Shocker: Harvard Study Concludes Democrats Get More Sympathetic Coverage, And More Coverage Period, By the MSM

Did someone post this? I didn't see it. Ah, well. It's good enough to post twice:

Journalism: The debate is over. A consensus has been reached. On global warming? No, on how Democrats are favored on television, radio and in the newspapers.

Just like so many reports before it, a joint survey by the Project for Excellence in Journalism and Harvard's Joan Shorenstein Center on the Press, Politics and Public Policy — hardly a bastion of conservative orthodoxy — found that in covering the current presidential race, the media are sympathetic to Democrats and hostile to Republicans.

Democrats are not only favored in the tone of the coverage. They get more coverage period. This is particularly evident on morning news shows, which "produced almost twice as many stories (51% to 27%) focused on Democratic candidates than on Republicans."

The most flagrant bias, however, was found in newspapers. In reviewing front-page coverage in 11 newspapers, the study found the tone positive in nearly six times as many stories about Democrats as it was negative.

Breaking it down by candidates, the survey found that Sens. Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton were the favorites. "Obama's front page coverage was 70% positive and 9% negative, and Clinton's was similarly 61% positive and 13% negative."

In stories about Republicans, on the other hand, the tone was positive in only a quarter of the stories; in four in 10 it was negative.

...

The anti-GOP attitude also lives on National Public Radio's "Morning Edition." There, Democrats were approvingly covered more than a third as often as Republicans. Negative coverage of Democrats was a negligible 5.9%. It seemed to be reserved for Republicans, who were subject to one-fifth of the program's disparaging reports.

Even talk radio, generally considered a bastion of conservatism, has been relatively rough on the GOP. On conservative shows, Obama got more favorable treatment (27.8%) than Rudy Giuliani (25%). Sen. John McCain got a 50% favorability rating while Mitt Romney led the three GOP candidates with 66.7%.

...

The media, of course, insist they are careful to keep personal opinions out of their coverage. But the facts tell another story — one that can't be edited or spiked.

posted by Ace at 04:59 PM

| Access Comments