Yesterday, Ed Morrissey and others covered the latest study of primary coverage by the Pew Research Center’s Project for Excellence in Journalism and the Joan Shorenstein Center on Press, Politics and Public Policy at Harvard University. The discussion tended summarize the study as finding that Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama both got positive media coverage over two-thirds of the time, while the most of John McCain’s coverage was negative. A closer look at the study, however, reveals some important qualifications to that summary.
On the Democratic side, some suggested the study cast doubt on Clinton’s complaint about the establishent media favoring Obama. However, comparing the 69% positive coverage Obama got over the study period with Clinton’s 67% positive coverage does not tell the whole story, partly because they are average figures that do not convey trends over time and partly because Clinton entered the cycle as a known quantity with nearly universal name ID. Thus, while both got over 75% positive coverage at the outset of the study period, the media overwhelming promoted the dominant themes of Obama’s campaign:
…In the first two weeks of the yearâ€â€the Iowa and New Hampshire contestsâ€â€the idea that Obama represented change accounted for a remarkable 38% of all the assertions about him that we studied.
That number fell slightly (to 32% of assertions) during the South Carolina and Super Tuesday battlesâ€â€hard-fought, contentious contests that reinforced the sense of deadlock and drama in the Democratic race…
The skeptical narrative that gained the most traction in the press during the period when Obama was racking up his lead in the primaries was about lack of experience. Still, this appeared only half as frequently as the positive trait of representing change and hope, amounting to just 12% of the personal narratives studied.
Clinton’s experience accounted for only 25% of her coverage at the outset of the study period. Obama’s lack of experience was mentioned in less than 10% of his coverage at the outset.  By March 9th, most assertions about Clinton addressed her experience, but only 25% of assertions about Obama addressed his lack thereof.ÂÂ
In short, while both candidates may have gotten similar amounts of positive coverage on average, the media coverage at the outset framed the campaign around Obama’s narrative and did not shift toward Clinton’s strength until Obama had built a delegate lead that — under the proportional system of delegate allocation — would be difficult to overcome.
The study’s conclusions about McCain’s press coverage are also subject to an important qualification. The study finds that McCain got only 43% positive coverage, which many on the right seized upon as proof of a liberal bias in the media coverage. However, a closer look shows that:
Within that battle, one criticism has proved particularly persistent. Claims that he is not a reliable conservative and may alienate the conservative core of the party accounted for fully half of all threads studied during this time (and 88% of the all negative threads).
Interestingly, the study lumps together claims that McCain can win in November and appeals to moderates as positive coverage. This reflects the study’s own problem addressing one of McCain’s basic political difficulties — his appeal to moderates and lack of same to conservatives are a mix of positive and negative that does not lend itself to easy content analysis in this context. (More telling on liberal media bias might be that a different content analysis by MediaTenor finding that since March 1st, broadcast TV (+FNC) and newsmagazine coverage of the ostensibly moderate McCain’s policy positions and campaign strategy have been overwhelmingly negative .)
Another finding “beyond the master narratives” of the candidates is not surprising, but worthy of comment:
The clearest finding is that the coverage has been overwhelmingly about political concernsâ€â€tactics, strategy, horse raceâ€â€as opposed to policy, background or personal issues.
Fully 78% of the stories studied between January 1 and the first week of May 4 have focused on such political matters. By contrast, policy stories made up 7% of the stories, personal matters, 7%, and public record, 2%.
The media’s obsession with horserace coverage is such that their quadrennial post-election exercises in self-denuciation for it approach self-parody. But in the context of this campaign, it is notable that a lack of focus on policy, background or personal issues benefits Obama.
A factor not considered in this study is the relative quantity of coverage given to the candidates. In general, a review of PEJ’s own Campaign Coverage Index shows that Obama almost always received significantly more coverage that Clinton and McCain. The importance of maximizing “gross ratings points” in a political campaign is such that the sheer volume of positive Obama coverage should not be overlooked.
In short, the latest PEJ study does support the thesis advanced by our host, Jeff Goldstein, regarding the role the media seeks to play in deciding our political choices  in effect, serving as potential kingmakers. As Jeff recognized, the media does not always pursue this power in the most straightforward fashion. Thus, a look at the data beyond the topline figures may reveal a more nuanced version of the traditional media biases.
Try selling that to Glenn Greenwald, Wingnut Karl. He has anecdotes.
Just a quick note before I get back to tightly hugging O!‘s magical rose-shooter: your “analysis” of the “media” in this “campaign” just proves you’re a racist, Karl.
Karl, you continue to do great work. how will you keep up your wingnut status when you are constantly reporting on teh nuance? :-)
I’m surprised that Timmah has the brass to show his face around here, now that Caric’s exposed himself as a racist for backing Hillary.
Is that Doyle, Dan?
Great post, Karl.
But we don’t really need a study to tell us that for decades, the press has done their best to subliminally affect election outcomes. Just by looking at the photos they print, it is way too obvious to some of us, just who the press is pushing.
What comes to mind at this moment is a NYT story during Clinton/BushI race. The picture of Clinton they had was of a smiling, self confident Clinton that almost had a halo around his head.
By contrast, the picture Of George the First was a picture of a rumpled, sour looking man stumbling alone underneath the wing of an airplane on the tarmac.
I guess I remember it so well as an example, because I got so pissed the minute I saw it, I almost choked on my breakfast.
It is way too obvious to anyone who wants to see, that this catastrophe of an empty suit is being shoved down our throats. The problem is that most people don’t want to see it, and really don’t pay a lot of attention to substance.
I can’t believe it, but for the first time in my life, I am seriously considering that I might have to leave this country in the not too distant future.
I mean, this Leiberman, Warner, Boxer bill is just beyond my comprehension. Who the fuck do these people think they are? We have 535 people who run this country with little more than a “fuck off, assholes” to the people who actually MAKE this country happen. Sometimes I just want to scream at those arrogant little twats.
Their timeless dream of making America the stupidest and most misersble country in the world is almost within their grasp.
If the proggs get their way, the people of this country who just float around in a bubble, and believe that freedom comes from God, are in for a very nasty surprise.
Obama and a Democratic congress? We better get ready to duck.
#1 Dan Collins
Try selling that to Glenn Greenwald, Wingnut Karl. He has anecdotes.
Heh. On that note, expect Eric Alterman to throw a conniption at any moment.
20 years later everyone still remembers Dan Quayle and ” potatoe”.
Leftist Media excuses Obama on his 57 States , Arabic Spoken in Afghanistan and other such gaffes. Why?
The basic assumption from Liberals in media is Obama= Brilliant and honest are excused.
But Dan Quayle was an ignorant conservative who really could not spell Potato.
The LAT has a profile of John McCain on the front page today. Here is the lede (which is as far as most readers go in a newspaper article:
“MESA, ARIZ. — When John McCain arrived in the Valley of the Sun nearly three decades ago, he was weighed down with enough negatives to sink most budding politicians.
Some Arizonans dismissed him as a carpetbagger shopping for an available House seat — and a future in Washington politics. Others were annoyed that he had left the wife who waited valiantly for his return from a Hanoi prison, and that he had then married a much younger bride. His political opponents derided his marriage into Arizona’s Hensley beer distributor fortune as a “money-in-law” arrangement to boost his campaign coffers.”
Does the LAT coordinate their reporting with Howard Dean, or does it just seem like it?
Incidentally, the LAT also has a ide-bar story pointing out that most of the YouTube clips about McCain are negative and most of the clips about Obama are positive.
You’re the ass cancer of politics, useful as a tampon’s discarded applicator, the lumpy flushable, the sticky sneeze of a weasel.
I don’t agree with the sentiment as applied to your target, but if you could get this crocheted on a pillow I would buy it.
Apparently, thor’s theory is that O! would have done even bettah if the Rev. Wright story had broken a week or two before the IA caucuses.
O? Really?
Liberal news media bias used to be a scandal. Now, it’s a given. Fortunately, the one-way media’s lock on the information flow has been broken for some time now, so there’s no need to be too outraged anymore.
And speaking of our host, Protein Wisdom is going to break the 10 million hits mark sometime this coming week. Probably much sooner, if Jeff condescends to grace us with a post during that time. How shall we celebrate?
Ineresting post, but I suspect the acyual bias is far worse than this study indicates. Thor’s feeble attempt at rebuttal was more lacking in substance than usual.
The well is dry. Liberal media bias is a given. The deniers of it fit right in with 911 ‘truthers’.
“I don’t know how Richard Nixon could have won. I don’t know anybody who voted for him.” – The late film critic Pauline Kael’s reaction to Richard Nixon’s landslide victory over George McGovern
Thank God for cable news and the internet.
#16 Log Cabin
The well is dry. Liberal media bias is a given. The deniers of it fit right in with 911 ‘truthers’.
Glenn Greenwald(s), Eric Alterman, Dylan Avery and David Ray Griffin. Wouldn’t you just love to sit in on that conversation?
Lordy!
Karl, have you never read any Aimé Césaire, José MartÃÂ, Virginia Woolf? It’s just ranting against the man. You act like seeing an angry Negro is an epiphany. You can read or witness a rant and both appreciate it’s quality of emotion and not agree with it at the same time.
You are exactly what you denounce – the faux roid rager.
Who. Cares. But. You.
You act like seeing an angry Negro is an epiphany.
I was flipping through the channels last night and stopped briefly on the scene in “Save the Last Dance” (shut up) where Julia Stiles delivers the line “I don’t see any Negroes here”.
I. Don’t. See. Any. Negroes. Here.
Words to live by thor.
This calls for some old-fashioned “Adlerian analysis.”
The nut is here, @ Ed’s:
There’s little difference between group and individual behavior, except that groups are less rational (and therefore more easily analyzed), so you can understand this seeming oddity by thinking about your own life: On whose behalf do you act like that, defending them far beyond necessity?
You’re tempted to say family, friends, etc., because you do defend them, and sometimes too vigorously, because to some extent, they’re you. But really think about it, and you’ll realize you don’t go that far overboard defending anybody you’re meaningfully attached to, because when you do, you tarnish their image, some of which is you, by making yourself look like a liar.
Such desperate defenses, you reserve only for yourself–when you’re lying. Because it’s already too late.
Also: penis
Karl, this may be extremely rude, so forgive me in advance, but I just have to know: what did you ever do to “thor”? I mean the child reacts to a post of yours like some kind of new age Pavlov’s dog. You post and the little chihuahua comes out yapping.
You could post that the sky is blue, and a couple of comments later, there’d be ole Thor, calling you a Right Wing Fascist. He passed “silly” and moved on to “twit” a couple of months ago. In my experience reading PW, your basic asshat doesn’t hang around that long.
Protein Wisdom: Great quality commentary, poor quality trolls.
And it’s always fun to watch the left come out to try to deny leftist bias in the MSM – how do they type with their fingers in their ears?
“- how do they type with their fingers in their ears?”
You do NOT want to know what mental image that question invoked.
Karl dissed Obama. Or thor thought he did. Either one.
(“Hi! I’m Thor!”
“I thought tho, the way you were thcreaming.”)
As a commenter at Ace noted, this is clear evidence of media bias: Senator Obama, who is perfect, is not getting 100% positive coverage by the biased, obviously right-wing media.
karl, with your excellent DATA collection you enter stuff about Why the Media is negative towards McCain: The Right Wing’s own self generated Negativity towards McCain, not the Media’s.
Your arguments that the Media is Left-biased is again “BS”. Jeff et al are guilty of generating the “Negativity” towards McCain, not the usually positive Media he gets (aided by his jolliness, temper, pig roasts, etc.)
But again McCain’s turn to the Right which is in disrepute due to their mismanagement of the economy (and wars) is also maybe part of McCain’s negative press coverage.
(on CNN now listening to Howard Dean’s excoriation of the Right (Republicans) for the fact that majority of party switchers are going to Democrats. )
again, it’s the Economy, stupid. The Media as people are also paying the enormous increases of Fixed Monthly Costs that Republicans have foisted upon us via ExxonMobil, excessive CEO pay, devalued dollars, Credit Card companies and Banks.
Merovign, go stuff yourself.
datafuckhead – Go ahead and pass out anytime now. You fucking troothers are assbandits. You deserve to be locked in a room with the gleeeeens, excitable andy, the nishit, and a pack of rabid wolverines.
Glenn Greenwald(s), Eric Alterman, Dylan Avery and David Ray Griffin
you call that the “Media”. Fox News is a hundred times bigger than all of them “liberals” combined. Jeesh, you don’t want Any Liberal Media, at all
!!
I didn’t even hear of the Gleen guy until visiting here. Most Americans don’t even know what the Huffington Post is (a top poli.webblog). Half the voters don’t hook up on-line except to buy some Amazon stuff and do e-mail.
the MSM is still TV and very conservative. Fox is number one supposedly…so what’s your problem?
JD, good wanking. Take Mom out for a date and get a babysitter. Please! And thanks for the nishit and wolverines. They are a lot of fun.
Fox is fucking tiny as compared to ABC, SeeBS, NBC, MSNBC, CNN, etal. you drooling moron.
eh, OB…..like my keyboard does have a nice aged feel to it. Ummmm, the key logos are worn off even.
I won’t describe my mouse.
But Jeff is more experienced in that use of the anatomy I’ve read here.
there’s always the toes though.
Joe Scarbourah is such a liberal, eh, JD. not going to bother looking up his spelling. Advocate for killing abortion doctors, Republican congressman, member of MSM. John whaz his name, the Libertarian guy, Dan Rather getting fired for reporting the truth (GW did avoid Vietnam service as planned), MSM’s fullbore coverage of Swiftboaters, and oh so biased Liberal Media goes to the highest bidders.
Yeah, sure, the Media is a Liberal’s Nightmare, not nice for Liberals at all.