Ever since each of the candidates first spoke into microphone there have been allegations of the media favoring one candidate over the other. In the democratic primaries there were many complaints that the media demonstrated a bias towards Barack Obama. After the Republican National Convention, the starting point for the final section of the relay race to the presidency there has been one major, and recordable trend in the news; it favors Obama. In this final leg there have been four times as many negative stories about McCain as positive, Barack Obama has received twice as many positive stories as McCain, and one half as many negative stories (Harris and VandeHei Hosed in the Press).
Subsequent to a debate in April there was a general up roar that the ABC commentator had been attacking Barack Obama. The debate featured 15 questions on politics and 13 questions on policy, making it more substantive than other debates, but because the questions seemed to be more aggressive to Obama rather than Clinton, regardless of the fact the questions were highly relevant for a presumptive nominee, they were perceived as an uncalled for attack on Senator Obama (Harris and VandeHei, Secret Weapon). This creates a problem in perception of candidates in the media that is two fold. Because the media had been Favoring Obama, any slight attack on him is seen as a major deviance from the normative positive reporting, and because it is such a large deviance from a positive portrayal it is also seen as a major attack. In addition, the act of questioning the bias of the media its self has a massive loophole. Questioning the media’s representation of a campaign, not always but usually, demonstrates a bias in favor of the candidates who is being misrepresented and therefore calls, and should call, the legitimacy of the accusation into question, yet some how accusations of bias against certain candidates are taken more seriously than others. This paradox establishes the perfect conditions for a cascade of information favoring one candidate, but requires that the media have a particular bias, in this case towards Obama.
There are several reasons why the media favors Barack Obama, not all of them his own doing. A pew study found that 80% of journalists intended on voting for Barack Obama (Harris and VandeHei Hosed in the Press). It is worth noting that these people are professionals and adults capable to detaching themselves from their beliefs for the sake of journalism. It is also worth noting that they are predominantly democrats favoring a democrat. As an example, Obama reporter Lee Cowan, who reports of NBC, admitted that he finds maintaining his objectivity hard, while reporting on Obama. The media is weary of appearing to be racist, and in a simple twist of fate this has created an advantage for Senator Obama. As Harris and VandeHei put it, “[Barak Obama] has benefited from the idea that negative attacks that in a normal campaign would be commonplace in this year would carry an out-of-bounds racial subtext”(Hosed in the Press). This is not to say that his race has never, and will never detract from the support that Obama receives for the populace, but an example of how it has benefitted him. With these two reasons it is no surprise that many of the negative stories about Barack Obama have not stuck in the headlines.
There are several examples of stories that have fallen through the cracks that most likely would not have should they have not been about Obama. The most commonly questioned actions of Obama are his associations with Reverend Wright, William Ayers and Bernadine Dohrn. Obama’s association with Reverend Wright was played down in a massively eloquent speech by in which he demonstrated the legitimacy of his association, but was also left alone in part because of the sensitivity of race. Obama’s association with Bill Ayers, who once spoke violently about destroying America, and Bernadine Dohrn, who stated when describing the mason murders in 1969, "Dig it! First they killed those pigs and then they put a fork in their bellies. Wild!", has not received as much press attention as many speculate it would have were these people associated with another candidate. The McCain Campaigns current focus on Pennsylvania should stir up a lot of interest in Obama’s opinion of the state in particular his comment, “it's not surprising then [the people of small town Pennsylvania] get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren't like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations." Such slanderous classifications of American people would expectantly draw a large amount of attention, especially with the recent focus on the state of Pennsylvania, but have slipped through the screen of mass media in recent months even as the McCain campaign focuses on that state.
It could be said that the McCain campaign is responsible for the negative media that represents it. As the McCain campaign draws its final breaths the internal workings of the campaign begin to fall apart and provide a glut of substance for negative stories. However, after the treatment that Hilary Clinton received, it is worth questioning whether or not the current mess in the McCain campaign was begot of his representation in the media.
Works Cited:
Harris, John F., and Jim VandeHei. "Obama's secret weapon: The media." Politico. 18 Apr. 2008. 29 Oct. 2008 .
Harris, John F., and Jim VandeHei. "Why McCain is getting hosed in the press." Politico. 28 Oct. 2008. 29 Oct. 2008 .
