US Presidental Elections 2008

[High Lord Tolkien]

Media's Presidential Bias and Decline
Columnist Michael Malone Looks at Slanted Election Coverage and the Reasons Why
Column By MICHAEL S. MALONE
Oct. 24, 2008



The traditional media are playing a very, very dangerous game -- with their readers, with the Constitution and with their own fates.
news
The media have covered this presidential campaign with a bias and that ultimately could lead to its downfall.

The sheer bias in the print and television coverage of this election campaign is not just bewildering, but appalling. And over the last few months I've found myself slowly moving from shaking my head at the obvious one-sided reporting, to actually shouting at the screen of my television and my laptop computer.

But worst of all, for the last couple weeks, I've begun -- for the first time in my adult life -- to be embarrassed to admit what I do for a living. A few days ago, when asked by a new acquaintance what I did for a living, I replied that I was "a writer," because I couldn't bring myself to admit to a stranger that I'm a journalist.

You need to understand how painful this is for me. I am one of those people who truly bleeds ink when I'm cut. I am a fourth-generation newspaperman. As family history tells it, my great-grandfather was a newspaper editor in Abilene, Kan., during the last of the cowboy days, then moved to Oregon to help start the Oregon Journal (now the Oregonian).

My hard-living -- and when I knew her, scary -- grandmother was one of the first women reporters for the Los Angeles Times. And my father, though profoundly dyslexic, followed a long career in intelligence to finish his life (thanks to word processors and spellcheckers) as a very successful freelance writer. I've spent 30 years in every part of journalism, from beat reporter to magazine editor. And my oldest son, following in the family business, so to speak, earned his first national byline before he earned his drivers license.

So, when I say I'm deeply ashamed right now to be called a "journalist," you can imagine just how deep that cuts into my soul.

Now, of course, there's always been bias in the media. Human beings are biased, so the work they do, including reporting, is inevitably colored. Hell, I can show you 10 different ways to color variations of the word "said" -- muttered, shouted, announced, reluctantly replied, responded, etc. -- to influence the way a reader will comprehend exactly the same quote. We all learn that in Reporting 101, or at least in the first few weeks working in a newsroom.

But what we are also supposed to learn during that same apprenticeship is to recognize the dangerous power of that technique, and many others, and develop built-in alarms against them.

But even more important, we are also supposed to be taught that even though there is no such thing as pure, Platonic objectivity in reporting, we are to spend our careers struggling to approach that ideal as closely as possible.

That means constantly challenging our own prejudices, systematically presenting opposing views and never, ever burying stories that contradict our own world views or challenge people or institutions we admire. If we can't achieve Olympian detachment, than at least we can recognize human frailty -- especially in ourselves.

Reporting Bias

For many years, spotting bias in reporting was a little parlor game of mine, watching TV news or reading a newspaper article and spotting how the reporter had inserted, often unconsciously, his or her own preconceptions. But I always wrote it off as bad judgment and lack of professionalism, rather than bad faith and conscious advocacy.

Sure, being a child of the '60s I saw a lot of subjective "New" Journalism, and did a fair amount of it myself, but that kind of writing, like columns and editorials, was supposed to be segregated from "real" reporting, and, at least in mainstream media, usually was. The same was true for the emerging blogosphere, which by its very nature was opinionated and biased.

But my complacent faith in my peers first began to be shaken when some of the most admired journalists in the country were exposed as plagiarists, or worse, accused of making up stories from whole cloth.

I'd spent my entire professional career scrupulously pounding out endless dreary footnotes and double-checking sources to make sure that I never got accused of lying or stealing someone else's work -- not out of any native honesty, but out of fear: I'd always been told to fake or steal a story was a firing offense … indeed, it meant being blackballed out of the profession.

And yet, few of those worthies ever seemed to get fired for their crimes -- and if they did they were soon rehired into even more prestigious jobs. It seemed as if there were two sets of rules: one for us workaday journalists toiling out in the sticks, and another for folks who'd managed, through talent or deceit, to make it to the national level.

Meanwhile, I watched with disbelief as the nation's leading newspapers, many of whom I'd written for in the past, slowly let opinion pieces creep into the news section, and from there onto the front page. Personal opinions and comments that, had they appeared in my stories in 1979, would have gotten my butt kicked by the nearest copy editor, were now standard operating procedure at the New York Times, the Washington Post, and soon after in almost every small town paper in the U.S.

But what really shattered my faith -- and I know the day and place where it happened -- was the war in Lebanon three summers ago. The hotel I was staying at in Windhoek, Namibia, only carried CNN, a network I'd already learned to approach with skepticism. But this was CNN International, which is even worse.

I sat there, first with my jaw hanging down, then actually shouting at the TV, as one field reporter after another reported the carnage of the Israeli attacks on Beirut, with almost no corresponding coverage of the Hezbollah missiles raining down on northern Israel. The reporting was so utterly and shamelessly biased that I sat there for hours watching, assuming that eventually CNNi would get around to telling the rest of the story … but it never happened.

The Presidential Campaign

But nothing, nothing I've seen has matched the media bias on display in the current presidential campaign.

Republicans are justifiably foaming at the mouth over the sheer one-sidedness of the press coverage of the two candidates and their running mates. But in the last few days, even Democrats, who have been gloating over the pass -- no, make that shameless support -- they've gotten from the press, are starting to get uncomfortable as they realize that no one wins in the long run when we don't have a free and fair press.


I was one of the first people in the traditional media to call for the firing of Dan Rather -- not because of his phony story, but because he refused to admit his mistake -- but, bless him, even Gunga Dan thinks the media is one-sided in this election.

Now, don't get me wrong. I'm not one of those people who think the media has been too hard on, say, Republican vice presidential nominee Gov. Sarah Palin, by rushing reportorial SWAT teams to her home state of Alaska to rifle through her garbage. This is the big leagues, and if she wants to suit up and take the field, then Gov. Palin better be ready to play.

The few instances where I think the press has gone too far -- such as the Times reporter talking to prospective first lady Cindy McCain's daughter's MySpace friends -- can easily be solved with a few newsroom smackdowns and temporary repostings to the Omaha bureau.

No, what I object to (and I think most other Americans do as well) is the lack of equivalent hardball coverage of the other side -- or worse, actively serving as attack dogs for the presidential ticket of Sens. Barack Obama, D-Ill., and Joe Biden, D-Del.

If the current polls are correct, we are about to elect as president of the United States a man who is essentially a cipher, who has left almost no paper trail, seems to have few friends (that at least will talk) and has entire years missing out of his biography.

That isn't Sen. Obama's fault: His job is to put his best face forward. No, it is the traditional media's fault, for it alone (unlike the alternative media) has had the resources to cover this story properly, and has systematically refused to do so.

Why, for example to quote the lawyer for Republican presidential nominee Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., haven't we seen an interview with Sen. Obama's grad school drug dealer -- when we know all about Mrs. McCain's addiction? Are Bill Ayers and Tony Rezko that hard to interview? All those phony voter registrations that hard to scrutinize? And why are Sen. Biden's endless gaffes almost always covered up, or rationalized, by the traditional media?


Joe the Plumber

The absolute nadir (though I hate to commit to that, as we still have two weeks before the election) came with Joe the Plumber.

Middle America, even when they didn't agree with Joe, looked on in horror as the press took apart the private life of an average person who had the temerity to ask a tough question of a presidential candidate. So much for the standing up for the little man. So much for speaking truth to power. So much for comforting the afflicted and afflicting the comfortable, and all of those other catchphrases we journalists used to believe we lived by.


I learned a long time ago that when people or institutions begin to behave in a matter that seems to be entirely against their own interests, it's because we don't understand what their motives really are. It would seem that by so exposing their biases and betting everything on one candidate over another, the traditional media is trying to commit suicide -- especially when, given our currently volatile world and economy, the chances of a successful Obama presidency, indeed any presidency, is probably less than 50/50.

Furthermore, I also happen to believe that most reporters, whatever their political bias, are human torpedoes … and, had they been unleashed, would have raced in and roughed up the Obama campaign as much as they did McCain's. That's what reporters do. I was proud to have been one, and I'm still drawn to a good story, any good story, like a shark to blood in the water.

So why weren't those legions of hungry reporters set loose on the Obama campaign? Who are the real villains in this story of mainstream media betrayal?

The editors. The men and women you don't see; the people who not only decide what goes in the paper, but what doesn't; the managers who give the reporters their assignments and lay out the editorial pages. They are the real culprits.

Bad Editors

Why? I think I know, because had my life taken a different path, I could have been one: Picture yourself in your 50s in a job where you've spent 30 years working your way to the top, to the cockpit of power … only to discover that you're presiding over a dying industry. The Internet and alternative media are stealing your readers, your advertisers and your top young talent. Many of your peers shrewdly took golden parachutes and disappeared. Your job doesn't have anywhere near the power and influence it did when your started your climb. The Newspaper Guild is too weak to protect you any more, and there is a very good chance you'll lose your job before you cross that finish line, 10 years hence, of retirement and a pension.


In other words, you are facing career catastrophe -- and desperate times call for desperate measures. Even if you have to risk everything on a single Hail Mary play. Even if you have to compromise the principles that got you here. After all, newspapers and network news are doomed anyway -- all that counts is keeping them on life support until you can retire.

And then the opportunity presents itself -- an attractive young candidate whose politics likely matches yours, but more important, he offers the prospect of a transformed Washington with the power to fix everything that has gone wrong in your career.

With luck, this monolithic, single-party government will crush the alternative media via a revived fairness doctrine, re-invigorate unions by getting rid of secret votes, and just maybe be beholden to people like you in the traditional media for getting it there.

And besides, you tell yourself, it's all for the good of the country …

This is the opinion of the columnist and in no way reflects the opinion of ABC News.

Michael S. Malone is one of the nation's best-known technology writers. He has covered Silicon Valley and high-tech for more than 25 years, beginning with the San Jose Mercury News as the nation's first daily high-tech reporter. His articles and editorials have appeared in such publications as The Wall Street Journal, the Economist and Fortune, and for two years he was a columnist for The New York Times. He was editor of Forbes ASAP, the world's largest-circulation business-tech magazine, at the height of the dot-com boom. Malone is the author or co-author of a dozen books, notably the best-selling "Virtual Corporation." Malone has also hosted three public television interview series, and most recently co-produced the celebrated PBS miniseries on social entrepreneurs, "The New Heroes." He has been the ABCNews.com "Silicon Insider" columnist since 2000.

abcnews.go.com/Business/Story?id=6099188&page=5

[Kinslaughterer]

Cail, I won't be taking your anecdotal evidence. Fox News is clearly biased. I have no problem with them being biased or asking such questions. They, however, are regularly and grossly inaccurate. Websites like Media Matters, who frequently remind Fox Newsers of what they just said by providing the audio, picks up on these inaccuracies and draw the ire of conservative reporter who can do nothing but shout despite clearly being shown to be incorrect or deliberately deceptive. You may not like Media Matters but if you can't pick apart their methodology or statistics then you're just being irrational. By the way, their studies are more complex than just number of conservatives but I doubt that you fact-haters really care about that.

I agree with the article insomuch that the efforts and crediblity of journalism has decreased but in terms of a one sided bias...well its ironic that he hates to see biased opinion pieces so presents one as proof of a bias. Not good journalism by his own standards.

[Cail]

I'll say it again Kins, Media Matters is a liberal organization. You can quote them 'till you're blue in the face and it just reinforces the fact that you're totally entrenched in your partisan beliefs. MM is anything but objective.

By comparison, there's several independent studies out there (such as the UCLA one done in '05 that's been referenced here before), as well as article after article like the one HLT just posted that refutes your stance.

Fox News is conservatively biased, that's no secret.

But hey, just keep on calling anyone who disagrees with your views fact-haters. That's real rational.

[Cybrweez]

Maybe some journalists treat Obama so nicely b/c if not, he'll pull any more interviews away, like the Biden fiasco in Florida. And since he's spending 4x as much in TV ads, you don't want him moving away from you.

Did you see that the same anchorwoman asked McCain about Palin going rogue to improve her future prospects? So doesn't seem like a conservative attack. I've posted about Obama camp encouraging followers to protest stations that have guests that don't agree w/him, here's another incident. And he supports the Fairness Doctrine? If you're OK with that, I think the blinders really are on.

[Kinslaughterer]

I'll say it again Kins, Media Matters is a liberal organization. You can quote them 'till you're blue in the face and it just reinforces the fact that you're totally entrenched in your partisan beliefs. MM is anything but objective.

Yes it is a liberal organization. Prove by any means or measure other than your personal dislike that it is not objective.

By comparison, there's several independent studies out there (such as the UCLA one done in '05 that's been referenced here before), as well as article after article like the one HLT just posted that refutes your stance.

Please cite these. However the above article is a tech writers opinion and contains no evidence either analytical or quantative that supports his notions. We call these things facts.

But hey, just keep on calling anyone who disagrees with your views fact-haters. That's real rational

Please provide some facts, your extensive study list or otherwise.

Oh and by the way...

During the 1990s, while he served as chairman of the International Republican Institute (IRI), McCain distributed several grants to the Palestinian research center co-founded by Khalidi, including one worth half a million dollars.

A 1998 tax filing for the McCain-led group shows a $448,873 grant to Khalidi's Center for Palestine Research and Studies for work in the West Bank. (See grant number 5180, "West Bank: CPRS" on page 14 of this PDF.)

The relationship extends back as far as 1993, when John McCain joined IRI as chairman in January. Foreign Affairs noted in September of that year that IRI had helped fund several extensive studies in Palestine run by Khalidi's group, including over 30 public opinion polls and a study of "sociopolitical attitudes."

Of course, there's seemingly nothing objectionable with McCain's organization helping a Palestinian group conduct research in the West Bank or Gaza. But it does suggest that McCain could have some of his own explaining to do as he tries to make hay out of Khalidi's ties to Obama.

[[Syl]]

Maybe some journalists treat Obama so nicely b/c if not, he'll pull any more interviews away, like the Biden fiasco in Florida.

Infuriated About Tough CNN Interview, McCain Cancels Larry King Appearance

McCain campaign threatened to cut off Newsweek’s access

McCain was frank, garrulous and accessible -- and then he wasn't

In the driveway of the airport motel on the evening of the Viagra question, McCain's aides made an argument that would shape their attitude over the next four months: If reporters were going to ask about issues that they deemed irrelevant to voters, why should the campaign give them access to the candidate at all?

And that's not even going into the whole Palin/press thing.

[Cail]

Kins, your post proves my point beautifully. Thank you.

The UCLA study

But I'm sure you can find a Media Matters article to refute that....

Edit-People believe what they want to believe, no matter what their bent.

[Cybrweez]

Yea Kins, I already posted the UCLA article. The tech article was referencing an MSNBC article. Your bias does come out pretty plainly.

Syl, good work. Obama (and the left in general) has repeatedly treated those who ask tough questions as trash (ok, not trash, but have ignored or threatened w/lawsuits). But, its the left that preaches tolerance, and supports the Fairness Doctrine. This is the hypocrisy that is blatant. So McCain does it too? Big deal, they both are terrible. Problem is, so many are infatuated w/Obama, they can't even see this hypocrisy. Instead, they'll post about McCain's hypocrisy. But hey, Obama talk about "fairness", so he must be fair...

[Farsailer]

More on questionable donation practices of the Obama campaign:

LINK

From the article:

When asked whether the campaign takes steps to verify whether a donor's name matches the name on the credit card used to make a payment, Obama's campaign replied in an e-mail: "Name-matching is not a standard check conducted or made available in the credit card processing industry. We believe Visa and MasterCard do not even have the ability to do this.

This is total, total bullshit. Try these questions: have you ever had an online purchase rejected because you didn't put in the correct credit card billing address? Or had a purchase rejected because you wanted to ship to a different address from the billing address? Further, both Visa and Mastercard have implemented additional procedures for online credit card verification that merchants can use. Anyone ever use "Verified by Visa"? Or its Mastercard equivalent?

I reported earlier somewhere about the Obama campaign not doing any security vetting of credit cards online. In other words, you could take a legit credit card and use it again and again with different names attached to it. We know this is happening, screen shots were posted about it. I suspected at the time that the campaign probably has a small cadre of operators with at least several cards each who are funneling the overseas money to the campaign in this manner. I would wager that if the credit card processing records of the campaign ever came to light, the degree of the corruption of the process would be evident.

[Avatar]

5 days.

--A

[Vain]

Interesting spin on early voting in Florida...seems Dems are happy that so many dems are voting early and say that it's proof they want Obama....even if McCain is ahead in a poll of voters that have already voted...

Democrats are beaming that their party is outperforming the Republicans in early voting, releasing numbers Wednesday that show registrants of their party ahead 54 percent to 30 percent among the 1.4 million voters who have gone to the polls early.

"We're thrilled at the record turnout so far," said Democratic Party of Florida spokesman Eric Jotkoff. "It's a clear indication that Democrats want to elect Barack Obama and Democrats up and down the ballot so that we can start creating good jobs, rebuilding our economy and getting our nation back on track."

But party breakdowns for turnout aren't the same as final tallies, and at least one poll offered a different view for the campaign of Republican John McCain.

A Los Angeles Times/Bloomberg poll gave McCain a 49-45 lead over Democrat Barack Obama among Floridians who have already voted.

And Republicans continued to show a traditional strength, leading 50 percent to the Democrats' 30 percent in the 1.2 million absentee ballots already returned.

[Zarathustra]

How Different Media Have Covered the General Election

When it comes to coverage of the campaign for president 2008, where one goes for news makes a difference, according to a new study.

In cable, the evidence firmly suggests there now really is an ideological divide between two of the three channels, at least in their coverage of the campaign.

Things look much better for Barack Obama—and much worse for John McCain—on MSNBC than in most other news outlets. On the Fox News Channel, the coverage of the presidential candidates is something of a mirror image of that seen on MSNBC.

The tone of CNN’s coverage, meanwhile, lay somewhere in the middle of the cable spectrum, and was generally more negative than the press overall.

On the evening newscasts of the three traditional networks, in contrast, there is no such ideological split. Indeed, on the nightly newscasts of ABC, CBS and NBC, coverage tends to be more neutral and generally less negative than elsewhere. On the network morning shows, Sarah Palin is a bigger story than she is in the media generally.

And on NBC News programs, there was no reflection of the tendency of its cable sibling MSNBC toward more favorable coverage of Democrats and more negative of Republicans than the norm.

Online, meanwhile, polling tended to drive the news. And on the front pages of newspapers, which often have the day-after story, things look tougher for John McCain than they tend to in the media overall.

These are some of the findings of the study, which examined 2,412 stories from 48 outlets during the time period from September 8 to October 16. [1] The report is a companion to a study released October 22 about the tone of coverage overall. This new report breaks down the coverage of tone by specific media sectors—print, cable news, network television and online.

Among the findings:

* MSNBC stood out for having less negative coverage of Obama than the press generally (14% of stories vs. 29% in the press overall) and for having more negative stories about McCain (73% of its coverage vs. 57% in the press overall).

* On Fox News, in contrast, coverage of Obama was more negative than the norm (40% of stories vs. 29% overall) and less positive (25% of stories vs. 36% generally). For McCain, the news channel was somewhat more positive (22% vs. 14% in the press overall) and substantially less negative (40% vs. 57% in the press overall). Yet even here, his negative stories outweighed positive ones by almost 2 to 1.

* CNN fell distinctly in the middle of the three cable channels when it came to tone. In general, the tone of its coverage was closer than any other cable news channel to the press overall, though also somewhat more negative than the media overall.

* The distinct tone of MSNBC—more positive toward Democrats and more negative toward Republicans—was not reflected in the coverage of its broadcast sibling, NBC News. Even though it has correspondents appear on their cable shows and even anchor some programs on there, the broadcast channel showed no such ideological tilt. Indeed, NBC’s coverage of Palin was the most positive of any TV organization studied, including Fox News.

* At night, the newscasts of the three traditional broadcast networks stood out for being more neutral—and also less negative—than most other news outlets. The morning shows of the networks, by contrast, more closely resembled the media generally in tone. That might surprise some who imagined those morning programs were somehow easier on political figures. Overall, 44% of the morning show stories were clearly negative, compared with 34% on the nightly news and 42% in the press overall.

These findings augment what was learned from a broader report on campaign media coverage released a week earlier entitled “Winning the Media Campaign: How the Press Reported the 2008 General Election.” That study found that in the media overall—a sample of 43 outlets studied in the six weeks following the conventions through the last debate—Barack Obama’s coverage was somewhat more positive than negative (36% vs. 29%), while John McCain’s, in contrast, was substantially negative (57% vs. 14% positive). The report concluded that this, in significant part, reflected and magnified the horse race and direction of the polls.

Look at that. Fox News had the same percentage of negative stories about Obama as they did for McCain: 40%. How's that for balanced? In contrast, MSNBC was much, much more biased in its coverage than Fox: 14% negative for Obama (MSNBC) vs 40% negative for McCain (Fox), and 73%(!!) positive for Obama (MSNBC) vs 22% positive for McCain (Fox). Fox News actually had more negative stories about McCain than they had positive stories! Not only that, Fox had a higher percentage of positive stories for Obama than they did for McCain!! (25% vs 22%). Meanwhile, MSNBC had only 10% positive stories for McCain vs 43% positive stories about Obama.

Clearly, MSNBC is the most biased news source out there. No surprise. But it is quite surprising that Fox had a higher percentage of positive stories about Obama, an equal amount of negative stories for both.

But forget the rivalry between Fox and MSNBC. Look at the numbers for the media overall:

Positive for Obama--36%
Positive for McCAin--14%

Negative for Obama--29%
Negative for McCain--57%

No media bias, huh?

journalism.org/node/13436

[finn]

Good post HLT and a good pick up too Malik, tho' the balanced coverage was of McCain not Palin or Palin and McCain. you both also presuppose that both/all candidates are equal.

There is another scenario which is the more along the lines of Occam's Razor, maybe the media balance is skewed because some of the candidates suck!

[Marv]

It's all just a big, fat game show. I don't understand how anybody can invest emotionally in the outcome of this farce.

[Brother Charn]

Good post HLT and a good pick up too Malik, tho' the balanced coverage was of McCain not Palin or Palin and McCain. you both also presuppose that both/all candidates are equal.

There is another scenario which is the more along the lines of Occam's Razor, maybe the media balance is skewed because some of the candidates suck!

good post... although it clearly shows you also are not unbiased.

dw

[finn]

How so?

[Brother Charn]

Well, this assumes that one can be biased against suck-ness.

It is a natural bias, I admit. One that I share.

The only people who are perfectly neutral are dead, and they can't vote... except on the GOP ticket in certain states.

dw

[SoulBiter]

* On Fox News, in contrast, coverage of Obama was more negative than the norm (40% of stories vs. 29% overall) and less positive (25% of stories vs. 36% generally). For McCain, the news channel was somewhat more positive (22% vs. 14% in the press overall) and substantially less negative (40% vs. 57% in the press overall). Yet even here, his negative stories outweighed positive ones by almost 2 to 1.

Look at that. Fox News had the same percentage of negative stories about Obama as they did for McCain: 40%. How's that for balanced?

Thats not how I read that...

Obama was more negative than the norm 40%
McCain was less negative than the norm 40%

Thats not the same as the same percentage of negative stories.

[Avatar]

Will we make 100 pages before the election? Why, I think we might...

--A

[Vain]

Another great domestic terrorist...you know...like Ayers...



<Second image removed by Syl, and it was tempting to delete the whole post>