LOL - "Study Shows U.S. Election Coverage Harder on Bush"

[papau]

Folks turning to Internet news - bloggers alone have 32 million readers. More people thought the media was unfair to both Kerry and Bush than to the candidates four years earlier, but fewer people thought news organizations had too much influence on the outcome of the election. Coverage of the war in Iraq was even handed.?????

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&ncid=578&e=9&u=/nm/20050314/pl_nm/media_report_dc

Study Shows U.S. Election Coverage Harder on Bush

Mon Mar 14,10:01 AM ET By Claudia Parsons

NEW YORK (Reuters) - U.S. media coverage of last year's election was three times more likely to be negative toward President Bush than Democratic challenger John Kerry, according to a study released Monday - The State of the News Media 2005 (Project for Excellence in Journalism) http://www.stateofthemedia.org/2005/index.asp

The annual report by a press watchdog that is affiliated with Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism said that 36 percent of stories about Bush were negative compared to 12 percent about Kerry, a Massachusetts senator.

Only 20 percent were positive toward Bush compared to 30 percent of stories about Kerry that were positive, according to the report by the Project for Excellence in Journalism.

The study looked at 16 newspapers of varying size across the country, four nightly newscasts, three network morning news shows, nine cable programs and nine Web sites through the course of 2004. <snip>

[BlueEyedSon]

1. Does this go along with "no bias found in Iraq reporting"

Exactly HOW FAR through the looking glass have we gone?

[wtmusic]

2. That's because Bush has less positive things to say about him

I can't believe they're coming to that conclusion.

Back to school, kids. :eyes:

[Carolab]

3. The assistant director of this group was with AEI.

http://www.journalism.org/who/pej/people.asp

[Cocoa]

4. coverage of the war SHOULD be negative

it's a fucking WAR. There's supposed to be some kind of balance between positive and negative stories about a fucking WAR???!!! :mad:

Examining the public perception that coverage of the war in Iraq (news - web sites) was decidedly negative, it found evidence did not support that conclusion. The majority of stories had no decided tone, 25 percent were negative and 20 percent were positive, it said.

[blm]

5. What a sad joke on the American people.

The media will say and do anything to pretend they are NOT Bush shills.

Ask people across the country if they learned last year about the bill that ended their overtime pay through the media?

[JDPriestly]

6. Counting the negative v. positive reports

is misleading and irrelevant. So, there are more negative reports about the Mafia in the media than there are negative reports about the FBI. So what! Obviously, there is more negative to say about the Mafia.

The reports on Kerry were positive because (a) he is and was a better man than Bush; (b) Kerry's agenda made more sense than Bush's; (c) Kerry has not held an executive position and has not had the opportunity to make and has not made as many bad decisions as Bush; (d) Kerry is more honest than Bush, so it's harder to write a story about the discrepancies between what he says and the truth; (e) Kerry does not have a brain impediment and therefore does not misspeak as often as Bush, etc. I could go on and on. To take this to its logical conclusion, compare the number of negative stories about Mussolini or Hitler and with the number of negative stories about Roosevelt or De Gaulle. Only proves that Mussolini and Hitler were far more despicable than Roosevelt or De Gaulle. Doesn't tell you a thing about the bias of the press.

It would be valid to compare the number of negative stories about Bush that were clearly lies to the number of negative stories about Kerry that were clearly lies.

[Old and In the Way]

11. Well stated.

I think posts like yours should be added to "news analysis", just in case people overlook the obvious. The very fact that someone can write this story should tell you everything you need to know about the SCLM.

[Truth__Seeker]

12. Absolutely, it is a non-story. The important thing is if the facts of the

stories are true. Nothing more, never anything less.

[MissWaverly]

7. are these the same people who said there were WMD's

oh, c'mon, no one's going to believe that, the swift boat aids, the behavior of Sinclair, the fact that the MSM killed stories or refused to report on them until after the election, (i.e. the bulge on Bush' back, the fact that NO ONE in the WH press corps exposed Gannon, (c'mon)

[xray s]

8. Look at the methodology

It looks to me they are heavily weighted towards the primary season. And they totally left out October (October was in the potential pool of dates apparently, but didn't make the sample cut.) Seems like a BS study to me. How can you leave out October, when 90% of the public makes up its mind, and the MSM was whoring for Bush 24/7 after his miserable showing in debate #1?

http://www.stateofthemedia.org/2005/methodology.asp

Newspaper Study Operative Dates, 2004


Random sampling was used to select a sample of individual days for the study. By choosing individual days rather than weeks, we hoped to provide a broader look at news coverage that more accurately represented the entire year. To account for variations related to the different days of the week, the 28 days that were sampled included 4 of each day of the week. Dates were chosen from January 1 to October 13, a span of 286 days. October 13 was made the cutoff date to allow time for coding. Omitted dates included those of the Olympics and the Republican and Democratic National Conventions.


The following dates were generated and make up the 2004 sample.


January- 13, 16, 23
February- 2, 13, 23rd, 29th
March- 8, 12, 13, 14, 19, 24
April- 8, 15
May- 1, 4, 20
June- 8, 9, 16
July- 19, 25
August- 10, 12
September- 4, 22, 26
Internet News Sites - Operative Dates 2004


The 2004 Internet study had two components. The first was a twenty-day sample that matched the dates of the newspaper sample, Mondays through Fridays. Weekends were not included for Internet, broadcast or cable sites. Again, the eligible dates ranged from January 1 to October 13, a period of 286 days.


The following dates were generated and constitute the 2003 Internet News Site sample.


January- 13, 16, 23
February- 2, 13, 23, 29
March- 8,* 12, 13, 14, 19,* 24
April- 8, 15
May- 1, 4, 20
June- 8, 9, 16*
July- 19, 25
August- 10,* 12*
September- 4, 22, 26
*Multiple Download Dates

II. BROADCAST NETWORK NEWS


The ability to make direct comparisons between newspaper and broadcast network findings was a project design goal, so the weekday sample dates for those two news categories are identical. Because of preemptions and schedule changes, weekend network news broadcasts do not always appear in all markets, so Saturday and Sunday broadcast network news programs were excluded from the study.


On a handful of the sample dates, special events pre-empted the evening newscasts. In such instances an alternate date for the same day of the week was selected at random. The final dates were as follows:


January- 13, 16, 23
February- 2, 23
March- 8, 12, 19, 24
April- 8, 15
May- 4, 20
June- 8, 9, 16
July- 19
August- 10, 12
September- 15, 22
June 9 commercial network newscasts were not used because the programming was preempted by the ceremonies remembering President Ronald Reagan. NewsHour was studied on this date. September 15 was used as a substitute for June 9 for the network newscasts.


III. CABLE NEWS


Cable News Programming - Outlet Selection and Operative Dates 2004


As with the online sample, the 2004 Cable study had two components. The first was a twenty-day sample that matched the dates of the newspaper sample on Mondays through Fridays. Weekends were not included for the Internet, broadcast or cable. Again, the eligible dates ranged from January 1 to October 13, a period of 286 days. On a handful of the sample dates, special events pre-empted the evening newscasts. In such instances an alternate date for the same day of the week was selected at random.


The following dates were generated and make up the 2004 cable news sample:



January- 13, 16, 23
February- 2,* 23
March- 8, 12, 19,* 24h
April- 15
May- 4,* 20*
June- 8, 9, 16*
July- 19
August- 5, 10, 12
September- 22

* Indicates cable station programming was taped continuously from 7 a.m. to 11 p.m.


In addition to the main sample, we also conducted an additional study of five of these days to replicate the freshness variable studied in 2003. From the 20-day sample, one day for each weekday was randomly selected. These days were:


February 2

March 19

May 4

May 20

[democrat in Tallahassee]

9. guess that doesn't include the swift-boat vet journalism, uhm?

[atommom]

10. Considering the high level of his dumbassness, I think the media

was pretty kind to Bush. There are a few whispers of criticism now, but he still gets away with considerably more than the dreaded Clinton ever did.

[librechik]

13. This makes perfect sense

don't forget. Kerry actually won in a landslide, as the exit polls indicated. Also backed up by Bush's historic UNpopularity, according to polls, immediately following the election.

Anyway, I need to read the study before I call BS on it.