Study Shows U.S. Election Coverage Harder on Bush

[spunky]

http://reuters.myway.com/article/20050314/2005-03-14T150130Z_01_N11229264_RTRIDST_0_NEWS-MEDIA-REPORT-DC.html



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 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.

...snip...

Looking at public perceptions of the media, the report showed that 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.





Hmm. I must have been watching the news in a whole different reality. Because I gotta say, I thought they were tougher on Kerry than on Bush. . .

[underpants]

1. 80% of the time MSM said"Why can't Kerry get his message out?"

Then there were several minutes of discussion about how Kerry couldn't get his message out....by reporters.

This would be laughable if it weren't so sad.

[Warpy]

19. Right, and the rover boys would talk about the horserace

and where each candidate was traveling, but never show either man enunciating his program.

Campaign coverage was deplorable, which is why my TV has been adamandly off during the propaganda hour since 11/2/04.

However, complaining that the media were picking on Fuckwit when CBS was the only network that aired even mild criticism is delusional.

Fe fi fo fum, I smell a Pox News addict.

[jamesinca]

61. There is a difference that needs to be made

Were they picking on Bush with negative coverage, or just showing a small portion of the missteps he has taken? Was it 36% negative coverage for Bush, or is it because he is a public screw up 1/3 of the time? If it was 36% negative coverage, I want to know why the other 64% about him was a lie?

[underpants]

65. Very good point- stating facts probably counted as a negative

Because to a manly he-man LEADER like himself it no fair :cry:

[AuntiBush]

71. Bible-Belt, Southern & MidWest States Still Don't Know KERRY'S Name!

I've seen this on http://truthout.org/media/ files. Check out each day's (14 I believe) traveling through the red states and see what most say: "Who's the name of that other guy that ran against Bush?"

The radios, and their media never mentioned Kerry. Is it any wonder when these media stations are owned by Bushie's croonies!

[underpants]

2. Double post

sorry

[KittyWampus]

3. Kerry Said The Professional Lesbian Was, In Fact, Gay. Bush LIED

about whether or not he flip flopped on his concern over catching bin Laden.

Which story got covered ad naseum after the last debate?

And reporting on the negative effects Bush's policies have and are having isn't "negative" campaign coverage... it's just the freaking TRUTH.

Oh, and HOW many Democrats were commenting on air after the GOP's Convention compared with HOW many Repubs after Kerry's?

[Generator]

59. You made my point

Days of coverage of the gay daughter. Ohhh..Kerry hurt her feelings by saying what she had already said publicly. Oh yeah.

Five minutes of Bin Laden.

Hmmm..which is more important?

Let's charge the press with treason.

I know where freaking Mary Cheney is. And she's still GAY-I know it just kills you, Dick.

Where the hell is Bin Laden? Is he Gay? Let's discuss. Maybe he knows Michael Jackson. Whatever it takes.

[The Backlash Cometh]

4. Maybe they eliminated the political attacks on Kerry that were

instigated by the swiftboaters? As for the media reporting on Bush, maybe they were just reporting the news and, let's face it, it wasn't all that good. Bush did a pretty good job of supressing most of the bad PR until after the election.

[springhill]

5. Okay, now I know something wierd is going on.......

The same group just came out with a report on how the run-up to the Iraq war was not biased one way or the other. Looks like someone is being paid to help the image of this war and one George W. Bush.

[merwin]

24. Exactly what I was thinking

[rockedthevoteinMA]

52. second that. Propaganda at it's finest

up is down, and black is white. Orwell would be proud.

[msongs]

6. hmmm bush murdered 100,000+ people, and bush............

started an illegal war based on lies, and bush rapes the environment, and bush tries to steal our civil rights, and bush is selling our children's futures to china, and bush lies,cheats, and steals elections, and bush is a christian hypocrite....the list goes on for miles.

my my, whatta shock to hear there were more negatives against bush.

Msongs
www.msongs.com/liberaltshirts.htm

[Massachusetts]

7. These Media Clearing Houses have NO shame.

Ignorance is truly BLISS in America! The Wolves are IN the barn.

[GOPBasher]

8. A bunch of crap.

All they ever talked about is how Kerry "can't get his message," or how he "flip-flopped." Then what about the Swift Boat Lying Pieces of Shit for Truth? Yeah, okay. :puke:

[gratuitous]

9. Ah, our old friends at the Project for Execrence in Journalism

Where endless, ad nauseam reporting on the Swift Boat Liars was probably categorized as objective, hard-hitting factual journalism, but negative job numbers were evidence of an inherent media bias against Stupidhead.

Begone, foul distorters of reality!

[UpInArms]

30. and I thought their name was "Project for Excrement in Journalism" n/t

[Desertrose]

10. Isn't this called "rewriting history"? n/t

[karynnj]

11. The degree and content of negativity may have been different

If they counted as negative for Bush, articles that showed the economy or the war was going badly, people may not have seen this as negative, but as the best that could be done in a bad situation. Where the negative press for Kerry was more personal. The other thing was that in writing up the debates, Kerry deserved far less criticism.

It might also be that they were measuring only the press and the networks and ignoring cable and talk radio which were disproportionately pro-Bush.

[Straight Shooter]

12. That's amazing, since negative truth about bush outnumbered Kerry 100-to-1

All they could report on Kerry was conjecture about his personality. But bush, OMG, the motherlode of negative facts was a wealth of information and they tiptoed around it like Tiny Tim in the tulips.

[9119495]

13. Such a study would be worthless unless it said WHERE the

news came from. Fox beats all the other cable out lets and most blogs. Thus, one positive story on Bush and a negative one on Kerry gets WAY MORE viewership than the opposite on PBS/NPR. If it doesn't admit to that it is bullshit.

[Viking12]

51. The "report" is online

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

it doesn't identify the outlets nor does the methodology add up....

"Those findings are based on 16 newspapers, four nightly newscasts, three network morning news shows, nine different cable programs, and nine Web sites examined for four weeks through the course of the year."

"The analysis of election coverage begins after March 1 (Super Tuesday) after John Kerry emerged as the all-but-official Democratic candidate. The cross-media comparisons of campaign coverage included stories focused at least 50% on one candidate or the other so that deriving a sense of tone about the candidate was logical. Those totaled 250 stories."

So they're telling me that over an 8 month period 41 different media outlets produced only 250 news stories...only 6 per outlet over 8 months....

[9119495]

55. Nice work.

It seems just lazy to use a sample of 250. A nexus search of John Kerry AND swift boat would probably yield 10,000+ stories.

[otohara]

14. More Lies

total bullshit.

[still_one]

15. and what was the swift puke lying sacks of Sh*T about?

[matcom]

16. HAHAHAHAHHAHAAHAHAHA

rrrrrrriiiiiiiiiggggggggghhhhhhhhttttttttttttt :eyes:

[CheshireCat]

17. How did this group define "coverage"?

If "coverage" was defined in any realistic manner, the results of the study would be different.

Two main points from other posts in this thread:

1. Did the study cover the ads by the "Swift Boat Liars"?

2. Pointing out negative results of Bush's policies is
NOT "negative coverage".

Maybe we do live in a parallel universe!

[fob]

18. WTF? Well, the CUGSofJ just downgraded it's credibility about

145 notches. Anyone know where we can get the details of their "study"?

When bush* lies and a story is written that says "bush*, though he was less than completely forthcoming with all of the pertinent facts regarding the issue in question, is nevertheless an awesome guy and this reporter would love to have a beer with him."

Was that marked down as positive or negative? I can't even remember all the stories and ways they came up with to write "Lie or Liar" in 5 to 20 words or more. The bigger the lie and more detached from the truth was, the longer and less effective the description of "lie" became.

[nickgutierrez]

20. They must have considered the Swift Boat idiots positive coverage.

If these people want to be real media watchdogs, why don't they go find out just how much of the negative press Kerry got that was actually truthful?

[wildflower]

23. Yeah, what's that saying, "Any press is good press"?

Somehow I think not, in this case.

-wildflower

[Kitsune]

57. I'd be willing to bet that the SwiftLiars weren't considered Kerry coverag

*coverage, but "media commentary" or somesuch nonsense.

[Lerkfish]

21. George Orwell was a prophet.

the Ministry of Truth has spoken: the man we crammed down your throats in glowing terms and ignored his crimes was treated unfairly by us.

[AtLiberty]

22. Thank goodness for election fraud --

Otherwise Bush wouldn't be sitting in the Oval Office with all this negative news...

[bookman]

25. As Jon Stewart would say....

..Whaaaaaaaaaaaat?

[hopein08]

26. I need a new dictionary!!!

Beacause, apparently my good old Oxford English Dictionary isn't quite up to snuff when it comes to the Columbia University definitions of negativity and positivity.

I always knew there was a reason I didn't got to any Ivy League school!

Don't worry...I was in the same reality as you.

This final thought just came to me..."One mans' garbage is another mans' treasure." I guess that's true in terms of wearing rose colored glasses, drinking the Kool-Aid, and wearing the tinfoil hats too. (I hope I got those all right!)

[kodi]

27. if that crew is affliated with factcheck.org, the study is BS

FC has gotten it wrong so many times and attacked Kerry/Dems while not going after the busheviks that it is not even funny.

[Cocoa]

62. it's the same strategy as FactCheck.org

protect Bush by imposing a phony "balance."

[AllegroRondo]

28. Great review of NYT election photos on this thread

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=132&topic_id=1649496

[iamjoy]

29. I Believe This

If they count job loss figures and casualties/violence in Iraq as negative coverage of Bush...

[sidwill]

33. Kerry couldn't get his message out because....

HE HAD NO MESSAGE!!!!!!!

Kerry spent most of his time hemming and hawing and acting just like the Repukes were painting him, he was by far his own worst enemy.

Two examples, one important, one petty but both very telling:

A. Kerry was given the question of the year when he was asked "Knowing what you know now (re: no WMDS), would you have still given Pres. Bush authority to wage war on Iraq?"

Kerry's answer caused me to personally roll around on the floor and scream at the Dog because he was handed, on a silver platter a bludgeon to point out the utter failings of the boy king mere weeks before an election. Instead he utters a "non-answer-answer" that revolved around the technicality that Kerry had simply (in essence along with the rest of congress) gotten out of Bush's way and that Bush was the final arbiter on wether we would invade. Now although this is technically true it also put Kerry in a position where his criticisms of Bush's war seemed petty and empty.

Result: Kerry had THE golden opportunity to LEAD THE AMERICAN People away from Chimpies stupid little war--instead, just like he did with his IWR vote, he failed to take a stand.

B. During the Reds-Yankees playoff Kerry was asked on national TV wether or not Pete Rose should be in the Baseball Hall of Fame.

Again Kerry's answer left me howling at the moon, instead of taking a strong pro- or con opinion (on such a trivial matter) and explaining why, he DODGED THE QUESTION with somke lame "its up to the baseball writers" Bullshit.

Any non-politicos watching (and ALOT of people were watching) would have seen a weak indescisive yes "flip-flopper", a man who couldn't even make up his mind on such a trivial matter.

[DeaconBlues]

31. Here's how it works

Spend a month talking about the Swift Boat vets, and the credibility of their claims. On a superficial level, the attention is on the validity of the Swift Boaters, yet, all the time, what is hanging out there is the assumption that Kerry is an opportunist or a coward.

Then spend hour after hour on how "wacky" Kerry's wife is.

Presto! You've destroyed Kerry's campaign while making it look like you were actually fair to him.

[SoCalDem]

32. Sure....and I have ocean-front property in Nebraska too

:puke:

It amazes me how hard they are all trying now to "tidy up" after months of blatant covering for Bush..

They just don;t get it.. It's what they DIDN'T report that did the biggest damage to democracy..

They didn;t report LOUDLY that Bush's "crowds" were republican SHILLS...invitation only and probably paid

They didn;'t report how 99% of his dumbass speeches were the SAME LIES regurgitated with regularity

They did not report about the ties between the SwiftieLiars and the WH, but gleefully gave them a platform to trash Kerry..

[Clovis Sangrail]

34. Similar to a story from PEJ on 10/27/04

and similarly flawed, I'm sure.

The methodology used then was to include:

"Any appearance of the names Bush, Cheney, Kerry or Edwards in the headline or first third of the story, or any story indexed by NEXIS re: the presidential campaign was qualified and included in the original sample.
"

This was further refined by duplication and word count.


At least in that case, it looks like "any story about anything" is more accurate.

http://www.journalism.org/default.asp
bottom of page

I haven't found a link to the current study.

[tom_paine]

35. All things serve the Emperor

Nice to see Gletschaltung is proceeding so rapidly in Amerika.

It couldn't happen to a more deserving bunch of Imperial Subjects.

[w4rma]

36. lies, damned lies, and statistics. (nt)

[devilgrrl]

37. Four legs good, two legs baaad...

What a bunch of bullshit! :argh:

[jeffrey_X]

54. lofl

nice reference...

[LibDemAlways]

38. My bullshit meter is off the charts.

When Kerry got any coverage at all it was negative. Lots of swiftboat liar propaganda. Loads of Teresa bashing. Plenty of use of descriptions like "Lurch," not to mention "dull, stiff, and boring. "Use of words like "draw" to describe the debates.

Not to excuse the fact that Kerry did himself no favors by voting for authorization of the Iraq mess and then doing a crappy job of trying to explain why he voted against the extra 86 billion. That he brought on himself. But there's no doubt the media propped him up during the primaries and then fired with both barrels after the convention.

Meantime no one in the MSM brigade of whores thought it important to mention that the chimp only appeared before carefully selected or bussed in crowds, that Dan Rather was on the money in reporting that *'s Guard record was less than stellar, that he was wearing some sort of a device on his back during the debates that should have required a serious investigation instead of being fodder for late night comedians, that he and his admin. used the pretext of 9/11 to lead this country into a war in Iraq for oil and profit, that he is following a dangerous foreign policy course set years before he became Pres. by a group calling itself Project for a New American Century, that his "Christianity" is as phony as his accent, and on and on....

If there was any negative coverage of the dumbass, it wasn't obvious.

[Enraged_Ape]

39. I seem to recall it was Swift Boat Liars 24/7...

...and Kerry is stiff

...and Kerry can't get his message out

...and Kerry "looks French"

...and Kerry's on vacation when he should be campaigning

When did I ever see ONE negative thing about Bush? Are they counting the coverage on Mars?

[AndyTiedye]

40. Maybe They're Talking About US Election Coverage in the FOREIGN Press

The US news media were operating as part of Boosh**'s campaign organization,
taking orders directly from Karl Rove.

[indepat]

41. If true, the ratios maybe said there was so much to be negative about

with one candidate versus the other and so much to be positive about candidate one versus the other.

[sportndandy]

42. All swift-boat all the time = 1 negative Kerry story

[qanda]

43. This is a joke, right?

I think we were all watching something totally different.

[Zorra]

44. Yuh. Here's the clincher: "Fox News was twice as likely to be positive

as negative."

Credibility of report shot, case closed. Unless....

Reuters is spinning the stats in the report. Has anyone seen the actual report?

[blm]

46. Horseshit. FOX news only 40% positive for Bush? What a crock.

This story is so bogus, it's ridiculous.

Were they counting ANY bad news as if it went against Bush?

Undergod knows the broadcast media spun even the bad news as if Bush wasn't responsible or that his solutions would fix it.

[Sapphire Blue]

45. PEJ MEDIA REPORT CARD - CONTENT ANALYSIS - GENERAL METHODOLOGY

SAMPLING AND INCLUSION


Two distinct categories of media were studied as part of the 2005 PEJ Media Report Card project.


The first, text-based media, included newspapers and Internet news sites. Princeton Survey Research Associates International conducted coding for those media.


The second, electronic media, included both broadcast network and cable network news. The School of Journalism at Michigan State University conducted coding for Broadcast Network News. The Institute for Communication Research of the College of Communication & Information Sciences at the University of Alabama conducted coding for Cable Network News.


Print, broadcast network and cable were each subject to a specific methodological approach regarding sampling and selection and coding. In all, the study examined some 16,800 stories. This included 6,589 newspaper stories, 1,903 online stories, 1,768 stories from network television and about 6,550 stories on cable news (the cable news study included two parts, a 20 day sample and a five day sample, in which some stories overlapped).

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


Hmmm... wonder if there were any Swift Liar 'stories' on August 10th or 12th? If so, did they meet PEJ's criteria for inclusion in this 'study'?

[Rainscents]

47. Whos are these goup? Sounds like Thugs... I almost fail off my chair

when I read the articles. This is such a bullshit story.

[BillZBubb]

48. Coverage of Al Capone slightly worse than that of Mother Teresa!

Shocking news! Busholini is a liar and war criminal. Kerry is a Senator. Since there are a million negatives on Bush that could have been reported, and only a handful were, this is really BIAS FOR BUSH!

[JusticeForAll]

49. My TV was on CNN throughout the season

I don't remember Candy (Creepy-)Crawley ever saying one nice thing about Kerry and his campaign.

I have to admit John King looked like he wanted to throw up whenever he talked about Bush's successes (but at least he reported his successes unlike Creepy)

This is so bogus...Why is Yahoo giving this five hours of top headlines?!? This is not news...

[quaildog]

50. If this is true............

we're in alot of trouble.

[w4rma]

63. It's not true, and thats partly why this nation is in alot of trouble.(nt)

[VegasWolf]

53. WTF. These people wern't watching the same TV that I was. One

day of news on FOX alone should have given Boosh a 110% positive
rating.

[Generator]

56. Clearly Kerry won the election

Because if this is the SHIT they are trying to shove down our throats now, we must know every fucking thing they say is a lie.


Negative in proportion? I doubt it. Kerry didn't start the war in Iraq based on falsehoods and subtle propaganda. Kerry didn't ignore umpteen terrorism warnings allowing 9/11 happen and sit stunned and amazed then haul his ass into an airplane for the rest of the day when the country was "at war". He didn't spend the rest of his term running on his false heroism while trying to cover up every truth about 9/11 and then PROMOTE those who didn't do their job.

Kerry didn't preside over the worst job creation record. Kerry wasn't the one that alienated our allies and turned the greatest time of affection for America into utter derision.

If any coverage was "good" toward Kerry it was the truth. Bush is a loser, who ruins everything-yes everything (oh Bush was right-yeah there is PEACE in Iraq two years after huh??)even such left leaning ballwarks (oh sarcasm) as the Economist endorsed him.

The point here is that if the coverage was in measure to the deeds, there is no country on earth(except one with false elections) that would have re-elected (yeah he was never elected in the first place-another problem) him. That would be the kind of stupidity only propaganda can buy.

Take your pick.

Propaganda. Or

Kerry clearly won.

[daleo]

58. The important question is:

Who funds these guys? The name of the group alone strikes me as a right-wing funded group.

[enki23]

60. they likely counted as "positive" the swiftie ad debunkings

and the necessary debunkings of various other rightwing smear campaigns.

regardless, i remember that being about the ratio quoted back when it was bush vs. al gore, except it was mostly in favor of bush and antagonistic to gore.

[Media_Lies_Daily]

64. Who did the study? Karl Rove? That article is a steaming pile.

[RedCloud]

66. Lucky me. I hit the trifecta!

Weren't you all just sick to your stomachs the number of times Bush was called onto the carpet by the media for laughing at the 9/11 dead and exploiting them for political gain...
It seems like a day didn't go by without the media bullying him over his insensitive comments...
Well maybe not on planet Earth, but in the hereafter.

Satan: W, do you believe in the hereafter?
W: I most certainly do, oh Lord of the Red States.
Satan: Well good then, because you know what I came here after.

[sendero]

67. Well...

.... I guess it's good to know that the "journalism" schools are training another generation of idiots and/or liars, because this "study" is LAUGHABLE.

[kath]

68. What utter bullshit!

Bush continued (and continues) to get a free pass on everything.

[Trish1168]

69. Considering Bush's record, they should have been much much harder on him

I hope this study is not used as proof of 'liberal media'. Incumbents are generally more widely criticized.

[AuntiBush]

70. So what was I watching? And, WHERE ARE THEY NOW?

[Lizzie Borden]

72. BULLSHIT!

[Skittles]

73. MAYBE IT'S BECAUSE HE DID A LOUSY F***ING JOB

ya know?