I’m tempted to just post that headline and let the Comments section fill up by itself. But there’s an actual news peg. The Pew Research Center has done a study of campaign coverage since September, and found that 36% of stories about Obama were positive in tone, 29% negative and 35% mixed. For McCain, it was 57% negative, 14% positive, the remainder neutral.
Pew lays out several explanations, though the most pervasive one is: Obama has gotten positive press because he’s gotten good news. “[Candidate A] Moves Ahead in Latest Poll,” after all, is a positive story for Candidate A and a negative for Candidate B. After the conventions—when McCain bounced to a lead in the polls, Obama’s coverage started out negative; the count turned more positive as his polling did.
On the zillion-dollar question of whether the press simply wants Obama to win, Pew takes a pass, but makes some good points:
Is there some element in these numbers that reflects a rooting by journalists for Obama and against McCain, unconscious or otherwise? The data do not provide conclusive answers. They do offer a strong suggestion that winning in politics begat winning coverage, thanks in part to the relentless tendency of the press to frame its coverage of national elections as running narratives about the relative position of the candidates in the polls and internal tactical maneuvering to alter those positions. Obama’s coverage was negative in tone when he was dropping in the polls, and became positive when he began to rise, and it was just so for McCain as well. Nor are these numbers different than what we have seen before. Obama’s numbers are similar to what we saw for John Kerry four years ago as he began rising in the polls, and McCain’s numbers are almost identical to what we saw eight years ago for Democrat Al Gore.
What the findings also reveal is the reinforcing—rather than press-generated—effects of media. We see a repeating pattern here in which the press first offers a stenographic account of candidate rhetoric and behavior, while also on the watch for misstatements and gaffes. Then, in a secondary reaction, it measures the political impact of what it has reported. This is magnified in particular during presidential races by the prevalence of polling and especially daily tracking. While this echo effect exists in all press coverage, it is far more intense in presidential elections, with the explosion of daily tracking polls, state polls, poll aggregation sites and the 24-hour cable debate over their implications. Even coverage of the candidate’s policy positions and rhetoric, our reading of these stories suggest, was tied to horse race and took on its cast.
It’s a worthwhile point about how the mediasphere works nowadays: a negative piece of news begets a negative piece of news analysis begets a campaign-trial story that views a candidates’ actions as a reaction to the polls. (See here, especially, the interpretation of McCain’s suspension of his campaign.)
A few good tidbits about the running mates as well:
Coverage of Palin, in the end, was more negative than positive. In all, 39% of Palin stories carried a negative tone, while 28% were positive, and 33% were neutral. Contrary to what some suggested, little of the coverage was about Palin’s personal life (5%).
Democratic vice presidential nominee Joe Biden was nearly the invisible man. His had just one large moment, the vice presidential debate, which also offered his only positive or neutral contribution. Aside from that week, the limited coverage he did receive was far more negative than Palin’s, and nearly as negative as McCain’s.