as you heard, the speaker says that the republicans are open to new revenues. they would like to achieve it by closing tax loopholes. that does not seem to be the way the direction is headed, and not a very optimistic assessment there from the speaker of the house, but we will continue to see which direction this all goes throughout the day and on through the month of december, i m sure. let s get back into our discussion about what this msnbc anchor said with our news watch panel. judy miller is here. judy, to call somebody like senator mccain, who has a lengthy record of public service and his wartime service before that, to refer to him as, what, an old white guy who s losing his grip on power right. jon: that sounds racist in and of itself to me. it certainly sounded bigoted. and if anybody had said an old black guy, can you imagine what the outcry would have been? i mean, this is just inappropriate. and can moreover, his suggestion
jon: well, there s a new study just out of media coverage during the 2012 presidential campaign. it finds that in the closing week before election day president obama got a big surge of positive news coverage. the pew research center finding both candidates got more negative coverage than positive throughout most of the race, but in the final week the media presented a lot more positive stories about the president while the coverage for governor romney stayed about the same. let s check in with our news watch panel. judith miller is an investigative reporter, cal thomas is a syndicated columnist for usa today, both are fox news contributors. we should point out that superstorm sandy came roaring in in that final week of the election, and the president was, you know, seen out there walking
now so many players are involved here. hamas, fatah, the u.s. government, the egyptian government, other governments in the middle easts. what about journalists? are they playing a role here? we ll talk with our news watch panel coming up.
jon: there you go. governor romney and president obama making a final push for votes before election day. with the race too close to call are the media treating both candidates equally? we ll take a look with our news watch panel next. plus we talk a lot about the electoral college, but what is it? why do we have the thing? you ve been asking, we have the answers coming up on happening now. [ metal rattling ] boo! i am the ghost of meals past. when you don t use new pam, this is what you get. residue. [ female announcer ] bargain brand cooking spray leaves annoying residue. that s why there s new pam.
22% of the coverage he got, 51% mixed, 21% negative. after the first debate the numbers essentially flipped with governor romney getting 20% possible tee stories, 50% mixed and 30% unfavorable. so have the main team media treated both candidates equally? let s bring in our news watch panel for today. jim pinkerton is contributing editor and writer for the american conservative magazine, also a fox news contributor. alan colmes is host of the alan colmes radio show also a fox news contributor, and author of the book thank the liberals for saving america and why you should. jim, i imagine you looked at these results and said surprise, surprise. well, not really, because it still showed governor romney getting negative press after october 3rd. that was kind of striking. look, even president obama admits that he was quote, asleep unquote during that first debate on october 3rd in denver, and yet even after romney wins a huge victory the press still manages to be negative against him. i