Press Coverage is Twice as Negative for McCain

Nothing new or unexpected here, but now we've got a nice graph. The Project for Excellence in Journalism (sic) has the statistics:

For Obama during this period, just over a third of the stories were clearly positive in tone (36%), while a similar number (35%) were neutral or mixed. A smaller number (29%) were negative.

For McCain, by comparison, nearly six in ten of the stories studied were decidedly negative in nature (57%), while fewer than two in ten (14%) were positive.

McCain did succeed in erasing one advantage Obama enjoyed earlier in the campaign—the level of media exposure each candidate received. Since the end of August, the two rivals have been in a virtual dead heat in the amount of attention paid, and when vice presidential candidates are added to the mix the Republican ticket has the edge. This is a striking contrast to the pre-convention period, when Obama enjoyed nearly 50% more coverage.

It isn't any consolation that McCain managed to get as much coverage as Obama when twice as much of that coverage was negative. To be fair, covering Obama has probably gotten more difficult since he's gone without talking to the press for so long.

I got this via the Anchoress who says, "slap my ass and call me Sally." Oh, yeah. You fit right in here, Sally.

posted by Gabriel Malor at 01:53 PM

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