The first page does indeed say that when you remove those two candidates discussed above, the media coverage becomes quite similar. However - on the eighth page, http://www.journalism.org/node/8197, the study shows favorable and negative coverage by candidate. Newspaper coverage, network evening news coverage, PBS, cable coverage, and NPR were more favorable to Democrats. Who’s supporting Republicans more? Talk radio, and Fox news.

Perhaps it would be fairer to say that, overall, the media tend to get more excited about Democratic candidates than Republican ones, to the extent that the media get excited about candidates at all. Whether this is the result of a couple outliers or not, it will probably have an effect on the public’s unconscious sense of which candidate is “better” or “has a better grasp of the issues.”

Question: Why the animosity? In the end, cultural and economic trends in the U.S. will have more influence on the long-term progess or regress of this country than the short-term goals of the political parties.

Liberal people-folk: Worse case scenario for you, Ron Paul wins, gets no where with his proposals, and you have another chance at getting decent candidates on the ballot in 2012. Absolute worst, he flees Iraq, abolishes the income tax and IRS, and does nothing about illegal immigration. Et cetera. You can survive four years of this.

Conservative people-folk: Worst case scenario for you, Sen. Clinton and Obama team up and one of them takes the Presidency, with the other serving as vice president. They flee Iraq, impose a health care system and preschool program, ban guns. Et cetera. You can survive four years of this. And then there’s another chance in 2012.

Sheesh.

A readers digest version of this whole affair:
1. Bookworm and American Thinker did not link to the original study which would have provided the whole picture.

2. The juxtaposition of point 1 with Book’s recent post: http://bookwormroom.wordpress.com/2007/10/29/more-selective-editing-from-the-progressives/
(Book, I love your blog and read it daily, but they got ya here. You took one on the chin, no big deal, live and learn)

In my humble opinion, the study (which should be taken with a grain of salt anyway) simply reveals that the media is giddy about Obama and has a particular dislike for McCain. Apart from that, Giuliani and Clinton were treated about the same. (the grid in the very beginning of the study - http://www.journalism.org/node/8187 summarizes this)

I understand why the press likes Obama. He is charismatic and interesting on the surface. However, as I hear him speak on important (to me) issues, I find him to be grossly under qualified for the job. The slant against McCain is something I do not understand. So the media wants to prop up Obama, so what? I have faith in Americans to make up their own minds (which is why the ‘media bias’ argument is weak)

PS. from my experience of arguing on the internets, pointing out someones spelling errors makes the pointer look foolish and defeated

I am truly astonished that I have to do this - when i read at Cole’s site that rightist ideologues and bushist 24%ers are willfully stupid as a general rule I thought for sure he was exaggerating. It simply can’t be true that they deny reality and unabashedly lie about things that are unarguably factual. And yet above Al asserts that I have written something that is in fact PART OF THE STUDY itself. THE VERY FIRST PAGE! So, to make this impossibly clear and easy, here is the LINK to the STUDY’s first page:

http://www.journalism.org/node/8187

Now, scroll down to the little headline that reads: “Among other findings from the PEJ-Shorenstein study:” and go to the the fourth (1, 2, 3, 4) bullet (bullets are little round dots of ink). Proceed to READ the text.

WhyDoConservativesHateReality?

Balloon Juice, must be a euphemism for getting high, linked to her Green post.

Wormy, you really have nothing. First you scold Greenwald and those who enjoy his well-sourced if often hyperventilating work for elisions, even though he links instantly to the full text. Within nanosecs, in another post, you make an intellectually smarmy point about a study YOU HAVE NOT READ based on a link to a secondary source’s opinionated take on the report, which you have NOT READ. So you are busted for holding yourself to a completely different and far less defensible “intellectual” (your word) standard that you expect of Greenwald, et al. Then you make speculative points about the study — “the radically positive Obama coverage as a bit of king-making, as the media attempts to create a viable Democratic candidate who won’t offend as many people as Hillary will” that sound ludicrous given the frontrunner and inevitability status now conferred on the disliked Hillary. Petard, meet hoist. The elephant has come home to roost.

It is TRUE that Obama received a giant media tongue bath when he became The First Major Black Candidate for President. Kind of reminds me of the tongue-bathing that McCain got 8 yrs ago. But i wasn’t making that point. I was noting how dishonest and smarmy you were being. To site, as do you, the immortal Laurie Byrd:

“… They often link to a report, but then will cherry pick certain portions, while ignoring any favorable ones. In some cases, positive reports are not mentioned at all, but are omitted entirely. …” oh dear, now i’m excerpting. No doubt she meant the exact opposite of this.