Presidents and the Media: The 2008 Election
The 2008 election campaign was marred with accusations of media bias, primarily alleging that the media was biased in favor of Democratic candidate Barack Obama. The bias was alleged both in Obama's campaign against Hillary Clinton for the Democratic Party's presidential nomination, as well in the general election.
One of the earliest accusations of bias arose in a February 2008 debate between Obama and Clinton. At the debate, Tim Russert of NBC News was criticized for asking disproportionately tough questioning of Democratic presidential contender Hillary Clinton, while lobbing softball questions to Obama. Among the questions Russert had asked Clinton included quizzing her to provide the name of the new Russian President, Dmitry Medvedev. Obama was not asked anything similar. The difference in the difficulty of questions was so apparent that a skit on the NBC show Saturday Night Live parodied the debate. Earlier, in October 2007, Russert was accused of harassing Clinton over the issue her supporting the issuance of drivers' licenses for illegal immigrants.
On April 16, ABC News hosted a debate in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. The moderators Charles Gibson and George Stephanopoulos. Both moderators were criticized for the poor quality of their questions. Many critics said they considered some of the questions irrelevant when compared with the importance of the faltering economy or the Iraq war. The questions included asking about Obama's former pastor Jeremiah Wright, Senator Hillary Clinton's assertion that she had to duck sniper fire in Bosnia more than a decade ago, and Senator Obama's not wearing an American flag pin. The moderators seemed focused on campaign gaffes. They were also accused of focusing too much on Obama. Stephanopoulos defended the questions, saying that "Senator Obama was the front-runner" and the questions were "not inappropriate or irrelevant at all."
In an editorial published on April 27, 2008 published in the New York Rime, Elizabeth Edwards (wife of Senator John Edwards) wrote that the media covered much more of "the rancor of the campaign" and "amount of money spent" than "the candidates' priorities, policies and principles." In the editorial, Edwards also cited a report by the Project for Excellence in Journalism and the Shorenstein Center on the Press, Politics and Public Policy, which found that during the early months of the 2008 presidential campaign, 63 percent of the campaign stories focused on political strategy while only 15 percent discussed the candidates’ ideas and proposals. Author Erica Jong commented in an article for the Huffington Post: "Our press has become a sea of triviality, meanness and irrelevant chatter."
The perception that the media was treating Obama preferentially was confirmed in a Gallup poll released on May 29, 2008, in which a majority of those polled also felt the media was being harder on Hillary Clinton than they were towards Barack Obama. Time Magazine columnist Mark Halperin wrote that during the 2008 election, the media displayed what he called a "blind, almost slavish" worship of Obama.
Media bias was alleged to have been prevalent in the coverage of both parties. The Project for Excellence in Journalism and Harvard University's Joan Shorenstein Center on the Press, Politics and Public Policy conducted a study of 5,374 media narratives about the presidential candidates from January 1 through March 9, 2008. The study found that Obama received 69% favorable coverage and Clinton received 67%, compared to only 43% favorable media coverage of Republican Candidate John McCain. An October 29 study found 29% of stories about Obama to be negative, compared to 57% of stories about McCain being negative.
Republicans leveled significant criticism at media outlets' coverage of the presidential election season. An October 22, 2008 Pew Research Center poll estimated 70% of registered voters believed journalists wanted Barack Obama to win the election, compared with 9% for John McCain. Another Pew survey, conducted after the election, found that 67% of voters thought that the press fairly covered Obama, versus 30% who viewed the coverage as unfair. Regarding McCain, 53% of voters viewed his press coverage as fair versus 44% who characterized it as unfair. Among affiliated Democrats, 83% believed the press fairly covered Obama; just 22% of Republicans thought the press was fair to McCain.
The Pew Research center findings raised questions about whether or not the news media was pro-Obama. The Pew media staff concluded that winning in politics attracted winning coverage. They noted a tendency on the part of the media to frame its coverage of national elections as running narratives about the relative position of the candidates in the polls and internal tactical maneuvering to alter those positions. They noted that Obama’s coverage was negative in tone when he was dropping in the polls, and became positive when he began to rise. They argued that the same applied to McCain as well. Pew concluded:
"What the findings also reveal is the reinforcing—rather than press-generated—effects of media. We see a repeating pattern here in which the press first offers a stenographic account of candidate rhetoric and behavior, while also on the watch for misstatements and gaffes. Then, in a secondary reaction, it measures the political impact of what it has reported. This is magnified in particular during presidential races by the prevalence of polling and especially daily tracking. While this echo effect exists in all press coverage, it is far more intense in presidential elections, with the explosion of daily tracking polls, state polls, poll aggregation sites and the 24-hour cable debate over their implications. Even coverage of the candidate’s policy positions and rhetoric, our reading of these stories suggest, was tied to horse race and took on its cast."
One of the earliest accusations of bias arose in a February 2008 debate between Obama and Clinton. At the debate, Tim Russert of NBC News was criticized for asking disproportionately tough questioning of Democratic presidential contender Hillary Clinton, while lobbing softball questions to Obama. Among the questions Russert had asked Clinton included quizzing her to provide the name of the new Russian President, Dmitry Medvedev. Obama was not asked anything similar. The difference in the difficulty of questions was so apparent that a skit on the NBC show Saturday Night Live parodied the debate. Earlier, in October 2007, Russert was accused of harassing Clinton over the issue her supporting the issuance of drivers' licenses for illegal immigrants.
On April 16, ABC News hosted a debate in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. The moderators Charles Gibson and George Stephanopoulos. Both moderators were criticized for the poor quality of their questions. Many critics said they considered some of the questions irrelevant when compared with the importance of the faltering economy or the Iraq war. The questions included asking about Obama's former pastor Jeremiah Wright, Senator Hillary Clinton's assertion that she had to duck sniper fire in Bosnia more than a decade ago, and Senator Obama's not wearing an American flag pin. The moderators seemed focused on campaign gaffes. They were also accused of focusing too much on Obama. Stephanopoulos defended the questions, saying that "Senator Obama was the front-runner" and the questions were "not inappropriate or irrelevant at all."
In an editorial published on April 27, 2008 published in the New York Rime, Elizabeth Edwards (wife of Senator John Edwards) wrote that the media covered much more of "the rancor of the campaign" and "amount of money spent" than "the candidates' priorities, policies and principles." In the editorial, Edwards also cited a report by the Project for Excellence in Journalism and the Shorenstein Center on the Press, Politics and Public Policy, which found that during the early months of the 2008 presidential campaign, 63 percent of the campaign stories focused on political strategy while only 15 percent discussed the candidates’ ideas and proposals. Author Erica Jong commented in an article for the Huffington Post: "Our press has become a sea of triviality, meanness and irrelevant chatter."
The perception that the media was treating Obama preferentially was confirmed in a Gallup poll released on May 29, 2008, in which a majority of those polled also felt the media was being harder on Hillary Clinton than they were towards Barack Obama. Time Magazine columnist Mark Halperin wrote that during the 2008 election, the media displayed what he called a "blind, almost slavish" worship of Obama.
Media bias was alleged to have been prevalent in the coverage of both parties. The Project for Excellence in Journalism and Harvard University's Joan Shorenstein Center on the Press, Politics and Public Policy conducted a study of 5,374 media narratives about the presidential candidates from January 1 through March 9, 2008. The study found that Obama received 69% favorable coverage and Clinton received 67%, compared to only 43% favorable media coverage of Republican Candidate John McCain. An October 29 study found 29% of stories about Obama to be negative, compared to 57% of stories about McCain being negative.
Republicans leveled significant criticism at media outlets' coverage of the presidential election season. An October 22, 2008 Pew Research Center poll estimated 70% of registered voters believed journalists wanted Barack Obama to win the election, compared with 9% for John McCain. Another Pew survey, conducted after the election, found that 67% of voters thought that the press fairly covered Obama, versus 30% who viewed the coverage as unfair. Regarding McCain, 53% of voters viewed his press coverage as fair versus 44% who characterized it as unfair. Among affiliated Democrats, 83% believed the press fairly covered Obama; just 22% of Republicans thought the press was fair to McCain.
The Pew Research center findings raised questions about whether or not the news media was pro-Obama. The Pew media staff concluded that winning in politics attracted winning coverage. They noted a tendency on the part of the media to frame its coverage of national elections as running narratives about the relative position of the candidates in the polls and internal tactical maneuvering to alter those positions. They noted that Obama’s coverage was negative in tone when he was dropping in the polls, and became positive when he began to rise. They argued that the same applied to McCain as well. Pew concluded:
"What the findings also reveal is the reinforcing—rather than press-generated—effects of media. We see a repeating pattern here in which the press first offers a stenographic account of candidate rhetoric and behavior, while also on the watch for misstatements and gaffes. Then, in a secondary reaction, it measures the political impact of what it has reported. This is magnified in particular during presidential races by the prevalence of polling and especially daily tracking. While this echo effect exists in all press coverage, it is far more intense in presidential elections, with the explosion of daily tracking polls, state polls, poll aggregation sites and the 24-hour cable debate over their implications. Even coverage of the candidate’s policy positions and rhetoric, our reading of these stories suggest, was tied to horse race and took on its cast."