WaPo's Ombudsman Agrees With Media Bias

Obama's Edge in the Coverage Race

By Deborah Howell
Sunday, August 17, 2008; B06

Democrat Barack Obama has had about a 3 to 1 advantage over Republican John McCain in Post Page 1 stories since Obama became his party's presumptive nominee June 4. Obama has generated a lot of news by being the first African American nominee, and he is less well known than McCain -- and therefore there's more to report on. But the disparity is so wide that it doesn't look good.

In overall political stories from June 4 to Friday, Obama dominated by 142 to 96. Obama has been featured in 35 stories on Page 1; McCain has been featured in 13, with three Page 1 references with photos to stories on inside pages. Fifteen stories featured both candidates and were about polls or issues such as terrorism, Social Security and the candidates' agreement on what should be done in Afghanistan.

This dovetails with Obama's dominance in photos, which I pointed out two weeks ago. At that time, it was 122 for Obama and 78 for McCain. Two weeks later, it's 143 to 100, almost the same gap, because editors have run almost the same number of photos -- 21 of Obama and 22 of McCain -- since they realized the disparity. McCain is almost even with Obama in Page 1 photos -- 10 to 9.

This is not just a Post phenomenon. The Project for Excellence in Journalism has been monitoring campaign coverage at an assortment of large and medium-circulation newspapers, broadcast evening and morning news shows, five news Web sites, three major cable news networks, and public radio and other radio outlets. Its latest report, for the week of Aug. 4-10, shows that for the eighth time in nine weeks, Obama received significantly more coverage than McCain.

Pale Rider wrote:Is this like the liberals idea of the "fairness doctrine?"

Kathianne wrote:

Pale Rider wrote:Is this like the liberals idea of the "fairness doctrine?"

I think it an admission that the MSM is biased. Nothing new for us here. However, note the libs are the ones bringing up 'fairness doctrine' against radio, the only venue they do not dominate. Problem for them, it may also include the internet, via net neutrality. It would hurt them and fund raising, in ways they don't want to know.

Kathianne wrote:

Pale Rider wrote:Is this like the liberals idea of the "fairness doctrine?"

I think it an admission that the MSM is biased. Nothing new for us here. However, note the libs are the ones bringing up 'fairness doctrine' agains radio, the only venue they do not dominate. Problem for them, it may also include the internet, via net neutrality. It would hurt them and fund raising, in ways they don't want to know.

red states rule wrote:

Kathianne wrote:

Pale Rider wrote:Is this like the liberals idea of the "fairness doctrine?"

I think it an admission that the MSM is biased. Nothing new for us here. However, note the libs are the ones bringing up 'fairness doctrine' agains radio, the only venue they do not dominate. Problem for them, it may also include the internet, via net neutrality. It would hurt them and fund raising, in ways they don't want to know.

But they are not about to change their coverage. Obama needs there help more then ever

Pale Rider wrote:

red states rule wrote:

Kathianne wrote:

Pale Rider wrote:Is this like the liberals idea of the "fairness doctrine?"

I think it an admission that the MSM is biased. Nothing new for us here. However, note the libs are the ones bringing up 'fairness doctrine' agains radio, the only venue they do not dominate. Problem for them, it may also include the internet, via net neutrality. It would hurt them and fund raising, in ways they don't want to know.

But they are not about to change their coverage. Obama needs there help more then ever

Hannity is talking about what will happen if mccain picks a liberal for his VP right now. He said the Libertarian Bob Barr would get at least 15% of the vote. I disagree. I think it would be higher.

Nothing is going to help hussein at this point. The only direction he's going from here on out is down.

Pale Rider wrote:Absolutely... whether mccain gets elected or not now hinges entirely on who he picks for VP.