A good study on Media coverage of Bush vs Kerry:

[AP]

Download the PDF. It has nice, easy to understand graphics. One interesting statitistic was that although the economy, jobs and health care were public's top concern, they got the least coverage in the news (about 3-4%) while terror and Iraq combined for about 30% of the news coverage and sports got another 13%. You read that right. Iraq and Terror got 10 times the coverage this year than the thing the public said they cared the most about. Even sports got 300% more coverage than the public's number one concern.

A comprehensive study by the media research institute Media Tenor reveals how powerful media coverage can be in influencing actual voter behavior. Statistics prove that month after month voting intentions have been following the general tone of the media coverage of George Bush and John Kerry. "As the tone of coverage improved for President Bush, compared to Kerry, intentions to vote for Bush have also gone up", Roland Schatz, editor-in-chief of Media Tenor says. The approval rating for president Bush were particularly high in August, after intense coverage of the accusations of the "Swiftboat veterans for truth" against Kerry, as well as at the end of September, after Interim Iraqi Prime Minister Ayad Allawi visited the US.

Another finding of the study is that president Bush was personally rarely held accountable by the media for the problems in Iraq, the Abu Ghraib prison scandal or the attacks of September 11. In the media, defence secretary Donald Rumsfeld, the Pentagon and the military in general were covered in a more negative tone than President Bush. While Bush's Iraq policy was facing extensive criticism in the media, he was not held solely responsible for the situation.

In the last days before the elections the media turned away from Kerry. George Bush looked decisively better than Kerry in most of the polls that were published right before the elections. The economic report from last Friday about the economic trends in the third quarter of 2003 was mainly portrayed in a positive light by ABC, CBS, Fox and NBC. "All of the networks showed a visible bias during the whole campaign, with CBS and ABC many times leaning more towards Kerry and Fox leaning more towards Bush", Schatz says.

An ongoing trend during the campaign was the focus of the media on the horse race and the campaign rather than the hard issues. "Especially John Kerry barely made it into the headlines with his positions on policy issues", Schatz observed. Instead, he got the most coverage after his nomination of John Edwards as the candidate for vice president and his military service.

http://www.mediatenor.com/index1.html

[AP]

1. I think the conclusion here is that the public might just be wrapped

arround the finger of the media.

My feeling was that the media wasn't as bad as in 2000. But maybe what the media did this year was to get it close up to the last ten days and then hand it to Bush.

Now I'm thinking that media could get America to do whatever the media wants.

[fwiff]

2. Cool link, thanks.

I will look at in more depth, but I think that you're absolutely right- the media dictates the 'mood'.

There is no accountability cuz they're not asking questions, merely spouting talking points, and I think in this way they were worse this time.

There is seldom outrage unless the media spawns it. Abu Grahib? No reaction. No one was told to react.

I hate being cynical- but I suppose that's the price for living in reality.