As I said, when I look at a "think tank's" roots, I'm automatically suspicious, not necessarily incredulous. If I had time I would want to research how their polling questions were phrased and how they went about developing their opinions.
I'd like to know the raw number of reports. It seems to me that regardless of bias, the volume of coverage for Obama swamps the volume of coverage for McCain. It could just be my news sources (Drudge, RealClearPolitics, CNN, NPR, and FoxNews Radio), but I'd guess that Obama stories outnumber McCain stories 3-to-1.
Based off of my cursory glance of the article, they just counted the number of positive word and negative words that were associated with a candidate's name.
Which would make the higher percentage harder to explain. I'm just wondering what counts as a negative report. Honestly the worst I've heard is just from people getting Obama tired-head.
Not at all, and I agree. I just think a study that states that tries to refute media bias and doesn't report the volume of reporting is really misleading.
The article sort of talks about this - it's from another study, but: 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. I wrote last week that the networks should do more to better balance the air time. But I also suggested that much of the attention to Obama was far from glowing. The flipside of this is that McCain seems to be encouraging this. All of his recent ads, statements, and campaign releases have been focused on Obama rather than himself. So even when you try to cover McCain, you end up talking about Obama. I think what has happened is that this election is about Obama. People are either going to vote for or against him. McCain just provides an alternative. It's interesting to note that in the polls that do head-to-head and compare it to a 4-way race (Nader, Barr), McCain basically gets ALL of the Nader *and* Barr vote when they are stripped out of the contest. People are choosing "yes or no" to Obama, and then if they say no, they pick from the remaining contenders. So the goal of the McCain campaign is clearly to make people less comfortable with Obama - it doesn't really matter what McCain's views are at this point (presumably, that will change as the election nears). But the way to do that is to focus all the attention on Obama and hope you can draw it in a negative way.
Really? I find this hard to believe. Exhibit A: Because in 2003 that's not how you tried to approach it - in the course of trying to make the embarrassing argument that GW Bush was quite popular abroad, more so than Bill or Hillary Clinton, you discounted a Pew Research study by claiming that since Madeline Albright is a member of Pew's advisory board, the study was automatically invalid, regardless of the fact that it was conducted entirely under the supervision a Republican-leaning poli sci faculty member at GMU. Exhibit B: your performance in this thread.
I read that after I posted. So, let me do the math. In politics, neutral coverage is nearly as good as positive coverage. It said that most of the coverage is neutral reporting. Let's simplify and call it half. So Obama gets 106 minutes of neutral coverage + positive coverage, and McCain gets 48 minutes of neutral + positive coverage. Obama gets 60 minutes negative coverage compared to only 19 for McCain, but that really puts it in perspective. I've said that all along. McCain doesn't excite anyone, and he certainly doesn't get ratings. I get bored listening to him talk, even when I agree with him. (To be fair, I have Obama burnout now, and he bores me too.) The election really is about an acceptance or rejection of Obama.
The McCain campaign, as a policy, has restricted media access to McCain for fear of his mouth. His handlers do not what him in front of cameras or reporters for fear of him going seriously off message. McCain has no discipline when it comes to handling the media and is all over the place with his responses. This isn’t Obama’s fault.
Exactly, mark. Not only has McCain avoided media, he hasn't done anything really newsworthy during this period. Obama, on the other hand, had the whole post Hillary reflections, a more interesting VP ponderance, his FISA change of heart (which likely accounts for most of the 'negatives.') and was being presented as THE nominee for the first time. I think the more interesting tidbit in this article is that they found the three networks, combined, had less then 2 positive/negative statements on both candidates. This is a small sample size. Given the time period (McCain napping compared to a bit of an Obama hangover plus his FISA wiggle) I don't know that you can conclude a whole bunch from this.
Another point about having more coverage for Obama to consider is McCain's campaign as of late. mc mark has pointed out that McCain has restricted access by the media but in addition to that look at his campaign ads. They seem to be about Obama and not about McCain himself. The ads say that Obama was responsible for high gas prices, then that Obama was bad for not visiting troops in Germany. So the focus of McCain's ad is Obama. It would only be natural that the media investigate those claims made by McCain. If McCain wants more focus on him, perhaps he should listen to his own complaints.
The post below is in reply to Batman Jones. http://bbs.clutchfans.net/showthread.php?t=149303&page=5&pp=20&highlight=media+Hillary+Clinton Thanks, FB. That was sarcasm, by the way. I knew there was a reason I was reluctant to search for my post, and it was having to reread the thread this quote of mine (of myself, lol) came from. After rereading the thread, it's a wonder I still read Batman's posts. I must be a sucker for apologies written by a playwright. Go figure. Impeach Bush/Cheney.
Can anyone remember a more inept GOP presidential campaign than McCain's? Dole had no chance to win but I don't remember his campaign being this incompetent and ludicrous. I am so disgusted that I'm about to throw my hands up in the air on McCain and be like everyone else and just vote yes/no on Obama. I'll give him until the end of the GOP convention and if he still doesn't have a message about himself that compels me to choose him, I'll either vote for Obama or refrain from selecting a presidential candidate. The recent negative ads and comments by McCain about Obama's trip and his breathtaking two-day flip-flop on timetables for exiting Iraq have just about destroyed his credibility with me. He's starting to sound less like a president and more like a resentful loser. I'll be very disappointed if his campaign degenerates into a lot of negativity and character assassination. If that happens, he's no better than the same GOP attack dogs that kneecapped him 8 years ago.
I totally agree here. It seems like whatever McCain was even a few years ago (and especially 8 years ago) is now completely gone. Especially over these last few weeks, he really looks like he's gone the Rove-style campaign route of simply trying to create doubt about the other guy instead of justifying why he deserves to be President. It's very odd - I'll be curious to see if anything changes over the coming months. I suspect the change in the poll numbers over these past few days are as much caused by McCain as they are by Obama's trip. One of them has looked/acted very Presidential, while the other seems to be acting much more like a spoiled child. As someone who's always liked McCain, it's been very disappointing to see.
