A book by two Indiana University professors details their study of the three broadcast networks’ — ABC, CBS and NBC — presidential campaign coverage from 1992 to 2004. According to the analysis, the coverage favored Republican candidates in each election.
“We don’t think this is journalists conspiring to favor Republicans. We think they’re just so beat up and tired of being accused of a liberal bias that they unknowingly give Republicans the benefit in coverage,” said Maria Elizabeth Grabe, an associate professor at IU, who along with Associate Professor Erik Bucy, wrote Image Bite Politics: News and the Visual Framing of Elections.
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“Grabe and Bucy found the volume of news coverage focusing exclusively on each party — one measure of media bias — favored Republicans. Their research found there were more single-party stories about Republicans overall and in each election year except 1992,” reads the release.
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The authors found that Republicans were more likely to get the last word in every presidential election studied but the 2004 election.
FAIR had a survey, not many years ago, of guests, in different categories, on tv shows/networks, including PBS. One category was Republicans, Democrats and third party people, another category was: how many women, particularly when “women’s issues” were covered, like abortion; another category was color of/minority groups (besides “women” as a minority group,which is funny, sort of):AfricanAmerican, Latino/Latina, Asian, American Indian/indigenous people. Yes, in every category: overwhelmingly the guests were white, male and Republicans.
And since President Obama took the oath of office, Republicans are still getting the last and most of the words in the media. “Joe the Plumber” is one of the pundits…
What if they networks put on regular programming instead of Obama’s speech, and then broke in for the Republican response?
Amy Goodman asks , What would be the difference if we had state media?”
Democrats should be on more . And not just the same ‘ol tired ones. Used to be Joe Biden , Chris Dodd and Carl Levin every Sunday. I would turn on the TV to see Howard Dean….but they won’t let him on.
As Eric Alterman wrote, it’s called “working the ref”.