John Baer: Media apologists explain Obama 'bias'
LET'S FOCUS a bit on the media being "in the tank" for Barack Obama. It's all but accepted fact. And while there's usually saber-rattling against leftist, liberal-media bias, it has never been more evident than now - seemingly with cause.
LET'S FOCUS a bit on the media being "in the tank" for Barack Obama.
It's all but accepted fact. And while there's usually saber-rattling against leftist, liberal-media bias, it has never been more evident than now - seemingly with cause.
The nonpartisan Pew Research Center says that coverage from the conventions through the debates was "positive in tone" for Obama 36 percent of the time, positive for John McCain 14 percent of the time.
How come?
I get it regularly: journalists are Democrats; liberal guilt favoring a black; media attraction to style; those making a living with words swooned by a candidate good with words; Gov. Rendell, when backing Hillary Clinton, telling me, "You're drinking Obama's Kool-Aid."
If so, I'm not alone.
Newspaper-industry magazine Editor & Publisher this week reports that 194 daily newspapers endorsed Obama, 82 endorsed McCain.
And the reach is greater than the numbers. Circulation of Obama-endorsers is more than 20 million; circulation of pro-McCain papers, six million.
In Pennsylvania, it's 11 for Obama, including the Daily News, the Inky and papers in Pittsburgh, Erie, York, Harrisburg and Wilkes-Barre; the three for McCain are in Chambersburg, Lancaster and Lewis-town.
In the tank?
Well, historically, newspapers endorsed Republicans: Wilkie over Roosevelt; Dewey over Truman; Nixon over Kennedy; Reagan over Carter - all by margins larger than the current Obama/McCain count.
Do today's endorsements matter? To some they do, and in volume they might.
But to many they're simply singular sounds amid a cacophony from talk radio, cable TV and bloggers in a 24-hour news cycle.
Also, I think there's a self-serving attitude among editors, columnists, commentators and such favoring Obama who think, "Look, I've met the candidates, not on a rope line, but in sit-down interviews; I read and know more about this stuff than average folks; my opinion is better-informed and more valuable because, let's face it, I'm a high-information voter."
I offer this by way of partial explanation, aware that opinions in a democracy are of equal value - with the possible exception of Colin Powell's.
But enough from me.
I took the "tanking" issue to Keith Woods, dean of faculty at the respected Poynter Institute, St. Petersburg, Fla., a 33-year-old school dedicated to improving journalism.
"I don't agree," he told me, likening perceived Obama bias to the reaction to media coverage of child disappearances, in that some get intensive coverage and most get none.
"A lot of people say [about coverage of a missing child] it's racial or at least driven by class. The truth may include that, but there is also a lot of action journalists can cover: rallies, rewards, vigils.
"Likewise, Obama is a phenomenon very different from the traditional. He's organizing, raising money and getting audiences like nobody's ever seen. You can't look at that and say, 'We cover him the same.'
"Journalists like new; they prefer different. That is a bias, but it's a bias against the status quo, and news is a disruption of the status quo. It has less to do with politics, race or gender."
I also asked Penn State journalism professor Tony Barbieri, a former managing editor of the Baltimore Sun.
"I think there's a bias towards covering the horse race, and Obama has run a better horse race," he said, "The press is biased toward a good story, and while it's hard to imagine a better story than McCain's, Obama's is better."
That's true: a minority candidate with an odd name in his first national campaign outperforming a veteran re-runner in every aspect of the game.
But that "positive" coverage thing and that two-to-one endorsement edge?
"I think it supports the idea most journalists tend to be liberals," says Barbieri, "but so much depends on the facts, and when you have a campaign as well-run as Obama's, it's kind of hard to say it's all media bias."
So, in the tank?
Well, yeah, but not for all the reasons the right seems to think.*
Send e-mail to baerj@phillynews.com.
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