Conservatives would love for you to believe the myth that the traditional media (which they pejoratively call the MSM) is in the tank for Obama, but you don't need to look far to find out that they are full of it. For example:
It's hard to look at that and believe the myth, but if you're the type that wants hard numbers
Pew has now delivered them. Over the last five months:
Obama has received the most unremittingly negative press of any of the presidential candidates by a wide margin, with negative assessments outweighing positive ones by four to one.
Pew found that just 9 percent of the president’s coverage was positive, while 34 percent was negative — a stark contrast to the 32 percent positive coverage and 20 percent negative that it found Texas Gov. Rick Perry, the most covered Republican, received.
“His coverage has been substantially more negative in every one of the last 23 weeks of the last five months — even the week that Bin Laden was killed,” Tom Rosenstiel, director of the Project for Excellence in Journalism, said of the president’s treatment in the media compared with that of the GOP field.
Nine percent of the coverage about President Obama was rated positive compared with 34% negative and 57% neutral. Meanwhile, Rick Perry was the most favorably covered, with 32% positive and 20% negative. Although his coverage has turned negative over the past couple of weeks, over the full five month period the tone of his coverage was positive as was that of his highest profile colleagues.
The top four most favorably covered candidates, the study found, were all tea party favorites: Perry was followed by Palin, with 31 percent positive coverage and 22 percent negative; Michele Bachmann, with 31 percent positive coverage and 23 percent negative; and Herman Cain, with 28 percent positive coverage and 23 percent negative.
Mitt Romney’s positive and negative coverage were almost in a dead heat at 26 percent and 27 percent, respectively.
Pew's full report is here and the top line numbers are here.