A Tale of Two Press Biases

by publius

There’s been a lot of whining about the press coverage this election. Both sides are complaining that the press is being unfairly soft on the other candidate. The McCain campaign complains about the press almost daily, while liberal pro-Obama blogs do the same from the other direction (Obama himself has been quieter on this front).

Sure, some of this complaining is simply working the refs, but I also think it’s a sincerely-held grievance on both sides. So they can’t both be right, can they? If both sides think the press is in the tank for other side, someone must be wrong, right? Not necessarily.

When people talk about press “bias,” they’re really talking about two different things. There’s not some uniform bias (“incompetence” is a better word) — instead, the press has been bad in different and distinct ways with respect to the two candidates. I don’t think the incompetence has been perfectly equal — sorry David Broder. But both candidates have some legitimate gripes.

I think that McCain’s most legitimate gripe is just that the press seems to cover Obama more. It’s not so much they praise him — they just cover him a lot. It’s understandable — Obama’s the new guy and he’s an intriguing story. That said, Obama's also better at generating “free media” attention through compelling events, powerful images, etc. Commanding press attention is, after all, one of the skill sets presidential candidates need.

The press has been too soft on McCain, by contrast, in a completely different way — specifically, they don’t hold him accountable for his gaffes and policy positions. It’s not that they never criticize him. To be more precise, they don’t hold him accountable to the level that his gaffes deserve. McCain operates in a consequence-free bubble that allows him to say whatever he wants — e.g., denying he said “timetable,” calling Social Security payments a “disgrace”, and so on.

Obama, by contrast, has to walk on eggshells 24-7. It’s a completely different standard. For instance, a few weeks ago, the press went into full mob mentality over “refine” even though it merely affirmed the positions he’s had for virtually his entire campaign.

If Obama had made just the slightest little misstatement on the overseas trip, it would have dominated coverage. Hell, every description of his trip was premised with “but he’ll have to be careful not to screw up.” They were ready to pounce (in part because of guilt for covering, I suppose), but Obama didn’t oblige.

McCain, by contrast, attacks timetables for years and then endorses one and then denies he ever used the word. It’s quite literally a universe away from “refine.”

Plus, McCain’s campaign has been relentlessly negative. All he does every day is attack, attack, attack — and in increasingly vitriolic and Grandpa Simpson-esque terms. But with the exception of Joe Klein, no one in the press seems all that bothered. In short, I think the press has been more than generous to McCain considering his actions and behavior on the campaign trail.

Looking ahead, my fear is that the press feels like it needs to do penance for the Obama European coverage. Thus, expect Obama’s next gaffe or misstatement to be amplified about 100 times more than it should.

UPDATE: I should have linked to this LAT piece providing some empirical support for these claims. (Thanks to commenters).

Comments

[Frank]

Yah the bosses have gotta be unhappy about how the European visit went.

One thing absent from your post, Publius, is why coverage is easy on McCain and hard on Obama. Reporters, and the most successful reporters make millions a year work in an industry completely dominated by a few billion dollar businesses. 5 billionaires rule their industry and all coverage has as its primary goal pleasing them.

[Frank]

Yah the bosses have gotta be unhappy about how the European visit went.

One thing absent from your post, Publius, is why coverage is easy on McCain and hard on Obama. Reporters, and the most successful reporters make millions a year work in an industry completely dominated by a few billion dollar businesses. 5 billionaires rule their industry and all coverage has as its primary goal pleasing them.

[publius]

honestly - i don't think that's the reason. i think most of the press is liberal and they've internalized conservative critiques. so, they spend their days feeling the need to reaffirm their independence. as a result, they grab on to silly non-substantive controversies b/c it serves a deeper psychological need or whatever

it's one reason why the rise of sites like TPM and Huffington may be good -- no worries about validating themselves to the broders of the world

[Elvis Elvisberg]

I agree with all of this, publius. The overarching Left Blogistan critique of the media, as I understand it, is that the media doesn't do a good job covering substantive news, instead trumpeting trifles and coming from the perspective of baseless narratives.

That doesn't necessarily cut against the left or the right. Because we have a malevolent yet incompetent GOP president whose administration has pushed hard to get what it wants, the media's "he said she said" style has been particularly objectionable to the left lately.

The GOP's critique, that the media loves Democrats and hates Republicans, is transparently absurd. Maybe it was true in 1980 or whenever it was made up, but given how every journalist feels a deep obligation to genuflect to the increasingly embarrassing GOP presidential candidate, that's a thing of the past.

Reporters, and the most successful reporters make millions a year work in an industry completely dominated by a few billion dollar businesses. 5 billionaires rule their industry and all coverage has as its primary goal pleasing them.

I dunno, Frank. I think that most reporters get started on their careers idealizing 1970s Bob Woodward, before they wind up acting like 2000s Bob Woodward. A lot of it is culture, I think-- only rubes care a lot about substantive issues, the so truth is always in the middle. But even if the pressure from above is subtle, the media's "don't rock the boat with anything investigative" approach may well be based in part on pressure from the billionaires.

[professordarkheart]

Just wanted to point out that we now actually have numbers backing up the claims Publius makes. They're true.

[Anderson]

I expected the piece to link to the LAT article on the George Mason study finding that the networks are more negative on Obama than on McCain.

[Anderson]

Dark hearts think alike!

[cleek]

another data point: McCain says his gas tax will work because he will shame the oil companies into not taking extra profits. and Stephanopolous didn't laugh in McCain's face.

McCain is a deeply un-serious candidate. that the press hasn't laughed him off the stage by now is clear evidence of their worthlessness.

[MeDrewNotYou]

Count me in agreement with Publius. Here's a http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/16341.html>study that I would say backs up his analysis.

28% of the statements about Obama were positive, while 72% was negative. In contrast, 43% of the statements about McCain were positive, while 57% was negative.

To save some reading, Obama gets more coverage overall, while McCain gets fewer mentions, but McCain's mentions tend to be more positive.

(I note someone beat me to the story, but I have a summary! Beat that! ^.^)

[jonnybutter]

Publius' post is about right. The press, rather than explicitly serve an ideological point of view (except when they do), mostly serves itself. As far as they're concerned, it's a business no different from any other, like tractor manufacture or internet porno. MY has a post up about this this morning as well, and my comment there was: it's in the interest of the press to murkify rather than clarify. A plurality of reporters may be personally reasonable (ie mildly liberal), but it's not their job - as they see it - to make things easier to understand. If things are really fairly clear on their face, then who needs the 'insiders'?

[Erasmussimo]

I noticed the complaints about press bias some months ago, and came up with an idea for assessing the validity of those complaints. For the last eight weeks, I've been, at random intervals, selecting the "Elections" headlines from Google. There are three stories presented and they are selected by a popularity algorithm that has no intrinsic political bias. My intention has been to sort those headlines into favorable, unfavorable, or neutral for each of the candidates, and then present the results. If I can cobble together some time, I'll do so in the next day or so and present the results here.

[LT Nixon]

Clearly the press loves Obama, but I thought hope was given up for a transparent, objective media long ago. Let's talk about blogs! One of my fears is that so many netroots blogs are in the tank for Obama, that if he gets elected there will be an "outrage deficit", similar to the decline of talk radio when GW got elected in 2000. Funny satire sites like Wonkette could become pandering schnooze fests overnight. What will ObWi talk about if Obama is elected? I'm curious.

[wonkie]

An awful lot of promenet "news" wrters and pundits want to be kingmakers. They want to back the winner, tho they wouldnever admit it to themsleves or anyone else, of course.

Carperbagger Report had a write-up recently about this phenomenon. Thecorportate press has decided that Obama is arrogant and needs to be taken down a peg--by them. Why? Because he isn't their annointed. He's making himslef king which under cuts their power as kingmaker wannabes.

Besides he's uppity.

I don't know how we got a press corpse so decayed and decadent. Has it always been this way? Or is our political culture in general decayed and decadent?

Here's another little thought exercises for you all: will the press cover the shooting at the Unitarian church as rightwing terrorism? Since, according to the press, its the liberals and lefties who are the upsetting radicals thrity years of relentless hate mongering from the tight isn't even worth mentioning. malkin and Coulter can get on CNN. Hell McCain can attack Obama's character and honor repeatedly and the press corpse barely notices. My guess is that the shooter's rightwing exgremism will get a bare notice and instead his poverty and military background will get played up.

[cleek]

another data point: McCain says his gas tax will work because he will shame the oil companies into not taking extra profits.'

yet another data point: remember McCain's solution to the Sunni / Shiite problem?

“One of the things I would do if I were President would be to sit the Shiites and the Sunnis down and say, ‘Stop the bullshit,’” said Mr. McCain, according to Shirley Cloyes DioGuardi, an invitee, and two other guests.

we don't need another arrogant idiot for President.

[Adam]

Maybe it was true in 1980 or whenever it was made up, but given how every journalist feels a deep obligation to genuflect to the increasingly embarrassing GOP presidential candidate, that's a thing of the past.

Nixon, circa 1968 or so. The media loves the Kennedys and hates me, blah blah.

[ken]

McCain has been in the news for the last twenty years or so. The press and the public knows him pretty well. And Democrats know him as their almost vice presidential nominee back in 2004. So his mistatements and bumbles are like those of your family: you know what they mean even if they don't say it exactly right, because you know them.

Obama is an inexperienced, unknown newcomer to the scene who barely squeeked by the Democratic party's nomination. He won through clever utilization of the bizarre rules and practices that give undue influence to small groups of activists at the expense of normal party members.

So yeah, the press as well as the public are going to be more interested in Obama at this time. Who is this guy? Does he share your values? Can you trust him? Most people don't know how to answer these questions yet. More information is needed.

[Tony P.]

McCain is a deeply un-serious candidate. that the press hasn't laughed him off the stage by now is clear evidence of their worthlessness.

I repeat my point from the Who Speaks for McCain thread: 'the press' cannot laugh McCain off the stage without implicitly calling a fraction of its audience stupid. Commercially, that's risky.

-- TP

[novakant]

the press went into full mob mentality over “refine” even though it merely affirmed the positions he’s had for virtually his entire campaign.

I hate to sound like a broken record on this, but it wasn't Obama's position all along to merely continue the occupation of Iraq under a different guise: even if the "entirely conditions based" withdrawal should go ahead, Obama will still leave a "residual force" of unspecified size in Iraq, designed to "engage in counterterrorism activities" and to "protect our bases" and "civilian workers".

How all of this will play out eventually nobody knows, but it will enable Obama to simply continue the occupation under another name and if he does so, Iraqi sovereignty will merely be an empty phrase.

There sure wasn't a lot of talk about this during Obama's primary campaign and the reason for this is simple: he needed the peace vote to beat Clinton and now he has to shift towards the centre to beat McCain.

So far, so politics as usual - but could we please stop ignoring or downplaying this. I agree that the US mainstream media sucks, because they are only interested in horse-race politics and are using this issue to play gotcha with Obama. But he did give them an opening and some scattered voices on the US left, as well as some parts of the European media are taking him to task for it, because they are genuinely concerned about his plans for Iraq.

(And to prove that I'm not bringing this up to bash Obama, I will just note that I have for a long time been and still am torn over what to do in Iraq, neither supporting the GOP obsession with "winning", nor the Democrat's plan to just leave and hope for the best.)

[Erasmussimo]

I just carried out my quick-and-dirty analysis of headlines on Google. I found 76 favoring McCain (saying anything positive about McCain or negative about Obama) and 101 favoring Obama. My conclusion from this tiny dataset is that there is indeed a press bias in favor of Mr. Obama -- but it's not a large one.

[rea]

What will ObWi talk about if Obama is elected? I'm curious.

The tubes of the Internets will no longer be clogged with blogs, because all the problems of the world will be solved and there will be nothing to complain about. We'll all have to get a life.

[Turbulence]

Erasmussimo,

It might be worth factoring into your analysis the number of public events that each candidate makes. The press like to report on events and when last I looked, McCain had very very few; he didn't seem to be doing much in the way of campaigning. In contrast, Obama was much more active.

On the other hand, this sort of analysis might be thrown off by surrogates. If McCain never goes outside but has surrogates on cable news blabbing continuously...

[rea]

What idiot turned me lose on the world with just enough knowledge of html to be dangerous? Italics be gone!

[cleek]

Italexo!

?

[cleek]

I repeat my point from the Who Speaks for McCain thread: 'the press' cannot laugh McCain off the stage without implicitly calling a fraction of its audience stupid. Commercially, that's risky.

a good point. and happily for me, it also reinforces my point: the press is nearly worthless. whether it's a situation of can't or one of won't, the bottom line is that it doesn't tell the truth; instead it ignores, panders, manipulates, and misleads.

and friends, that's not a press i can believe in.

[Turbulence]

I repeat my point from the Who Speaks for McCain thread: 'the press' cannot laugh McCain off the stage without implicitly calling a fraction of its audience stupid. Commercially, that's risky.

I'm not sure I buy this, for two reasons:

1. The press doesn't seem to be particularly good at making money; I mean, if I wanted to invest in an industry that was highly profitable, American media would not top my short list. I have trouble imagining the press as intelligent enough to make these kinds of tactical decisions or even to consider the opinions of their audience sufficiently more important than their own overinflated sense of ego so as to affect their behavior.

2. The press call their audience stupid all the time. During the Lewinsky madness when Bill Clinton had a 65%+ public approval, the press savaged him, practically screaming that anyone who wasn't as outraged as they were was a moral monster. That was particularly egregious, but further examples abound. Consider the contemptuous press blather about how we shouldn't let our foreign policy be decided by dentists whenever anyone points out that, you know, a large chunk of the population doesn't think we should be in Iraq now.

[Hartmut]

One thing the European, esp. the German, press (and politicians) has(have) now become extremly angry about is an alleged quote (in the neutral sense, I have not seen the actual quote) by Obama that the Europeans should send more troops to Afghanistan, so the US could withdraw more of its own in order to allow cutting US taxes on the middle class. The problem is not the "more troops" but the stated reason.

[malraux]

Erasmussimo:

The other flaw in your assumptions is that the always correct balance of news coverage should be equal. But that assumes that both candidates are equally worthy. If one party nominates the reincarnation of Abe Lincoln and the other party nominates a moldy grilled cheese sandwich, do you really think the news should include an equal balance?

[ThatLeftTurnInABQ]

publius,

Your analysis of the asymmetric nature of the press coverage (Obama gets more coverage, but it it sometimes hypercritical coverage, McCain gets less coverage but what he gets is very soft) seems right to me.

I think this may be due to the press being pretty well tuned in to the rhythms of US politics so they think Obama is very likely to win, just because the macro-level factors (incumbency fatigue, the economy, an unpopular war, the time approaching for a generational change over in our leadership) favor the Democrats this year.

Which means two things:

1 - They are covering Obama the way they would cover an actual governing administration. All the little details are treated as a big deal, because they feel as if they are covering a White House in waiting. Frank Rich at the NYT made the same point over the weekend.

2 - A reporter is not going to make their reputation as a big game hunter by being the one who lands the big McCain gaffe which sinks his campaign, if they assume he's already sinking. A big campaign-damaging Obama gaffe on the other hand, would be a very big deal and would make the reputation of whoever manages to pull that off. That Obama and his campaign are playing it careful and close to the vest in terms of interviews, etc, just eggs them on all the more.

[Nombrilisme Vide]

Caveat: I don't directly follow mainstream American journalism with any regularity, so what follows should be taken with a lump of salt. That being said...

I think that McCain’s most legitimate gripe is just that the press seems to cover Obama more.

I'm not sure this is entirely legitimate. I mean, perhaps to some degree, but McCain et al certainly share the blame, because:

...McCain’s campaign has been relentlessly negative. All he does every day is attack, attack, attack...

If you're running a negatively-defined attack campaign, you're trying to shift attention away from you onto your opponent. Mind, you're seeking to shape the attention paid to them, and make it as negative as possible, but you're still moving the spotlight off of you and onto them.

[ThatLeftTurnInABQ]

the Europeans should send more troops to Afghanistan, so the US could withdraw more of its own in order to allow cutting US taxes on the middle class. The problem is not the "more troops" but the stated reason.

Hartmut,

In a larger sense this sounds like asking the European public to in effect pay bribes to the US middle class, so as to give them a bigger incentive not to vote into office another Bush administration.

Have we not yet established that the European public is willing to do that?

Or have we reached the point where now we are just haggling over the price?

[Brett Bellmore]

"The GOP's critique, that the media loves Democrats and hates Republicans, is transparently absurd."

Really? You know, one advantage of campaign funding reporting is that we can actually http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/19113485/>track things like that. Would it shock you to find people working in the media donate about $9 to Democrats for every dollar they send to a Republican?

Even at Fox...

No, that critique is transparently NOT absurd.

[cleek]

Really?

yes, really.

did you happen to read the article, or any of the comments here ??

[Gary Farber]

"For instance, a few weeks ago, the press went into full mob mentality over “refine” even though it merely affirmed the positions he’s had for virtually his entire campaign."

It would help to give a link here to what you're talking about. I'm a huge newsjunkie, but one who has been not having very much newsreading time of late, and I, at least, have no damn idea.

And presumably the idea of blog writing is to tell people about stuff they don't already know, anyway. In which case, being mysterious is of less helpfulness than explaining what you're talking about.

"One of my fears is that so many netroots blogs are in the tank for Obama"

Which blogs? Most all the Democratic/liberal blogs I read have been full of people denouncing Obama for his FISA votes, and other perceived betrayals of Teh Liberal/Left, and announcements of how disillusioned they are with Obama. Y'know, like many of this blog's commenters..

"What will ObWi talk about if Obama is elected?"

Setting aside that this blog has never been primarily about election campaigns, or partisan politics, and that the recent heavy, if not overwhelming, tilt in that direction is a product of the election season and the imbalance of front page posters, I'd imagine there will be lots of talk about all of the ways Obama is disappointing. Complaining posts are always about one hundred times easier than praising posts.

"nor the Democrat's plan to just leave and hope for the best."

Which Democrat, specifically, in what statement?

[Gary Farber]

"Would it shock you to find people working in the media donate about $9 to Democrats for every dollar they send to a Republican?"

That's irrelevant; what matters is what shows up in their published work. Give cites to that, please.

[jonnybutter]

The press doesn't seem to be particularly good at making money

uh, that's not right. Television news makes enormous amounts of money and long has done. I used to think that news was sort of a loss-leader for the networks, or kind of a public service in exchange for the use of spectrum, but have since learned otherwise.

[Brett Bellmore]

Yeah, actually I did. Look, dollars contributed to one party vs another is about as close to an objective measure of media political preferences as you can get. Counting negative and positive stories is much less objective, and runs into the obvious problem that it's going to be at least partially driven by the actual events being reported on.

So, reporters who are overwhelmingly donating Democratic are none the less generating an excess of stories that make Obama look bad? Just think how bad he'd look if he was being covered by a media that didn't like him enough to send him money...

[Jesurgislac]

Brett: Really? You know, one advantage of campaign funding reporting is that we can actually track things like that. Would it shock you to find people working in the media donate about $9 to Democrats for every dollar they send to a Republican?

Even at Fox...

Did you read the side notes? MSNBC acknowledges that they only counted "Donors in news jobs, not corporate executives or publishers" (emphasis mine).

Rupert Murdoch owns Fox News. He's already given over $30 000 to John McCain and the Republicans so far this year - and I mean in 2008, not in the past 12 months.

It doesn't matter who Fox News journalists support as private individuals. If they value their jobs, they report the news the way the boss wants them to.

[Hogan]

Would it shock you to find people working in the media donate about $9 to Democrats for every dollar they send to a Republican?

But that's not the meaningful claim about media bias (which has to do with their behavior at work, not their political preferences when they're at home); it's only very weak evidence for the claim. (I agree that it gets repeated a lot, as if it meant something; but that doesn't mean it means something.)

[cleek]

Look, dollars contributed to one party vs another is about as close to an objective measure of media political preferences as you can get.

we're not talking about preferences, we're talking about what they actually do as reporters. they are not skewing their reporting 9:1 in favor of Dems; in fact, the recent data shows that they're devoting considerably more time on stories which are negative towards Obama than they are on any other kind of story.

So, reporters who are overwhelmingly donating Democratic are none the less generating an excess of stories that make Obama look bad?

yes. see, the Update for a link.

Just think how bad he'd look if he was being covered by a media that didn't like him enough to send him money...

yes. and just think how bad McCain would look if they actually spent more energy attacking him, instead of attacking Obama. which they, as is documented above, don't.

[Hogan]

Look, dollars contributed to one party vs another is about as close to an objective measure of media political preferences as you can get.

Well, I would want a larger sample than 143 reporters in one political cycle before I started drawing conclusions even on this question. But it's no more meaningful in larger political terms than looking at dollars contributed for washing machine repairpersons or paralegals or any other occupational category. Media "preference" is meaningful only if it shows up in how they do their jobs, and if you don't have evidence about that, then your argument doesn't matter.

[Jesurgislac]

Brett: Look, dollars contributed to one party vs another is about as close to an objective measure of media political preferences as you can get.

Good point, Brett. So, bearing in mind that Rupert Murdoch owns News Corp, which in the US owns (I wiki'd it: the list gets longer every time I look) The New York Post, The Wall Street Journal, The Times-Herald Record, The Weekly Standard, Fox Broadcasting Company, My Network TV, Fox News Channel, MySpace and Photobucket (which I throw in merely for the OMG factor - I have an account on Photobucket which I may need to ditch before I have to pay for it) and News America Marketing - and this is just some of the news outlets he owns, I'm not even going to go into his ownership of news outlets and other assets all over the world - and that he runs an annual conference for News Corporation to which Prime Ministers and Presidents are grateful to get an invitation - do you want to add up his donations here to a few Democrats, to a lot of Republicans, and a lot to the Republican Party, and find out, objectively, which party these news outlets support?

Or not?

[Turbulence]

uh, that's not right. Television news makes enormous amounts of money and long has done. I used to think that news was sort of a loss-leader for the networks, or kind of a public service in exchange for the use of spectrum, but have since learned otherwise.

Ah, I was thinking more in terms of print media.

Are you talking about network news or cable news? I thought the main problem for both was that viewership was declining and that the demographics of what viewership remained were shifting towards an increasingly older set. If I worked in network news, this graph (taken from here) would terrify me. I mean, even if network news is profitable despite the rapid viewership decline and the ongoing generational shift (such that the median age of a network news viewer is now over 60), that profitability simply cannot be sustained.

I know far less about cable news...was that what your enormous amounts of money comments was addressing? The median age of O'Reilly's audience is 71 and he's supposed to have one of the highest rated shows on any cable news network, which suggests to me that the same problems afflicting network news also afflict cable news. But I could be mistaken.

[wonkie]

While there does seem to be a tendency for reank and file reporters, there is also a very strong connecgtion between the editorial and managerial staff and the Republican party. And guess hwho decides which stories run and how the stories will be slanted?

[gwangung]

Really? You know, one advantage of campaign funding reporting is that we can actually track things like that. Would it shock you to find people working in the media donate about $9 to Democrats for every dollar they send to a Republican?

No.

Generally, the more right wing the politician, the more likely they'll attack the press for bias against them. Therefore, it doesn't surprise me in the least that members of the press wouldn't contribute to the party that attacks them and their profession so much. (Given that this is meme that's been decades long in life, why would you expect anything different?)

[LT Nixon]

that the demographics of what viewership remained were shifting towards an increasingly older set.

Not a big surprise. Have you watched CNN lately? All the commercials are for motorized old people carts and life insurance.

[jonnybutter]

I don't mean to nitpick, turb. Your broader points are fine with me. I just wanted to dispel the idea that news is some perpetually money-losing business that companies continue with just because they feel they 'should' or something.

Pretty much all tv news is profitable. When profits started to dip - not disappear, but lessen - at the networks as viewership flagged, operating expenses were cut - yes, viewership is going down for network news, but so are their expenses. Cable news (or 'news') and political gabfests (technically news) are profitable because they cost almost nothing to produce, particularly the latter. I can't predict the future, but all types, if not all particular outlets, are still profitable now. Local news has long been a major profit center at individual stations, although that viewership is now going down as well, so costs are being cut there too.

NYT is a profitable company. WaPo Inc is profitable. Speaking of Bill-O, why in the world do you think they pay him so much money? Because he makes them a lot of money.

I imagine the prognosis for network news and physical-print journalism is not good, but that will be a change from historic, and current, patterns.

[Frank]

ThatLeftTurnInABQ | July 28, 2008 at 02:48 PM

I'm guessing you are under 40 and haven't been paying attention to politics that long. Frank Rich was among those who savaged the Gore campaign in the 2000 election.

Democratic candidates have come in for more scrutiny than Republicans since FDR's day.

[LT Nixon]

Gary sez Which blogs? Most all the Democratic/liberal blogs I read have been full of people denouncing Obama for his FISA votes, and other perceived betrayals of Teh Liberal/Left, and announcements of how disillusioned they are with Obama. Y'know, like many of this blog's commenters..

To be honest, I was thinking mostly about HuffPo, which is the #1 political blog on Technorati (it is also pretty liberal/netrootsy). This piece describes Obama like "If Bush is oil, Obama is solar power. His charisma, his aura, are remarked on again and again by those I speak with, as is his ability to inspire." Ho hum. IMHO, I find blogs a lot more fun to read when someone like Wonkette is badmouthing Cheney for being a creep. Is a little snark too much to ask for?

[Jesurgislac]

Is a little snark too much to ask for?

Beware of boojums....

[ThatLeftTurnInABQ]

I'm guessing you are under 40 and haven't been paying attention to politics that long.

Frank,

Thanks for responding to my comment, which seemed to have gotten lost in the to-and-fro over media campaign contributions.

Since I'm over 40 and have been paying very close attention to US politics since the early stages of the 1972 elections, then your guess looks a little bit off.

What exactly was your beef with the contents of the specific Frank Rich opinion piece I linked to? Or are you just bashing Frank Rich in general for his past sins, without regard to the specifics of the argument I was making? I don't have an especially high regard for the op-eds and analysis coming out of either the NYT or the WaPo recently, but in this case I thought Rich had some on target observations about how the Obama campaign has shrewdly managed to take on something of the aura of a shadow government in waiting.

My riff on that is that the press coverage is being influenced by that development, which provides a more complex explanation for the media coverage we are getting than the rather simplistic "The media is harder on Democrats" idea. I'm not trying to disprove the latter notion, BTW. Rather, I tend to be a fan of multicausal explanations in preference to monocausal ones. I've come to the conclusion that historical events are often like Murder On The Orient Express, not just for the big stuff like Why-Did-WWI-Start?, but for the little stuff too, IMHO.

I look forward to reading your specific criticisms. Please continue with your comments.

[ThatLeftTurnInABQ]

Democratic candidates have come in for more scrutiny than Republicans since FDR's day.

Also, I suspect that Richard Nixon and his supporters would have vigorously disputed this notion as applied to the 1960 election, if by "scrutiny" you mean coverage of the candidate's positions or character in detail.

To a lesser degree Gerald Ford was also put under the spotlight in 1976, and suffered no end of ridicule for misplacing Poland during one of the televised debates.

post-1980, you won't get much argument from me however.

[Gary Farber]

"Local news has long been a major profit center at individual stations, although that viewership is now going down as well, so costs are being cut there too."

I'd put "local news" in quotes, myself. Every time I sample it I see little or no actual news; instead it's largely weather reports, traffic reports, and voyeuristic exploitative breathlessness on local murders, which have no news value whatever to anyone outside the immediate family, but which largely simply harasses the immediate family.

Every half hour, maybe two minutes of actual news might creep in, if your local station is particularly responsible. Otherwise, it's basically a weather and traffic report with a local version of The National Inquirer. Particularly morning and afternoon versions. So far as I've anecdotally observed in the past fifteen years or so.

"Democratic candidates have come in for more scrutiny than Republicans since FDR's day."

And that's why Harry Truman, John F. Kennedy, Lyndon Johnson, and Jimmy Carter lost so badly.

Cite?

[Adam]

Also, I suspect that Richard Nixon and his supporters would have vigorously disputed this notion as applied to the 1960 election, if by "scrutiny" you mean coverage of the candidate's positions or character in detail.

Nixon would have disputed it because he hated the press, not because it was actually true. And even if that was the case in 1960, by 1968 Nixon's PR machine had cowed the media into obeisance, though he would never admit it.

To a lesser degree Gerald Ford was also put under the spotlight in 1976, and suffered no end of ridicule for misplacing Poland during one of the televised debates.

He forgot about Poland!?

Sorry. Sorry.

[jonnybutter]

I'd put "local news" in quotes, myself.

Of course. I didn't put it in quotes because I didn't want to be tiresome (at least not more tiresome than usual!). I'd go farther and say that, with a few exceptions, the term 'television news' is an oxymoron.

[Hogan]

"Democratic candidates have come in for more scrutiny than Republicans since FDR's day."

And that's why Harry Truman, John F. Kennedy, Lyndon Johnson, and Jimmy Carter lost so badly.

I don't think anyone is claiming that media scrutiny is the sole determinant of electoral outcomes.

[ThatLeftTurnInABQ]

He forgot about Poland!?

Ford goofed up in speaking about the Helsinki accords and then tried to backtrack by saying that Poland was not part of Eastern Europe.

It was the mother of all gaffes*, and one of the reasons why our TV debates today are skewed towards trying to produce gaffes to generate news for the media to endlessly chew over. They keep hoping to strike another gold mine like in 1976.

see here, and here, for example.

During a campaign debate against former Georgia Governor Jimmy Carter, Ford incorrectly stated that Poland was "independent and autonomous" from the Soviet Union, though at the time the Soviet Union dominated Poland and much of Eastern Europe. When pressed, instead of reconsidering, Ford responded more firmly that "There is no Soviet domination of Eastern Europe, and there never will be under a Ford administration". Ford's misstatements were considered a major factor in his loss to Carter, and are cited again every four years as among the worst gaffes made in any televised political debate.

*actually it was a series of verbal blunders and factual errors, not a gaffe which is saying something which is true but impolitic to utter in public, IIRC.

[Adam]

Ford goofed up in speaking about the Helsinki accords and then tried to backtrack by saying that Poland was not part of Eastern Europe.

I was just making a joke about the Bush-Kerry debates, but this is actually kind of an interesting point...

*actually it was a series of verbal blunders and factual errors, not a gaffe which is saying something which is true but impolitic to utter in public, IIRC.

...because if factual errors obviously weren't the standard by which the Bush-Kerry debates were judged. "True but impolitic" is, sadly, much closer to the standard.

I really can't wait for the McCain-Obama debates, though.

[Nombrilisme Vide]

A prime example of the kid-glove treatment Obama regularly receives from even a supposedly neutral, unbiased, dignified, and restrained writer. Oh, for shame!

[Gary Farber]

"Ford goofed up in speaking about the Helsinki accords and then tried to backtrack by saying that Poland was not part of Eastern Europe."

Just to be really nit-picky, he didn't quite say that; the key phrase was insisting that Poland wasn't "dominated" by the USSR. He was sincerely trying to express sympathy for the Poles and saying they didn't accept domination by the Soviet Union, but what he actually said denied that that was a fact at all, and by refusing to backtrack when given a chance, looked either deeply confused or in denial of reality.

You quoted the key statement, indeed: "There is no Soviet domination of Eastern Europe, and there never will be under a Ford administration"."

But there was.

I know you know this, but I thought I'd clarify for the sake of the young 'uns.

[ThatLeftTurnInABQ]

I know you know this, but I thought I'd clarify for the sake of the young 'uns.

No problem, Gary. I was posting while busy doing other things (and hence working from memory with a few links thrown in real quickly).

The reason I mentioned the Helsinki accords is that IIRC the larger context which caused the dominated/non-dominated status of Eastern Europe to be brought up at all during a debate was a contemporary controversy in the US over whether the Helsinki accords had been a good thing, or were a second Yalta agreement (a very bad thing indeed - at least in the eyes of certain right wingers who thought the very notion of negotiating with the Soviet Union was blasphemy, and we should be doing nothing to legitimize their geopolitical status by signing treaties with them).

Ironically, it was some time later that I recall reading some biographical accounts by Soviet-era Russian dissidents who at the time were struggling to oppose the Communist party and Soviet Govt. by circulating samizdat publications, staging minor (but very brave and risky) protests, etc., who described the Helsinki accords as a godsend to them because it gave them a small shred of international law which they could and did use as a shield in dealing with internal repression by the Soviet authorities.

It struck me as another example of the law of unintended consequences - the right wing of the GOP was opposed to something which helped to destabilize the legitimacy of the Soviet system and contributed to the change in attitudes which flowered when Gorbachev later came into power. A classic example of American soft power at work.

And for that reason an example I frequently keep in mind today when Obama is castigated for his stance of being willing to talk without preconditions with other countries.

How quickly we forget that the mere act of us negotiating with dictators is not necessarily to the advantage of the latter - in fact direct contact with the US can pose a real peril to the bad guys, because our ideals (when properly backed up by non-hypocritical actions) are highly corrosive to closed and repressive societies. Mere contact with us can be detrimental to their stability, even in the relatively minor form of talks without pre-conditions.

[Gary Hussein Farber]

"It struck me as another example of the law of unintended consequences - the right wing of the GOP was opposed to something which helped to destabilize the legitimacy of the Soviet system and contributed to the change in attitudes which flowered when Gorbachev later came into power. A classic example of American soft power at work."

Yes, extremely so. The Helsinki accords were, according to absolutely any and every account of the fall of the Soviet Union, and their Eastern European Empire, absolutely key, because they exposed the lie that was the Soviet's lip service to "freedom" and "socialist democracy," and all the alleged "rights" they theoretically guaranteed, but of course never delivered on. By providing a framework for the Soviet empire's actual performance in human rights to be measured against, their hypocrisy was exposed, and Eastern Europe slowly began to work its way free.

And, yes, the whole Committee On The Present Danger, the whole same rightwing crowd that was behind Reagan and Team B and Iran-Contra and eventually Iraq, that turned into "neoconservatives," was opposed to it all as "appeasement."

Same as it ever was. Really, our domestic and foreign policy history ever since more or less the revolutions and Red Scare of 1917, or arguably the Compromise of 1877, and certainly since the Republican Conservative reactionary triumph over Wilson, having purged Teddy Roosevelt progressivism from their party, has been remarkably consistent.

That is, the reactionaries have been consistently wrong: on China, on grossly exaggerating the domestic communist "threat," on roll-back, on Vietnam, etc., etc., etc.

And John McCain is still fighting the good fight, still trying to get "peace with honor" as his highest priority, still trying to rewin Vietnam against the damn hippie traitors who lost it. As he appears to see it.

"Mere contact with us can be detrimental to their stability, even in the relatively minor form of talks without pre-conditions."

Cuba will fall any day, purely due to the embargo, I tells ya!

Sanctions do have a place; lifting them under the right conditions can be helpful. But they only go so far, and often hit the wrong targets, depending on the political/economic structure and situation of the target. Like most things in life, it depends on the specifics.

View from 1988.