I swear, I was laughing so hard, I practically feel out of my chair when I read this article. What started with an explanation of McCain's troubles with the press, quickly turned into a "media's self pronouncement" of unilateral non-partisanship. Or in other words, "We journalists aren't biased... nyah!" You've really got to read the article for the full comedic effect.
The article, "Why McCain is getting hosed in the press" is written by Jim VandeHei and John F. Harris. It starts out innocently enough, describing a few e-mail exchanges about McCain being handled a bit rougher than Obama. And quickly dips in and out of a Pew Research Poll's findings. That there's at least a tad bit of bias. After mentioning a few numbers, like 6 of 10 Stories about McCain since the RNC have been negative, with Obama getting more than double McCain's positive stories.
Amazingly enough, the authors did manage to come up with a truism of their own accord, before it all goes downhill. "OK, let’s just get this over with: Yes, in the closing weeks of this election, John McCain and Sarah Palin are getting hosed in the press, and at Politico. And, yes, based on a combined 35 years in the news business we’d take an educated guess — nothing so scientific as a Pew study — that Obama will win the votes of probably 80 percent or more of journalists covering the 2008 election." Very good guys. You've come to the realization of what the rest of us were already aware of. Glad your keeping up with the masses.
After that... it's a free fall nose-dive. I'll list a few choice statements right from their own article;
"As it happens, McCain’s campaign is going quite poorly and Obama’s is going well. Imposing artificial balance on this reality would be a bias of its own." And to ignore important campaign issues about a candidates character or background is UN-biased? Such as Obama's refusal to provide/release requested documents like his Harvard thesis. A lack of investigation/reporting on affiliations with shady characters and organizations like Ayers-Wright-Rezko-ACORN? Obama's financial benefactoring of the Chicago slum-lords? Omitting stories about critical issues like this makes an outlet any less biased?
Please, Politico is one of the most referred outlets that guest hosts on CNN. That should tell anyone, anything and everything they need to know.
Here's another good one; "Responsible editors would be foolish not to ask themselves the bias question, especially in the closing days of an election. But, having asked it, our sincere answer is that of the factors driving coverage of this election — and making it less enjoyable for McCain to read his daily clip file than for Obama — ideological favoritism ranks virtually nil. The main reason is that for most journalists, professional obligations trump personal preferences. Most political reporters (investigative journalists tend to have a different psychological makeup) are temperamentally inclined to see multiple sides of a story, and being detached from their own opinions comes relatively easy."
Hey, I'm gonna pull a Biden here. "Your Joking right?" You see what I mean about the humorous nature of the article? I guess that means that Keith Olbermann will be getting reinstated, along with Chris Matthews. And you Bill Maher, according to this article, your wrong. There is no Obama lovefest.
This one should start the floor rollin' maneuvers; "It is not our impression that many reporters are rooting for Obama personally. To the contrary, most colleagues on the trail we’ve spoken with seem to find him a distant and undefined figure." Words escape me. Simply watch the video again in the above link.
I'll give ya one last one before I close this out: "Then there is the bend-over-backward bias. This is when journalists try so hard to avoid accusations of favoritism that it clouds critical judgment." You need to HAVE judgment, before it can be clouded. And it doubt the media is even bothering to "avoid" accusations of bias in this election anyways. Judging by the hate-fest that Barbra West is receiving (much of which coming from other media outlets) because of her hard balling Biden the other day, the media for the most part is pretty open about their support for Obama.
And some people wonder how the press has managed to garner even lower approval ratings than Congress. Go figure.
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