This article (in the New York Times, no less) makes clear that bias is effecting the campaign of Barack Obama. But it is not the bias that first might come to mind. Instead of racial bias, we have on full display the media's campaign to elect Barack Obama President of the United States.
With full knowledge that voters find Barack Obama weak on foreign affairs, the media is giving a boost to his campaign by sending its network stars overseas to cover-and give celebratory treatment-to Obama's upcoming overseas trip. But this, of course, is only one manifestation of the unbalanced playing field in the Presidential contest. The article cites studies showing the overwhelmingly positive coverage enjoyed by Barack Obama and the near censorship that is being imposed on the McCain campaign. Barack Obama has untold millions to spend on his campaign and is getting a big boost from so-called 527 groups. Now he is getting a third source of support-paid for by advertisers and subscribers.
Key quotes from the article:
The imbalance has appeared in various analyses of the news coverage. The Tyndall Report, a news coverage monitoring service that has the broadcast networks as clients, reports that the three newscasts by the networks - which have a combined audience of more than 20 million people - spent roughly 114 minutes covering Mr. Obama since June. They spent about 48 minutes covering Mr. McCain, who made the rounds of the evening newscasts in satellite interviews last week.
The news industry's fascination with Mr. Obama has carried over to general-interest magazines, with the candidate landing on considerably more covers in recent months than has Mr. McCain. In the last couple of weeks Mr. Obama has graced the front of Rolling Stone for the second time this year, and the cover of Us Weekly (both of which are owned by the company of a prominent Obama supporter, Jann S. Wenner). Beth Jacobson, a spokeswoman for Wenner Media, said the issues were among the better-selling magazines of the year.
Ned Martel, the deputy editor of Men's Vogue, said, "He's what is called in the magazine world an ‘interest driver.' " The magazine put Mr. Obama on its cover in 2006 and recently dispatched the photographer Annie Leibovitz to produce another spread for a coming issue. It did a feature on Mr. McCain in 2006 as well that did not make the cover.
Absolutely shameful.
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