Bias in media – does it exist?
By Jamie Palatini
Americans always seem to be on the go, always rushing from place to place. Who really has time to sit down at the television and watch the nightly news? For many, news can be flipping on CNN or MSNBC for a few minutes, or watching Jay Leno as they fall asleep after a hard day’s work. But are these news sources trustworthy? Should we believe everything they say?
This past presidential election was more of a marathon than a race, with candidates making their pleas nearly a year before that fateful day in November. And with that comes added pressure on media to continue to produce interesting, meaningful stories about the candidates. As the campaigns took shape it became clear that Barack Obama, a little-known senator from Ilinois, was a force to be reckoned with. Before we knew it, Barack Obama was a rock star, garnering everyone’s attention. But did he get more coverage than his opponent John McCain? Did he receive more favorable coverage?
Historians say that overall, it’s safe to assume that there is at least a tendency for the media to have a liberal bias. In 1992, the election which pitted the incumbent Republican George H.W. Bush against Democrat Bill Clinton, a survey of Washington journalists found that 89 percent voted for Clinton, and only 7 percent voted for Bush. Clinton’s presidency was deemed one of the most successful in the modern era, and he was a media darling. George W. Bush won the presidency in 2000, but the media has been very critical of him over the last few years as he has struggled to close out his second term. Combining all of these factors, it’s safe to say that journalists’ political preferences probably haven’t shifted much toward the Republican side during this time.
But even if these journalists have a preference for either candidate, why would they want to show it? Journalism teachers always profess that objectivity is paramount to success, and there is an incentive to appear impartial in order to be successful in their careers.
Jump forward to this year’s election, and perhaps we see those allegiances showing through. For instance, during this past summer Barack Obama made his first trip to the Middle East to see what kind of progress the U.S. Army was making in Iraq. Brian Williams, Charles Gibson, and Katie Couric, the three major network news anchors, all traveled to Iraq with Obama to chronicle his historic journey. Conservative talk show host Glenn Beck made a comparison to a similar trip which John McCain made just a few months prior to Obama’s. “McCain made a trip to the Middle East in March and didn’t have to worry about finding seats for any network anchors, because none of them wanted to go,” Beck stated on CNN.com on July 24 of this year. In the first half of 2008, Obama received substantially more coverage on network news than any other candidate. The Tyndall Report, a news-monitoring service, found that Obama received 389 minutes of coverage, as opposed to just 203 minutes of coverage for John McCain.
But it isn’t the first time that there has been a vast majority of coverage for one candidate over another. In 1988, Michael Dukakis received only 32 percent of the coverage that George H.W. Bush received leading up to the election. In 1996, the incumbent Bill Clinton garnered 28 percent of the media coverage that Republican challenger Bob Dole received. In every year since 1988, the candidate of the incumbent party has received less coverage. But logically, this makes sense. Americans already know plenty of information about the President who has been in office, they’ve see what he has done for the last four years.
The majority of Americans don’t follow politics all that closely. When they see more coverage being spent on one candidate than the other, whether they realize if it’s happening or not, is this something that will subconsciously influence how people will vote?
According to some studies, it appears the American public believes there may have been a media bias in this election. A Rasmussen poll conducted in July found that 49 percent of those surveyed believed the media would try and help Obama win the presidency, opposed to just 14 percent who believed the media would help McCain.
Even though many of those who study the media felt that Obama received positive coverage, there are those who disagree. John K. Wilson’s article in Extra!, entitled “The Myth of Pro-Obama Media Bias”, looks to debunk the concept that there was some sort of love-fest between the media and Barack Obama. The article gave some interesting facts and numbers to show that coverage between Obama and McCain was balanced. In fact, the article was extremely well written, so naturally I decided to Google Mr. Wilson and see what other work he had done.
And ironically enough, this is what was found. Mr. Wilson blogs at obamapolitics.com, and has written a book about Barack Obama, entitled “The Improbable Quest”.
I think it typifies what has been discussed throughout this entire article. It may be just be impossible for any journalist or reporter to be completely objective. But is having a bias a bad thing? Perhaps the real crime is when reporters attempt to come across as objective, when it is clear there are undertones and motives behind what they are saying or how they are writing. So the next time you read an article in the paper, or watch a political segment on television, do yourself a favor and take it with a grain of salt.
