All Those Surprized By This Headline Raise Your Hand

An Obama Tilt in Campaign Coverage

Next, all of you with your hands up who supported Obama stand up.

All of you huh?

Washington Post Ombudsman Deborah Howell took a look at the Post's coverage of the election for the past year. Here is what she found:

"The Post provided a lot of good campaign coverage, but readers have been consistently critical of the lack of probing issues coverage and what they saw as a tilt toward Democrat Barack Obama. My surveys, which ended on Election Day, show that they are right on both counts.

My assistant, Jean Hwang, and I have been examining Post coverage since Nov. 11 of last year on issues, voters, fundraising, the candidates' backgrounds and horse-race stories on tactics, strategy and consultants. We also have looked at photos and Page 1 stories since Obama captured the nomination June 4.
The count was lopsided, with 1,295 horse-race stories and 594 issues stories. The Post was deficient in stories that reported more than the two candidates trading jabs; readers needed articles, going back to the primaries, comparing their positions with outside experts' views. There were no broad stories on energy or science policy, and there were few on religion issues."

"The op-ed page ran far more laudatory opinion pieces on Obama, 32, than on Sen. John McCain, 13. There were far more negative pieces about McCain, 58, than there were about Obama, 32, and Obama got the editorial board's endorsement. The Post has several conservative columnists, but not all were gung-ho about McCain.
Stories and photos about Obama in the news pages outnumbered those devoted to McCain. Reporters, photographers and editors found the candidacy of Obama, the first African American major-party nominee, more newsworthy and historic. Journalists love the new; McCain, 25 years older than Obama, was already well known and had more scars from his longer career in politics."

The article goes into a lot more detail & you can read it at the above link.

She also noted: "Our survey results are comparable to figures for the national news media from a study by the Project for Excellence in Journalism. It found that from June 9, when Clinton dropped out of the race, until Nov. 2, 66 percent of the campaign stories were about Obama compared with 53 percent for McCain; some stories featured both. The project also calculated that in that time, 57 percent of the stories were about the horse race and 13 percent were about issues."

1 quote, from Bill Hamilton, assistant managing editor for politics, gives us insight into the real mindset of the MSM: "There are a lot of things I wish we'd been able to do in covering this campaign, but we had to make choices about what we felt we were uniquely able to provide our audiences both in Washington and on the Web. I don't at all discount the importance of issues, but we had a larger purpose, to convey and explain a campaign. . . "

1. AUDIENCE???? Just like those who watch The Simpsons? The purpose of the news media is to inform the public, not entertain.

2. Convey & explain a campaign! OK, I suspect he would say that he is talking about the campaign in general. But, somehow, based on the above, I don't think so.

The truth is that many in the newsroom are oblivious to the truth, their blatent partisanship, esp towards the left.

OK, there has always been an editorial slant in most papers. & they didn't try to hide it. Now, it seems that the leftists think that slant means those who are moderate to conservative.

During the early years of our country, you knew exactly where a paper stood. They didn't hide their biases. Back then, there were choices & you knew what you were getting.

Memo to the Times, Post, etc, cut the BS out & go back to the truth. Admit your biases & let us decide if we buy your viewpoint. Don't force it down our throats & claim that if we disagree we are the biased ones, not you.