Four years ago, the ABC, CBS and NBC morning shows celebrated the “rock star” Democrats running to replace George W. Bush, and no candidate set journalists’ pulses racing faster than Barack Obama. Now, after three years of high unemployment, trillion dollar deficits and an onerous new health care law, how are those newscasts covering Obama’s re-election campaign and the candidates vying to replace him? To find out, the MRC’s Geoff Dickens and I (with a huge assist from Scott Whitlock, Kyle Drennen and Matthew Balan) examined all 723 campaign segments, including 101 interviews, which aired on the three broadcast network weekday morning programs from January 1 to October 31, 2011, using the same methodology we employed to study campaign coverage on those same programs for the same time period in 2007. Excerpts following the jump; read the full report here. (or download the printer-friendly PDF version)
While ABC and CBS on Monday highlighted the fire bombing of a Republican Party headquarters in North Carolina as “political terrorism,” NBC only gave the story seconds and avoided using that phrase. CBS This Morning opened the program with the story and reporter Jeff Pegues explained, “Local officials are calling the violence an act of political terrorism.”
It is a remarkable thing to read. Hop into the wayback machine and park it in front of this article that appeared as part of a China series in The New York Times Magazine on November 18, 2018. The author is Philip P. Pan, he the Asia editor of The New York Times. The title of the piece?