Media Help Obama
by Brent Baker
Issue 113 - August 6, 2008

More than three times as many Americans see a media tilt in favor of Democrat Barack Obama than toward Republican John McCain.

A Rasmussen Reports telephone survey released recently, of 1,000 likely voters, “found that 49 percent of voters believe most reporters will try to help Obama with their coverage, up from 44 percent a month ago,” compared to a piddling 14 percent who “believe most reporters will try to help John McCain win” while “just one voter in four (24%) believes that most reporters will try to offer unbiased coverage.”

Exactly half, 50 percent, “believe the media makes economic conditions appear worse than they really are,” a separate Rasmussen Reports telephone survey determined. That poll discovered “a plurality of Americans (41%) similarly believe that the media has tried to make the war in Iraq appear worse that it really is, while 26 percent say reporters have made it look better than reality and 25 percent think they’ve portrayed it accurately.”

Meanwhile, the “Scapbook” section of the latest (July 28) edition of the Weekly Standard magazine dubbed Newsweek “Obamaweek” and illustrated the media's infatuation with Obama by displaying images of six Newsweek covers featuring Obama, five of them just this year.

Five covers devoted to one candidate in one year undoubtedly qualify as “help.”

Brent H. Baker is the Steven P.J. Wood Senior Fellow and Vice President for Research and Publications at the Media Research Center