Left with little else to say, the McCain campaign started attacking the media this week, accusing reporters of going easy on Barack Obama. Frank Rich found this rather laughable, noting “the press … still gives free passes to its old bus mate John McCain.”
But let’s take this one step further and consider a more quantifiable look at the phenomenon. Conservatives tend to think reality has a well-known liberal bias, but as it turns out, the media doesn’t.
Haters of the mainstream media reheated a bit of conventional wisdom last week. Barack Obama, they said, was getting a free ride from those insufferable liberals.
Such pronouncements, sorry to say, tend to be wrong since they describe a monolithic media that no longer exists. Information today cascades from countless outlets and channels, from the Huffington Post to Politico.com to CBS News and beyond.
But now there’s additional evidence that casts doubt on the bias claims aimed — with particular venom — at three broadcast networks.
The Center for Media and Public Affairs at George Mason University, where researchers have tracked network news content for two decades, found that ABC, NBC and CBS were tougher on Obama than on Republican John McCain during the first six weeks of the general-election campaign.
You read it right: tougher on the Democrat.
Most of the reporting from the evening news was opinion-free, but when on-air media personalities strayed, 28% of the statements about Obama were positive, while 72% was negative. In contrast, 43% of the statements about McCain were positive, while 57% was negative.
In other words, network reporting was tilted against both major-party candidates, but Obama faced a far more hostile environment than the barbecue-offering, donut-receiving McCain.
Conservatives have been emphasizing that Obama has been getting far more coverage than McCain. As it turns out, that’s true. But if most of the coverage of Obama is negative, the McCain campaign should probably quit its whining and start sending producers thank you notes and gift baskets.
What’s more, the report found that the trend represented a shift from the primaries.
The media center’s most recent batch of data covers nightly newscasts beginning June 8, the day after Hillary Rodham Clinton conceded the Democratic nomination, ushering in the start of the general-election campaign. The data ran through Monday, as Obama began his overseas trip.
Most on-air statements during that time could not be classified as positive or negative, Lichter said. The study found, on average, less than two opinion statements per night on the candidates on all three networks combined — not exactly embracing or pummeling Obama or McCain. But when a point of view did emerge, it tended to tilt against Obama.
That was a reversal of the trend during the primaries, when the same researchers found that 64% of statements about Obama — new to the political spotlight — were positive, but just 43% of statements about McCain were positive.
Such reversals are nothing new in national politics, as reporters tend to warm up to newcomers, then turn increasingly critical when such candidates emerge as front-runners.
One assumes the right will respond to this report by trashing the Center for Media and Public Affairs, no doubt labeling it a liberal propaganda outlet. So let’s preemptively set the record straight — the center is run by Robert Lichter, a favorite of right-wing clowns like Glenn Beck and Bill O’Reilly.