Wednesday, October 22, 2008

Report: Media coverage of McCain is overwhelmingly negative

A study released by the Pew Research Center shows coverage of John McCain has been heavily unfavorable when compared to Barack Obama.
The media coverage of the race for president has not so much cast Barack Obama in a favorable light as it has portrayed John McCain in a substantially negative one, according to a new study of the media since the two national political conventions ended.

Press treatment of Obama has been somewhat more positive than negative, but not markedly so.

But coverage of McCain has been heavily unfavorable—and has become more so over time. In the six weeks following the conventions through the final debate, unfavorable stories about McCain outweighed favorable ones by a factor of more than three to one—the most unfavorable of all four candidates—according to the study by the Pew Research Center’s Project for Excellence in Journalism.

For Obama during this period, just over a third of the stories were clearly positive in tone (36%), while a similar number (35%) were neutral or mixed. A smaller number (29%) were negative.

For McCain, by comparison, nearly six in ten of the stories studied were decidedly negative in nature (57%), while fewer than two in ten (14%) were positive.

The reason the media is so hostile to McCain has nothing to do with McCain's integrity, service, principles, or commitment to the country. The negative coverage comes simply because he happens to be the candidate running against the media's preferred candidate, Barack Obama.
.
But don't bother telling McClatchy's Washington bureau chief, John Walcott, about unfair news coverage -- Walcott has already declared McClatchy doesn't need to give fair coverage in political news.
.
Previous:

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

$150,000!