Content

crow
A multi-author blog with a range of opinions on news, culture, politics, beer, art, science, education, religion and life


Greg Krehbiel

And so it begins

by Greg Krehbiel on 8 November 2008

The post-election mea culpa’s have started.

An Obama Tilt in Campaign Coverage

To some extent a bias in coverage is justified. Let’s face it, Obama is a more interesting character than McCain.

But it went beyond that because … well, they’re almost all liberals, and they just can’t help it.

After a few rounds of this sort of thing we’ll see the articles about how new safeguards have been put in place, etc., etc., to try and rescue the waning credibility of the mainstream media.

2008-11-08  »  Greg Krehbiel

Talkback x 4

  1. John Krehbiel
    8 November 2008 @ 1:11 pm

    Not much surprising there. For instance:

    Post reporters, photographers and editors — like most of the national news media — found the candidacy of Obama, the first African American major-party nominee, more newsworthy and historic.

    Ya think?

    And this:

    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 (58) about McCain 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.

    So since when is a newspaper required to remain unbiased on the op-ed page? If nobody on the Post’s op-ed page was all that enthusiastic about McCain, well, nobody on this blog was either.

    More troublesome to me is this part:

    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.

    And that’s not just the Post, but the press in general. I guess horserace stories are easier to write. (and easier for minimally informed readers to read too)

  2. Jane
    8 November 2008 @ 5:15 pm

    Yeah, and an excess of horserace stories is probably more harmful, in the long run, than a small amount of genuine bias. When the race becomes the story, rather than the issues being the story, pretty soon the stories about the race become the story, and it all becomes self-fulfilling.

    Mind you, I’m not positing that because the momentum of the race started with Obama and that because there’s a self-fulfilling effect, that the press is responsible for John McCain’s loss. John McCain’s relative lack of appeal even to his own “base” is the reason for John McCain’s loss.

    But I do think that reporting too much on the horserace carries the danger of driving the outcome.

  3. John Krehbiel
    9 November 2008 @ 9:49 am

    But I do think that reporting too much on the horserace carries the danger of driving the outcome.

    Absolutely. The media influence votes, but not through their bias, real or imagined.

    Years of liberal bias in labor union endorsements haven’t changed working class people’s voting, but they want to pick a winner, so if they think their guy is definitely going to lose, they’ll either vote for somebody else, or stay home.

    It also keeps a viable third party from developing. Why would you vote for somebody who “can’t win anyway?”

  4. Greg Krehbiel
    9 November 2008 @ 10:39 am

    How do you know that media bias doesn’t affect votes?

Home  |  RSS Feed  |  Print  |  Search  |  Top