The Myth of Pro-Obama Media Bias

Little evidence for self-proclaimed ‘lovefest’
FAIR

By John K. Wilson

If there has been one unquestioned assumption of the 2008 election, it is that the media love Barack Obama.

Rush Limbaugh declared that the media were following Obama with “their tongues dragging along the concrete to the floors.” “Lenin, Stalin never got this kind of coverage from their media,” Limbaugh claimed (7/22/08), which he blamed on the “chickification of our culture and the news business” (7/21/08).

Joseph McQuaid, publisher of the conservative New Hampshire Union Leader, wrote an editorial headlined “Obama Orgy” (7/21/08) that denounced “the outrageous imbalance in the major media’s coverage of the candidates.” Such proclamations bolstered a GOP offensive against what the McCain campaign (7/22/08) called media’s “bizarre fascination with Barack Obama. Some may even say it’s a love affair.” A Republican National Committee fundraising letter two days later (7/23/08) decried “the fawning, one-sided coverage Barack Obama and Democrat candidates receive from the mainstream media.”

But it’s not just conservatives complaining about Obama coverage; corporate media have likewise echoed the GOP’s talking points. Many pointed to Obama’s overseas trip in July as an example of this alleged bias. At the start of the trip, CBS Evening News (7/22/08) anchor Katie Couric spoke of the “Obamathon . . . the non-stop coverage this week [that] has stolen most of the limelight from his opponent” and asked, “Will this summer of love last?” “Obama was a media darling,” declared CBS reporter Thalia Assuras at the end of the trip (7/27/08).

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