news. >> was it really such a far-out move? are you consuming too much junk on-line? having trouble controlling your habit? we'll talk to the author of "the information diet." plus -- >> okay. what about that? >> i don't know how to make love to you anymore. >> ew. >> i was told you were getting an std test. >> do you really think that sounds like a lot of fun? >> the huge wave of media hype surrounding "girls" on hbo has left a bitter backlash in its bake. how did one program become a cultural battlefield? i'm howard kurtz, and this is "reliable sources." >> if you think of all the shots the pundits have taken at met romney in the last few months, stiff, can't close the deal. s you hardly expect that he got the most favorable coverage in the republican primaries, but that's exactly what happened according to the project for excellence in jurmism. here are the numbers. from january through mid-april romney's media coverage was rated 39% positive, 32% negative, and president obama just 18% positive, 34% negative. to be sure, romney took his share of knocks in the media. >> but governor romney has problems of his own. he has perceived as being out of touch with the regular folks and has not been able to convince conservatives he is one of them, and his personality is kind of laid back. >> such comments, though, were outweighed by ones like these. >> he has a better campaign. he had better ads. >> romney is bringing it back to the economy because that's where he will win. >> i thought of this the best speech that romney has put together so far. >> i think romney has found his message. >> as for president obama, he has been hammered week after week. >> not a good week for president obama. the agency that protects him under fire. the agency representing the country on the battlefield, under fire. the agency that oversees government agencies, under fire. >> i think barack obama has essentially given up trying to persuade the majority of american people to re-electric him as president. i think instead he is trying to persuade a minority to turn out disproportionately and re-elect him president. >> so what accounts for the huge disparity between two candidates? joining me now here in washington rachel sclar founding editor of media-ite and change the ratio. >> mark, director for the project of excellence in journalism that did that study, and david prom, news week and the daily beast, and author of the new e book patriots, which will be released tomorrow. mark, it sounds counter intuitive. that's the reaction i got from a lot of people. the so-called liberal media gave obama much more negative coverage than any of the republican candidates. how can that be? >> well, one of the things this report did was it sort of looked at the structure of the campaign ad. you have to think about that. basically when you are doing well in a campaign and when romney really started turning his necessariage around is when he started defeating his rivals. good -- winning begets good coverage. >> and lose sng. >> lives losing begets bad coverage. the president obviously wasn't running against anybody during the primary period so, what made up the media conversation about him? for one thing during the republican primary, five, six, seven candidates in debates in the newspapers every day, all of them criticizing some aspect of the obama policy. that's volume. that's what the american public are hearing. the other piece of it is that, frankly, you know, he is also inextricably linked with a number of issues that aren't necessarily going his way from the rise of gas prices, which was a big story, to the shaky economic recovery to the renewed judicial review of his legislation and health care. >> he is not just a candidate. he is president who takes knocks in that regard. >> this study showed there wasn't one week during that time period when obama got more positive than negative coverage. is that surprising? >> it raises some questions. i don't want to be disrespectful about the methodology of these studies. if you say -- oh, my gosh, gas prices have gone up, people are really suffering, and gas prices have gone up and people are really suffering, in what sense is that an unfair coverage? when you say that these things are negative, you are maybe covering a very negative external reality. romney's reality was positive. he was winning elections. he was besting rivals. what he was in the field of terrain that was available to him, he was succeeding. the problems that president obama is contending, he is at best struggling. >> i am glad david raised that because that's something i should have said from the outset. this is not a study of bias. a negative contation or a negative assertion about a candidate does not mean the press is being unfair to them. it means he is involved in a negative story, and there are usually reasons for it. >> somebody in a journalistic capacity has to say obama is responsible for taking the hit for vulnerable on rising gas prices. >> correct. >> and the same thing goes for the win and losing narrative. romney's coverage wasn't great. a few percentage points higher of positive than negative, but as mark pointed out, when you start winning primaries and there's so much horse race coverage that, wow, this candidate is really on a role, that's deemed positive as well. >> well, i think it's a degree of positivetivity that's important here. i really never heard anyone on the television or in present anywhere enthuse about mitt romney. the praise, even that you showed was at best it was about it's good for him to talk about the economy and he has excellent ads. i think that that's indicative of sovr the luke warmness with which he has been received and i think even his own party we haven't seen anybody who even wants to touch being a candidate for vice president. marco rubio is, like, no, no, i couldn't possibly. jeb bush -- >> but even though many republicans on those debate stages were attacking president obama, don't journalists have responsibility to provide balance in their reports, or are they just passive conveyors of these partisans? >> i think if are you talking about things like covering debates as events, you are not usually going to get a lot of context. you know, to what people are saying. it's often treated, frankly, as a kind of sporting event. it's treating classic horse ace fashion. you don't tend so see journalists vetting the statement. that's more for the fact checking aspect of the paper that people don't read about. >> romney performed billion in the dwee baits. it's when he is unscripted that he runsz into trouble. >> that also gets hyper argumentative. you have this horrific economic crash at the beginning of his presidency. from which recovery has been expected. each time it looks like recovery is going to materialize, it does not. or it turns out to be very weak. 2012 looks like it's going to be another weak year. is it the job of the press to keep saying, well, there are a lot of factors to bear in mind when assessing the president's responsibility for this did hes appointing performance? is that not biassed? also, mitt romney should not relax. what's going on here is what you call jab, jab, hook, that he is getting a little bit of -- a little love tap now, but the hook is waiting for him. the haymaker is in the background. he will be hit hard. >> is it the responsibility of the press to cover the president like that. nuance and all sort of the context and factors that may weigh into -- >> we're not going to call you crazy. it's a very civil show. let's switch sports analogies, i suppose. the usually you get nine innings as a candidate. newt gingrich seems to have had about 16. is he in the process of finally dropping out. is he going to make it official on tuesday. have you ever seen a candidate get so much media attention for slowly leaving the race? >> well, truth be told, in our report on gingrich, he literally in the four months of this year only had one week where he really generated enthusiasm for his candidacy. and that was the week when he won in south carolina, and then quickly it ended in florida, and romney -- excuse me. gingrich of all the candidates really carried the most baggage with the media because of his tenure as speakership, because of his personal life. he had a very difficult time overcoming those. >> and they went so negative. >> well, it would -- those -- the press weren't very talkative for newt. yet, there is this continued fascination, i would arg ushgs in the media. ron paul wasn't winning primaries, and he got off the radar screen. >> gingrich is the ultimate washington insider. he is part of the city. everyone knows him socially. they know much more about him than makes it into the press, and this is sim boy on theic relationship. attacking the press is still talking about the press. the press lots of people who talk about the press. >> hit me again. >> hit me again. >> because i'm so interesting. >> i'm a big star. one more thing, though, i think the press is also covering gingrich not just as a political story, but as a human story. this was a man who is saying he was going to run a campaign, and he ran one of the ugliest and worst and least successful and least -- to see this person that had been so important in the city descend in this way, that is a tremendous human story. >> also the least controlled of the candidates. >> we like that. we don't like overly -- >> i think that's one of the reasons why there's a fascination with gingrich. right out of the gate after iowa he focused all of his energy on romney and, like, hated him with a burning intensity of 1,000 suns. >> let me go back to romney, but this time to ann romney because she has been going out in some of these programs like "entertainment tonight" and "extra." more accessible in a way on a national basis than her husband has been. here's some of what ann romney has been saying. >> mood swings and the ups and the downs in life and we have our battles. as all marriages do. >> what was it about mitt to -- >> right away. bang. wow. i mean, it was right away. >> i he is a very funny guy. he doesn't comb his hair when we're not going place. it's like all over the place. >> so mitt romney is not going to go on "e.t.," but his wife can use that in those kind of shows to get a message out. >> it's kind of a true message because these candidates are so removed from the public. one of the things is here are someone who has known him intimately for 43 years xshgs she's crazy about him, and a candidate that has an enthusiasm gap, what is it about you that someone could be this crazy about you for so long? >> given ann romney relatively soft treatment compared to, say, hillary clinton and michelle obama when their husbands were running. >> oh, well, from what i understand the candidate's family members are off limits. funny how that didn't happen to bill clinton in the 2008 campaign. yes. right now ann romney is being treated with kid gloves, but i don't think there's any reason to do much more than that unless she comes out as a forceful voice of policy and starts being a surrogate for her husband. like on policy issues. she's a very effective surrogate for him right now. human side. they're getting to know him through her. all of that is great, and especially after hillary rosen's comment which in and of itself was extremely fair in that she was commenting on whether or not -- zeets not relitigate that. >> about whether or not she should be speak about women and the economy. however, the sum total of that was that nobody wants to lay a glove on ann romney, and why should they? >> it's typical for a candidate's spouse to get kind of feature story treatment? >> at this point in the campaign it certainly is. the other thing we found in our study was that romney himself was the most vetted of any of the republican candidates, meaning there was the most attention to his personal life and his public record, but what was it that people learned about romney sf he is extremely wealthy. he didn't want to release his taxes on time. what was pain capital all about, and he is a mormon. this is an attempt to fill in the biography. >> let me get a break here. when we come back, conservative commentators beat up on the prosecutes president for doing his thing on jimmy fallon's show. really? all those celebrities at at last night's correspondents dinner. is this what news organizations are reduced to? president obama took a few shot at the assembled journalists, including this one about the huffington post winning a pulitzer prize. >> you deserve it, arianna. there's no one else out there linking to the kinds of hard-hitting journalism that huf-po is linking to every single day. presidents and presidential candidate are hardly an unusual sight on late night tv these days, so it was the barack obama showed up on jimmy fallon's program. >> i'm president barack obama, and i, too, want to slow jam the news. ♪ >> on july 1st of this year the interest rates on stafford student loans, the seam loans that many of you use to help pay for college are set to double. the position is that students just have to make this rated, frankly, i don't buy it. >> hmm, hmm, hmm. the barackness monster ain't buying it. >> you know who else wasn't buying it? many pundits. >> i do not agree with the highest office of the land, the most important figure in the world going on these comedy shows. i think it lowers the status of the office. >> we have so many issues and problems going on in this country, around the world, and you can't swing a cat without finding president obama on a talk show. >> the republican -- aid to get the attention of young voters last night on late night with jimmy fallon. >> from 20 years ago bill clinton played the sax on ars ino hall. what's the big deal about him going on jimmy fallon? >> candidates go through all kinds of degrading experiences. but -- >> clinton as president talked about his underwear on mtv. >> that was a big -- people really were shocked by that. >> what about this? >> what has happened here -- so it's -- i had qualms about it too, but i think what we're also realizing is there is nor eric -- or walter cronkite, and that the media landscape is changing, and it is probably unrealistic to expect politicians not to adjust to it. one more thing i think is happening. we are living through a fiscal crisis that has very different impacts on young people and elderly people, and the elderly are responding by mobilizing and the young people are responding by demobilizing. guess who is losing? i can kind of understand why a president who is looking to a young audience that's trying to reach in this way, but it's different, and all -- the precedents that are being cited are all about candidates, not about sitting presidents. >> rachel, let me play a short bit of sound for you from another late night program. >> number nine -- >> i can't begin my day until i have read the washington post and kim kardashian's tweets. >> yes. >> mitt romney on letterman. conservatives don't like it when obama did sd it. dade says he is president. it's okay -- >> outraged that mitt romney would appear on a comedy program. that's unbelievable. >> and read the countdown. >> that's complete had ok si. when the clip you showed were from fox news and lawrence o'donnell talking about the outrage coming from fox news. it's very clear where the -- where the outrage is coming from. >> right, but it generalrily is on the right, which tends not to be friendly to anything president obama does. from what david just said, it's the media landscape that's changing. now it's important to be on twitter, on four square. the obama campaign is on tumbler. these are interests. these are all different ways to reach. by the way, that's very effective messaging. that fallon clip has been all over the place. we're still talking about it. >> it's pretty viral. >> it's bringing the student loans issue into spotlight. this is what they wanted to do. >> this is a long history now of presidential candidates and presidents going on these pramdz programs. >> richard nixon went on "laugh in" and said sock it to me. he is saying it as a candidate. i think the narrative, everything is obviously going to be fair game for the political narrative now. to the extent that part of the nar ti is against obama is going to be sort of he is a celebrity candidate, which was the john mccain commercial 2008. >> yes. >> you see this beginning to develop now that may be kind of a theme that the republicans are going to wants. >> let's not have a false narrative. the one time a sitting president did something like this, george bush would be airing on deal or no deal. >> he did this. because he was aware, video clip, he wasn't there in person, and he was delivering a personal message to a veteran. this is a new thing. >> the speeches at the white house correspondents dinner, they are written by comedians, and he is essentially doing stand-up comedy, and it's all -- >> and every president has done that. >> there are video clips that are distributed on-line, which is a different landscape. >> first i want to mention barack obama has been on the daily show, and he gave an interview with rolling stone which he said john stewart's brilliance is amazing to me to the degree with which he was able to cut through a bunch of nonsense. the president also saying he doesn't want a lot of tv news and doesn't watch cable at all, but sde look at the major papers, wall street journal, washington post, "new york times", reads the "new york times" columnist, and andrew sullivan from the daily beast. another thing that happened this week is going to air on rock center this week is that brian williams of nbc interviewed president obama in the situation room at the white house. one-year anniversary of the successful assault on osama bin laden. does that trouble you at all? did northbound allow itself to be used by having that back drop? >> it doesn't trouble me. during the bush administration beginning sort of after 9/11 nbc did a day in the life of the white house, and these are transactions between networks and pole titicians that always happen. we have amazing visuals and in turn you give us the kind of coverage we want, and everybody understands the deal. there are a lot of people who would like to see what the inside of the situation room looks like, and i don't blame a network for making that information available to them. >> okay. you mentioned the white house correspondents dinner, which has become a huge spectacle. rachel, you were there last night. all with lindsay lohan and kim kardashian. >> with my girls. >> newsweek brought reese witherspoon who was i was delight to meet ask california governor jerry brown. allow is this i'm going to bring a bigger hollywood star than you have with the news organization competing. has this gone too far? >> it depends what the purpose is of the event. if the purpose is to raise money as the dinner is one of the purposes to raise money, and -- >> it's sort of -- you have this big collection of people from all over the place, and a whole bunch of different constituencies around this issue, and you have them on the highest level and the lowest level, and this is how relationships are built, coverage is made, people rise much, and stuff comes out of it. you need to have people put together in one big petree dish. >> then presidents use their comedy routines as a way of taking veiled or not so vailed shots of the opposition when you are working the bush white house and you help president bush do that along with professional comedians. but he can't be too sharp edged. you have to make it funny, right? >> well, this year the president was unusually sharp-edged. you could see -- he is sort of getting past the point where he is going to pretend to like any of the