Many people would say that our generation is truly blessed to live in a time where we can do our Christmas shopping, check the weather, read the news, and keep in touch with our friends all without leaving our desks. We are constantly in the loop, whether it’s knowing about what’s going on with the recent midterm elections or what all 300 of our “friends” are doing today. We rely on the internet and TV for information that allows us to make decisions in our lives, both big and small. Though we may be blessed to have all of these resources at our fingertips, our dependence upon them could also very easily be our generation’s largest curse.
When it comes to access to information about politics and government, today’s Americans turn to the ever-present news media. The general idea behind news media organizations is that they can dig into government affairs more quickly and efficiently than an average American trying to find out about the government on their own. Because these organizations are able to collect so much information, they must then choose what will make it into their broadcast or edition. This is where the news media gains a considerable amount of its power over the public. When an event occurs, media organizations have the right to choose whether or not it runs in their paper or airs on their broadcast, and when it doesn’t, everyone but the people who were involved will have no idea that it happened. Another aspect of reporting news that gives these organizations influence is their ability to influence people in what they cover and how they cover it.
According to a recent survey by the PEW research center for people and the press, 83 percent of Americans consume some form of news media on a regular, daily basis. This includes radio, television, print, and online news. (Americans) Though most people wouldn’t think of it this way, these Americans’ political opinions and decisions are at the mercy of the news media. If news networks across the nation bash a particular candidate and expose his or her flaws while completely ignoring those of their opponent, voters are more likely to side with the candidate that the media portrays as “better.” The public doesn’t have any practical way of knowing what’s not presented to them. With the news media exercising so much power over what people see or hear about, distrust has set in among the public. Today, the news media is often accused of carrying liberal or conservative biases, and this makes the American public reluctant to trust it. According to a 2009 Gallup poll, 55 percent of Americans say they have little to no trust in the news media. Among the surveyed, 18 percent say they have none at all. ( ) Despite popular beliefs and a general feeling of skepticism towards news media by the general public, there is little information to actually support the idea that the news media as a whole carries a bias towards any political party or extreme. This is supported by both studies and well-known facts regarding the 2008 election, an instance in which many accused the media of unfairly helping Obama through bias in reporting.
According to a LexisNexis analytics media coverage sentiment index of the 2008 election, Obama received a substantially larger amount of coverage by mainstream news media outlets.
“An evaluation of the 17,455 stories that discussed Sen. Obama during the period of July 7th to August 17th in U.S. print, broadcast and online media outlets found that 34 percent of the coverage was positive, 35 percent was neutral and 31 percent was negative. Of the 12,665 stories that discussed Sen. McCain during the same time frame and in the same universe of U.S. media outlets, 33 percent were positive, 34 percent were neutral and 33 percent were negative.”
As noted in the statement, Obama received a greater amount of media coverage, which could understandably lead certain members of the public to believe that the media was biased towards him. However, the statement also reveals that the coverage was 34 percent positive, 35 percent neutral, and 31 percent negative, which is fairly concurrent with percentages of 33, 34, and 33 for McCain, respectively. Within a few percentage points, Obama and McCain were treated similarly in terms of tones of the stories regarding them. Because the two were treated similarly in this regard, this discredits any belief that significant bias exists with regards to the tone of stories. The main difference in how the two candidates were treated by the media was in the amount of coverage each received.
As stated in the quote earlier in the paper, 17,455 stories during the 2008 election covered Barack Obama and 12,655 covered John McCain. From this data, the argument could be made that Barack Obama unfairly received more attention during the 2008 election. However, there are also several reasons that this could be the case. One is simply that the story of Barack Obama’s campaign for presidency was literally historic. It was the first time that an African American ran for the office of president of the United States of America. Another reason Obama may have received more attention throughout the election is that the Democratic party struggled to choose a candidate for nomination for much longer than the Republicans, who decided on McCain while Clinton and Obama were still duking it out in the primaries. In fact, McCain stepping out of the spotlight while democrats attacked each other during the primaries was actually a campaign tactic. Because he received less media coverage, McCain received a smaller numerical amount of negative media coverage. Another factor that could have been the reason for a greater amount of news media coverage is the fact that most people expected the republicans to lose because of the historically low approval ratings of George W. Bush. This made the democrats more important in the eye of the news media because they were more likely to win anyways because they were not affiliated with the unpopular president in power. All of these factors along with others that were unmentioned can contribute to the higher volume of coverage of Barack Obama, and in terms of the tone of reporting, which was fairly equal between the two candidates.
In conclusion, arguments of bias in the media towards one political extreme or party are largely unfounded. Evidence exists to support not only that media coverage in the 2008 election was unbiased, but that tones of stories covering each candidate were fairly even as well. There are also several facts that can explain the disparity between the amounts of stories covering each candidate. Though media bias is a stereotypical argument, it is difficult to find evidence in support of and prove in the coverage of the 2008 presidential election.
Works Cited
"Americans Spending More Time Following the News." Pew Research Center for the People & the Press. PEW Research Center, 12 Sept. 2009. Web. 18 Nov. 2010.
"How the Press Reported the 2008 General Election." Journalism.org. Pew Research Center, 22 Oct. 2008. Web. 17 Nov. 2010.
Newport, Frank. "Republicans Remain Deeply Distrustful of News Media." Gallup.com. Gallup, 8 Oct. 2007. Web. 18 Nov. 2010.
“Obama Garnering 38% More Media Coverage than McCain This Summer, But Tone of Coverage for Both Candidates Is Nearly Identical”LexisNexis Academic. Web. 4 Sept. 2008. 16 Nov. 2010.
Did you ever consider Obama's use of marketable campaigning?
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