Study: Media Negative on McCain

In a report posted on the Politico web site, Michael Calderone writes the following: "The good news for John McCain? He's now receiving as much attention from the national media as his Democratic rival. The bad news? It's overwhelmingly negative."

According to Calderone's posting, which cites a new study from The Pew Research Center's Project for Excellence in Journalism, only "...14 percent of the stories about John McCain, from the conventions through the final presidential debate, were positive in tone...while nearly 60 percent were negative - the least favorable coverage of any of the four candidates on the two tickets."

The Pew Research Center's study looked at more than 2,400 media stories from more than 40 newspapers and cable news shows over a six week period from after the Republican and Democratic conventions through the final presidential debate between John McCain and Barack Obama.

The study placed the blame on McCain saying, "Much of the increased attention for McCain derived from actions by the senator himself, actions that, in the end, generated mostly negative assessments. In many ways, the arc of the media narrative during this phase of the 2008 general election might best be described as a drama in which John McCain acted and Barack Obama reacted."

Still, and this point applies to coverage of Obama as well, isn't it the job of the news media to report the news as it is, and not as they interpret it to be? I always thought news stories were supposed to be just the facts, not opinion. If the report itself is negative, then opinion has been injected into the equation.

When the focus is switched to Barack Obama, the numbers, not surprisingly, get better. The media in general has long been accused of being "in the tank" for Obama. Calderone's report says, "For Barack Obama, the study found coverage 'has been somewhat more positive than negative, but not markedly so,' with 36 percent of the stories positive in tone, 35 percent mixed, and 29 percent negative."

How is that not markedly different? Nearly 60 percent negative for McCain but only 29 percent negative for Obama is not markedly different? But the authors of the study, according to Calderone, say this discrepancy does not necessarily indicate a bias toward Obama: "Rather, they say, the statistics 'do offer a strong suggestion that winning in politics begat winning coverage, thanks in part to the relentless tendency of the press to frame its coverage of national elections as running narratives about the relative position of the candidates in the polls and internal tactical maneuvering to alter those positions."