Readers of the Washington Post have been consistently critical of the lack of probing issues coverage and what they saw as a tilt toward Democrat Senator Obama. Deborah Howell did a survey from Nov 11, 2007 to election day Nov 4, 2008 and the results confirmed that her readers were right on both counts.
Finally they admit it - but a little too late.
excerpts from Washington Post - by Deborah Howell, to read entire article click here: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/11/07/AR2008110702895.html
"The op-ed page ran far more laudatory opinion pieces on Obama, 32, than on Sen. John McCain, 13. There were far more negative pieces (58) about McCain than there were about Obama (32), and Obama got the editorial board's endorsement. The Post has several conservative columnists, but not all were gung-ho about McCain.
Stories and photos about Obama in the news pages outnumbered those devoted to McCain. Post reporters, photographers and editors -- like most of the national news media -- found the candidacy of Obama, the first African American major-party nominee, more newsworthy and historic. Journalists love the new; McCain, 25 years older than Obama, was already well known and had more scars from his longer career in politics.
It found that from June 9, when Clinton dropped out of the race, until Nov. 2, 66 percent of the campaign stories were about Obama compared with 53 percent for McCain; some stories featured both. The project also calculated that in that time, 57 percent of the stories were about the horse race and 13 percent were about issues.
Counting from June 4, Obama was in 311 Post photos and McCain in 282. Obama led in most categories. Obama led 133 to 121 in pictures more than three columns wide, 178 to 161 in smaller pictures, and 164 to 133 in color photos. In black and white photos, the nominees were about even, with McCain at 149 and Obama at 147. On Page 1, they were even at 26 each."
A Letter to the Editor
14 years ago
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment