November 02, 2007
Bias & The Media: Everything You Suspect Is True
Looking back on the past year, the most surprising development of Campaign '08 so far has to be the crash and burn of Sen. John McCain. Less than a full presidential election cycle ago, the Arizona Republican's popularity so transcended party lines that John Kerry sought him out as a running mate.
Today, the one-time front-runner is nearly broke, has a skeletal campaign staff and is trailing badly in the polls. When the campaigns started to get under way earlier this year, every other headline about McCain had to do with his dogged support for President Bush's Iraq war policy despite overwhelmingly pessimistic coverage of the "surge" strategy. The formerly adoring political press, which McCain used to refer to as "my base," seemed to be punishing the lawmaker they once hailed as a maverick.
Looks like that hunch was right.
A study [PDF] conducted by the non-partisan Project For Excellence In Journalism and the Joan Shorenstein Center on the Press, Politics and Public Policy found that McCain tallied the most negative news coverage among the Republican candidates from January through May of this year. Forty-three percent of stories about McCain's candidacy were negative in tone, while 38 percent was rated neutral and 19 percent was rated positive. By contrast, 31 percent of Mitt Romney's campaign coverage was negative, and 0 percent of Rudy Giuliani's coverage was unflattering.
The report's researchers analyzed 1,742 campaign news reports from 48 different outlets across the media board, and they confirmed that McCain was the most battered GOP candidate. Months of headlines like "McCain Firm On Iraq War Despite Cost To Candidacy" sent a clear signal that he might have to abdicate his position on the Iraq war to revive his candidacy. He did not, of course. Coverage of the war is slightly less pessimistic these days, as casualty counts and other indicators improve. That hasn't changed the public's overall assessment of the war as not worth it and unlikely to end well, however, which may mean it is too late for a McCain turnaround.
Although a 39-percent plurality of coverage on the parties was found to be neutral, Democrats received more positive coverage than Republicans, 35 percent to 26 percent. Those numbers were reversed when it came to negative coverage. To some extent, these results probably just reflect the current political environment, which is hostile to the GOP after seven years of dominance. It's worth noting, however, that at the beginning of this year, both parties' candidates offered hardly anything in the way of policy and platform details. Much of the coverage was simply broad-strokes prognosticating.
According to a recent Pew Research Center survey [PDF], voters overwhelmingly want more reporting on the candidates' issues. Forty-five percent of respondents want less coverage of the horserace, while 42 percent want more stories on who was leading in the polls. On their overall performance, a 53-percent majority did not rate the media's coverage favorably. Just 35 percent said it was good, and a mere 6 percent said it was excellent.
Posted at 1:47 PM
Posted to:
Campaigns, Economy, John McCain, Media, Republicans, WH 2008
Share via
