Pew: Media not in love with Obama
By: Keach Hagey
October 17, 2011 12:03 AM EDT
Sarah Palin put an end to her possible presidential candidacy this month with a familiar parting critique: President Barack Obama has an unfair advantage as a candidate because hes got about 90 percent of the media still there in his back pocket.
The charge echoed longstanding complaints from conservatives that the mainstream media treated the tea party with contempt, preferring to zero in on examples of looniness or astroturfing rather than the broad energy and goals of the movement.
But a study by the Pew Research Centers Project for Excellence in Journalism finds that, in the past five months, the reverse has actually been true: Obama has received the most unremittingly negative press of any of the presidential candidates by a wide margin, with negative assessments outweighing positive ones by four to one.
Pew found that just 9 percent of the presidents coverage was positive, while 34 percent was negative a stark contrast to the 32 percent positive coverage and 20 percent negative that it found Texas Gov. Rick Perry, the most covered Republican, received.
His coverage has been substantially more negative in every one of the last 23 weeks of the last five months even the week that Bin Laden was killed, Tom Rosenstiel, director of the Project for Excellence in Journalism, said of the presidents treatment in the media compared with that of the GOP field.
The Pew study analyzed daily coverage in more than 11,500 news outlets including news websites and transcripts of radio and television broadcasts, at both the local and national levels as well as hundreds of thousands of blogs.
The top four most favorably covered candidates, the study found, were all tea party favorites: Perry was followed by Palin, with 31 percent positive coverage and 22 percent negative; Michele Bachmann, with 31 percent positive coverage and 23 percent negative; and Herman Cain, with 28 percent positive coverage and 23 percent negative.
Mitt Romneys positive and negative coverage were almost in a dead heat at 26 percent and 27 percent, respectively.
By: Keach Hagey
October 17, 2011 12:03 AM EDT
Sarah Palin put an end to her possible presidential candidacy this month with a familiar parting critique: President Barack Obama has an unfair advantage as a candidate because hes got about 90 percent of the media still there in his back pocket.
The charge echoed longstanding complaints from conservatives that the mainstream media treated the tea party with contempt, preferring to zero in on examples of looniness or astroturfing rather than the broad energy and goals of the movement.
But a study by the Pew Research Centers Project for Excellence in Journalism finds that, in the past five months, the reverse has actually been true: Obama has received the most unremittingly negative press of any of the presidential candidates by a wide margin, with negative assessments outweighing positive ones by four to one.
Pew found that just 9 percent of the presidents coverage was positive, while 34 percent was negative a stark contrast to the 32 percent positive coverage and 20 percent negative that it found Texas Gov. Rick Perry, the most covered Republican, received.
His coverage has been substantially more negative in every one of the last 23 weeks of the last five months even the week that Bin Laden was killed, Tom Rosenstiel, director of the Project for Excellence in Journalism, said of the presidents treatment in the media compared with that of the GOP field.
The Pew study analyzed daily coverage in more than 11,500 news outlets including news websites and transcripts of radio and television broadcasts, at both the local and national levels as well as hundreds of thousands of blogs.
The top four most favorably covered candidates, the study found, were all tea party favorites: Perry was followed by Palin, with 31 percent positive coverage and 22 percent negative; Michele Bachmann, with 31 percent positive coverage and 23 percent negative; and Herman Cain, with 28 percent positive coverage and 23 percent negative.
Mitt Romneys positive and negative coverage were almost in a dead heat at 26 percent and 27 percent, respectively.
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