So What's "The Press" Up To These Days? Two Irreconcilable Views
One high traffic blogger asserts that "the press" is helping the Republicans, because "subtly, but relentlessly" she claims "a very odd subliminal narrative taking shape in which the blame for the nation's failures of the last seven years is being shifted to Clinton (and the "do-nothing" Democratic congress)..." Seriously, here's a longer excerpt:
I don't know if anyone's noticed, but George W. Bush is being disappeared from the presidential campaign and everyone's running against incumbent Hillary Clinton. Subtly, but relentlessly, the public psyche is being prepared to deny Junior ever existed. And it could work. For many different reasons, most Americans want nothing more than to forget George W. Bush was ever president. So, we see a very odd subliminal narrative taking shape in which the blame for the nation's failures of the last seven years is being shifted to Clinton (and the "do-nothing" Democratic congress) as if the Codpiece hasn't been running things since 2000. (Not that the radical wingnuts haven't always blamed the Clenis for everything, but the disappearing of Bush is a new element.)
I certainly don't blame the Republicans for trying to do it. It makes sense, since their boy is an epic failure and the original Clinton is still very present in people's minds. It will be quite a trick to pull off, but I can see the press already helping them do it. (Naturally.) ...
Not a single link or example to be found in the post, though. But it's not like the blogger ever criticizes others for making shit up, or ignoring empirical evidence, except of course when she writes things like:
...That is exactly why I don't trust this stale and silly convention of DC insiders and elite pundits making anthropological forays into Real America and "reporting" back on the thinking of the electorate. They just reinforce their own preconceived notions and come back to their perch at the top of the political power structure secure in the knowledge that they are just like small town, hard working, regular folks after all.
Give me cold poll numbers any day --- and if somebody wants to follow up with interviews of a sample of that sample for an article in the paper, then fine. But the notion that DC pundits have some special way of talking to strangers that translates into something meaningful about the population at large is ridiculous....
Meanwhile, back on Planet Less Facile And Polemical, note that Editor & Publisher is reporting:
News coverage of the 2008 presidential campaign has centered predominantly on just five candidates, offered very little information about their public records or what they would do in office, and focused more than 60% of stories on political and tactical aspects of the race, according to a joint study released Monday.
The report, from the Project for Excellence in Journalism and the Joan Shorenstein Center on the Press, Politics, and Public Policy at Harvard University also found that news outlets gave Barack Obama the most favorable treatment, while John McCain received the least favorable, but covered Demcrats more than Republicans in general in the race for president.
"Overall, Democrats also have received more positive coverage than Republicans (35% of stories vs. 26%), while Republicans received more negative coverage than Democrats (35% vs. 26%)," the study found. "For both parties, a plurality of stories, 39%, were neutral or balanced." ...
Other findings in the new report:
• "Five candidates have been the focus of more than half of all the coverage. Hillary Clinton received the most (17% of stories), though she can thank the overwhelming and largely negative attention of conservative talk radio hosts for much of the edge in total volume. Barack Obama was next (14%), with Republicans Giuliani, McCain, and Romney measurably behind (9% and 7% and 5% respectively). As for the rest of the pack, Elizabeth Edwards, a candidate spouse, received more attention than 10 of them, and nearly as much as her husband."
• "Democrats generally got more coverage than Republicans, (49% of stories vs. 31%.) One reason was that major Democratic candidates began announcing their candidacies a month earlier than key Republicans, but that alone does not fully explain the discrepancy."
• "Most of that difference in tone, however, can be attributed to the friendly coverage of Obama (47% positive) and the critical coverage of McCain (just 12% positive.) When those two candidates are removed from the field, the tone of coverage for the two parties is virtually identical."
• "Newspapers were more positive than other media about Democrats and more citizen-oriented in framing stories. Talk radio was more negative about almost every candidate than any other outlet. Network television was more focused than other media on the personal backgrounds of candidates. For all sectors, however, strategy and horse race were front and center." ...
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