Reidblog [The Reid Report blog]

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.

During the evening news, the majority of statements from reporters and anchors on all three networks are neutral, the center found. And when network news people ventured opinions in recent weeks, 28% of the statements were positive for Obama and 72% negative.

Network reporting also tilted against McCain, but far less dramatically, with 43% of the statements positive and 57% negative, according to the Washington-based media center.

Conservatives have been snarling about the grotesque disparity revealed by another study, the online Tyndall Report, which showed Obama receiving more than twice as much network air time as McCain in the last month and a half. Obama got 166 minutes of coverage in the seven weeks after the end of the primary season, compared with 67 minutes for McCain, according to longtime network-news observer Andrew Tyndall.

... But the center's director, RobertLichter, who has won conservative hearts with several of his previous studies, told me the facts were the facts.

this  information should blow away the silly assumption that more coverage is always better coverage," he said. 

If you're still in disbelief, a quick check of the transcripts of the two big Sunday shows, "Meet the Press" (with Tom Brokaw) and "This Week" with George Stephanopoulos should do the trick. Brokaw spent half the interview hectoring Barack Obama on the surge, and confronting him with commentary on his overseas trip, not from neutral analysts, but from neocon columnists, and McCain supporters, Charles Krauthammer and David Brooks. Surprise, surprise, neither was impressed with his trip. When Obam pointed out to Brokaw that both men are supporting his opponent, and that there are far more positive reviews out there than negative, Brokaw shot back that he should "just answer the question." Over to George, who retreated to the role of communications aide during his chummy interview at John McCain's wife's ranch in Arizona, helpfully correcting McCain when he declared Vladimir Putin to still be the president of Russia, and kindly supplying, unprompted, the name of Vlad's successor, Mr. Medvedev, just to help Senator McCain get through his answer. Stephanopoulos is the master of the failed follow-up, and demonstrated the technique time and again with McCain, who was allowed to not answer question after question, including the one tough one: whether he was wrong about the initial decision to invade Iraq.

Compare and contrast:

A sample question from the Brokaw interview with Obama:

MR. BROKAW: Let's talk about Afghanistan. That war, as you've emphasized a lot in the past week or so, that war's been going on since shortly after 9/11. This was your first trip. You're a member the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. I know schoolteachers and NGO volunteers

SEN. OBAMA: Right.

MR. BROKAW: ...who go there on a regular basis. How is it possible that, as a candidate for president of the United States and a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, is making his first trip to what you call the central front in the war on terror?

And one from the Stephanopoulos chat with John McCain:

STEPHANOPOULOS: You've also taken some heat this week with your comments saying that Senator Obama would rather lose...

MCCAIN: Yes.

STEPHANOPOULOS: ... a war than win a political campaign.

MCCAIN: Yes.

STEPHANOPOULOS: I can't believe you believe that.

MCCAIN: Well, I'm not questioning his patriotism. I'm questioning his actions. I'm questioning his lack, total lack, of understanding. His...

STEPHANOPOULOS: But that is questioning his total...

MCCAIN: I...

STEPHANOPOULOS: When you say someone would rather lose a war, a candidate, that's questioning his honor, his decency, his character.

MCCAIN: All I'm saying is -- and I will repeat -- he does not understand. I'm not questioning his patriotism. I am saying that he made the decision, which was political, in order to help him get the nomination of his party.

STEPHANOPOULOS: So, putting lives at risk for a political campaign -- you believe he's doing that.

George, I think, speaks for most of the media, Joe Klein et. al., who simply can't bring themselves to believe that McCain could harm a hair on Barack Obama's head, while the tone of the questioning of Obama is fierce and combative (even at the Unity Conference today, which I think most observers expected to be softball.)

So does the media find Obama more interesting than John McCain? Hell yes. Who wouldn't? But do they prefer him, or are they promoting him? No way. The only goal of the media, particularly on television, is to keep the circus going. And to do that, they have to keep McCain competitive. And believe me, they will do what it takes to help him, lift him, give him whatever passes are necessary and otherwise bend over backwards to shore up his moribund campaign.

Otherwise, there's no horse race to cover.
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