for the Democratic nomination."
The review also stated, "Hillary Clinton’s complaints about a pro-Barack Obama media tilt helped prompt examinations of Obama’s record and catapulted him to a first-place finish in the competition for media exposure."
We received the study -- which is titled, "Press Takes a Harder Look at Obama -- and Itself" this morning at Editor & Publisher (where I serve as editor). I chatted about it with Warren Olney on his national PBS show this afternoon.
The survey, which tallied stories between Feb. 25 and March 2, reviewed coverage from 48 media outlets, including 13 newspapers ranging from the likes of The Washington Post to the Chattanooga (Tenn.) Times Free Press. Other details from the survey:
"Two converging factors may have contributed to the tenor of Obama coverage last week—the Clinton campaign’s increasing complaints about media bias and journalists’ sense that with Obama now a clear frontrunner, the time was right for a more thorough scrubbing," the report stated.
"It is also possible, as well, that the narrative about a faltering Clinton campaign had become familiar."
Then there was this revealing finding: "When the media weren’t vetting Obama’s record, they were questioning their own treatment of him."
Elsewhere, "Next to the campaign, the U.S. economy—staggering under more negative indicators, and stock market plunges—was the second-biggest story last week, filling 7% of the newshole as measured by the News Coverage Index ," the report said.
"That was followed by the conflict in Afghanistan (3%), where the news that England’s Prince Harry had been stationed there was the driving factor. Next came events inside Iraq (3%) and the Academy Award ceremonies, also at 3%."
Polls indicated that Clinton has rebounded and may even be surging in Ohio and Texas, with the new media "tilt" or at least new balancing act perhaps a factor. She appeared on Saturday Night Live this week and The Daily Show last night.
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NOTE: My ninth book, So Wrong for So Long: How the Press, the Pundits -- and the President -- Failed on Iraq (Union Square Press) has just been published this week. It features a foreword by Joe Galloway and preface by Bruce Springsteen.
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You can find PEJ study at:
http://www.journalism.org
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I blog at:
http://gregmitchellwriter.blogspot.com/
