The Dreaded Bias

Politico recently discussed the obvious media bias shown during this presidential campaign. The article discussed how the Project for Excellence in Journalism researched the amount of media coverage of the two candidates. The study showed that John McCain had four times as many negative stories than positive stories while Barack Obama had twice as many positive stories as negative ones and half the percentage of negative stories when compared to McCain.
Politico acknowledged that even its own site has been biased towards Obama, but tried to defend their bias by saying that Obama’s campaign has been going well while McCain’s has not. They also stated that one factor of media bias has been the “McCain backlash.” Reporters blame their lack of coverage (or negative coverage) towards McCain on his decisions regarding the media during this campaign. McCain was liked by the media in the past, but his decisions during the campaign to limit the amount of media access and alter his views slightly to fit the GOP views annoyed reporters.
And while most of the public might assume that reporters are rooting for Obama, Politico says that most of its colleagues are not, but instead view him as “distant and undefined.” They believe that a key to his campaign is his ability to “minimize drama and maximize secrecy,” a campaign similar to both of George Bush’s. Additionally, an idea that negative attacks towards contain a racial subtext has kept some controversial issues from being prominent in the media. The reporters also claimed that they are just following the election’s momentum (which obviously must have stayed with Obama for the entire last twenty months based on media coverage).