According to the Project for Excellence in Journalism, the attention that the TV networks are giving Sen. Barack Obama this week is par for the course. Amazingly, CBS chief anchor Katie Couric, ABC's Charles Gibson and NBC's Brian Williams have each flown oversees to interview Obama this week. For once, the networks decided not to compete with one another: their interviews are on successive days.
Moreover, as Andrea Mitchell reports, we're seeing PR footage from Iraq and Afghanistan being presented on TV as though it were press pool footage. "We've not seen a presidential candidate do this in my recollection ever before."
Add this to the recent dust-up over the New York Times refusing to run a McCain op-ed after giving Obama a slot, and one could be forgiven for mumbling about the "liberal media."
Study Data
Each week, the Project for Excellence in Journalism evaluates more than 300 political stories in newspapers, magazines and television. For the past six weeks -- from June 9 and July 13 -- Obama was a significant part (25-50 percent) of 77 percent of these stories. Sen. John McCain, on the the hand, was significant in less than half: only 48 percent.
But on Hardball Monday, Andrea Mitchell criticized the TV coverage of Obama's trip to Iraq:
Let me just say something about the message management. He didn't have reporters with him, he didn't have a press pool, he didn't do a press conference while he was on the ground in either Afghanistan or Iraq. What you're seeing is not reporters brought in. You're seeing selected pictures taken by the military, questions by the military, and what some would call fake interviews because they're not interviews from a journalist. So, there's a real press issue here. Politically, it's smart as can be. But we've not seen a presidential candidate do this in my recollection ever before.
Andrea Mitchell is the chief foreign affairs correspondent for NBC News, a position she has held since November 1994. Want to take odds on whether her closing line will make the other networks -- or mainstream press?
Update:
Patrick Ruffuni brings us this related (and perfect) YouTube clip from the McCain campaign. (tip) I remain appalled at both the public utterances and the failure to regard the sentiment as problematic. Is this the 1890s all over again?
Comments
I think this facination that the press has with Obama has gone too far. It is one thing for there to be excited that new ground has been broken, from a race relations stand point, but is this man qualified, THIS YEAR to be President?
Give him some time in the Senate. Let him run in a few years. But for now, we have little voting record and wildly fluctuating stands to go on in judging him. I also feel that his is very much a normal politician…very opportunistic and the man could give lessons to Prince Machiavelli.
“main stream media” – what a joke. Just a bunch of Obamessiah hucksters feeling the “thrill run up their legs”. Let’s just call ABC / NBC /CBS / CNN news “Air Obama” and get on with it instead or continuing the pretense of balanced coverage of this election. Sickening
The real story to me isn’t whether Obama is getting so much coverage. It’s why the Iraq war is getting so little.
Good find but the press has LONG leaned towards Democrats and sadly are leaning further left this cycle.
The worst part isn’t the bias, it’s the denying and lying about it.
This article gives very interesting informations, which the public does not know. I knew already that Obama nearly never gives interviews to foreign reporters but that the american reporters obviously have such a hard time too with him is new to me. What I already knew before is that Barack has to be one of the biggest champion in time management world wide. As a real Obama fan I am just hoping that the way how he seems to handle the reporters is relaited to his time management and that he just does not want to take himself too important, because the campaign should be just about what his movement wants to achieve. Naive? Maybe I am.
Hi, Mom In Texas — I think your suggestion has an outdated expiration date. Yeah, I know that the convention hasn’t come and gone yet, but the Ds are going for a pro forma roll call vote, which means “no contest.”
Hi, Michael — I agree re the fawning, high-school-like remarks. I don’t know which is worse: that they were spoken on the air or that the speakers deny that the attitude is problematic. Caesar’s wife, and all of that.
That said, I do not buy into the “media are always liberal” meme. Just look at the free passes reporters have historically given McCain, because they like him. MSM are corporate giants — the antithesis of liberalism.
Pierre — I totally agree about the problematic reporting from Iraq. I shook my head this morning when I read the Seattle Times wire story about Iraq saying “no” to Bush et al — and the surprise expressed there.
I wrote about Iraq insisting on a timeline two weeks ago!
Hi, Maz Hess … Obama’s political aspirations are not “what his movement wants to achieve” … and the “movement” was created to meet his aspirations, not those of his followers.
Time management has nothing to do with staying on message and managing media. His handlers are EXCELLENT at manipulating media — see his career timeline
If anyone’s interested, I wrote a conservative take on the disparity between Obama’s press coverage and McCain’s. Hope you find it enjoyable, and noteworthy.
For what it’s worth, today’s “Wordless Wednesday” post authentically illustrates the lopsided coverage of this campaign (in my opinion, anyway).
There is one thing for sure if he does what he says then I see a better future, by that I mean to take all soldiers out of Iraq from that day on you will see the US dollar go up were it should be and so will be our investments.
And here’s another viewpoint from the Seattle PI:
Note: the YouTube clip was pulled because the campaign used “Can’t Take My Eyes Off Of You” without permission.