Survey: Media Promoted, Helped Elect Obama

By Dan Weil/Newsmax ~ It’s not just conservatives who accuse the media of showing a liberal bias.

A new survey from the Sacred Heart University Polling Institute shows that 89.3 percent of Americans believe the national media played a sizable role in helping to elect President Obama.

And 69.9 percent of respondents view the national news media as intent on promoting the Obama presidency, while 26.5 percent disagreed, and 3.6 percent were unsure.

More than half of those surveyed, 56.4 percent, said the news media are promoting Obama’s healthcare reform without objective criticism. Another 39.3 percent disagreed, and 4.3 percent were unsure.

A majority, to the tune of 57.6 percent, also maintain that the news media appear to be coordinating efforts to diminish the record of former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin. More than a third (34.6 percent) disagreed, and 7.9 percent were unsure.

“It is sad when we find that only 55.9 percent say they expect the media to tell them the truth today,” Jerry Lindsley, director of the Polling Institute, said in a statement accompanying the survey.

“This perception of bias will eventually catch up with the news media outlets. We found 45.9 percent have permanently stopped watching a news media organization, print or electronic, because of perceived bias.”

The poll was released days after Washington Post Ombudsman Andrew Alexander acknowledged that his newspaper doesn’t give enough credit to conservative media.
It just may be that that “traditional news outlets like The Post simply don't pay sufficient attention to conservative media or viewpoint,” Alexander writes.

"Complaints by conservatives are slower to be picked up by non-ideological media because there are not enough conservatives and too many liberals in most newsrooms," Tom Rosenstiel, director of the Pew Research Center's Project for Excellence in Journalism, told Alexander.

"They just don't see the resonance of these issues. They don't hear about them as fast, (and) they're not naturally watching as much."

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LA Times On Edwards: Old Media Dethroned

By Tim Rutten/Los Angeles Times ~ When John Edwards admitted Friday that he lied about his affair with filmmaker Rielle Hunter, a former employee of his campaign, he may have ended his public life but he certainly ratified an end to the era in which traditional media set the agenda for national political journalism.

From the start, the Edwards scandal has belonged entirely to the alternative and new media.

The tabloid National Enquirer has done all the significant reporting on it -- reporting that turns out to be largely correct -- and bloggers and online commentators have refused to let the story sputter into oblivion.

Slate's Mickey Kaus has been foremost among the latter, alternately analyzing and speculating on the Enquirer's reporting and ridiculing the mainstream media for a fastidiousness that has seemed, from the start, wholly absurd.

Like other commentators, he repeatedly alleged that a double standard that favored Democrats applied to the story.

Like the Enquirer's reporting, the special-treatment charge is largely true, as anyone who recalls the media frenzy over conservative commentator and former Cabinet secretary William Bennett's high-stakes gambling would agree.

Edwards, 55, now admits that he had an affair with Hunter, now 44, in 2006, but denies that he is the father of the child she had in February. Andrew Young, another former Edwards aide, has said he is the baby's father.

In a statement released Friday, Edwards said he was willing to take a paternity test; doubtless we'll hear more on that issue. So far, so sordid.

But what's really significant here is the cone of silence the nation's major newspapers -- including The Times -- and the cable and broadcast networks dropped over this story when it first appeared in the tabloid during the presidential primary campaign.

Next, the Enquirer reported that the unmarried Hunter was pregnant. Still no mainstream media interest. Indeed, never in recent journalistic history have so many tough reporters so closely resembled sheep as those members of the campaign press corps who meekly accepted Edwards' categorical dismissal of the Enquirer's allegations.

Late last month, Edwards came to Los Angeles, and Enquirer reporters trailed him to the Beverly Hilton hotel, where he met Hunter and her daughter in their room. The Enquirer went with the story, and when no major newspaper or broadcast outlet even reported the existence of the tabloid story, bloggers and online commentators redoubled their demands that the mainstream media explain their silence.

The tabloid followed with a story alleging payments of hush money to Hunter and, this week, with a photo of Edwards holding an infant in what appears to be a room at the Beverly Hilton.

As pressure mounted on major newspapers to take some aspect of the unfolding scandal into account, editors and ombudsmen issued statements saying it would be unfair to publish anything until the Enquirer's stories had been "confirmed."

Well, there's confirming and then there's confirming. One sort occurs when an editor mutters, "Find somebody and have them make a few calls." Then there's the sort that comes when that editor summons an investigative reporter with a heart like ice and a mind like Torquemada's and says, "Follow this wherever it goes and peel this guy like an onion."

Suffice to say that the follow-up of the Enquirer's story fell into the former category in too many newsrooms, including that of The Times.

Some of this reticence may have reflected a regard for the feelings of Edwards' wife, Elizabeth, who has incurable cancer. There was, however, every reason to set that deference aside.

First, it was less than unlikely that Elizabeth Edwards was unaware of the allegations. (She says now she knew of the affair in 2006.) Second, Edwards' name has surfaced as a possible running mate for Barack Obama and as a possible attorney general or Supreme Court nominee -- posts in which character and candor matter. Finally, throughout his political career, Edwards has made his marriage a centerpiece of his campaigns.

It's interesting that what finally forced Edwards into telling the truth was a mainstream media organization. ABC News began investigating the Edwards affair in October, but really began to push after the Beverly Hilton allegations. When ABC confronted Edwards with its story (which confirmed "95% to 96%" of the tabloid's reporting, according to the network), he admitted his deception. With that admission, the illusion that traditional print and broadcast news organizations can establish the limits of acceptable political journalism joined the passenger pigeon on the roster of extinct Americana.

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MSM Not Happy With News Bloggers

By Youssef M. Ibrahim ~ The “silly season” of journalism is a well-known phenomenon occurring in summer, when days are long, the news is short, and not enough lawmakers are getting caught with their pants down in toilets, or otherwise.

This year it is being amplified with stinging meanness against blog journalism, the new kid on the block that contests primacy in advertising and news coverage with the establishment media.

Read all of this blog column at http://pajamasmedia.com/blog/mainstream-media-picking-on-bloggersagain/.

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Survey: Traditional Journalism 'Out of touch,' Many Turn To The Internet For Information

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Nearly 70 percent of Americans believe traditional journalism is out of touch, and nearly half are turning to the Internet to get their news, according to a new survey.

While most people think journalism is important to the quality of life, 64 percent are dissatisfied with the quality of journalism in their communities, a We Media/Zogby Interactive online poll showed.

"That's a really encouraging reflection of people who care A) about journalism and B) understand that it makes a difference to their lives," said Andrew Nachison, of iFOCOS, a Virginia-based think tank which organized a forum in Miami where the findings were presented.

Nearly half of the 1,979 people who responded to the survey said their primary source of news and information is the Internet, up from 40 percent just a year ago. Less than one third use television to get their news, while 11 percent turn to radio and 10 percent to newspapers.

More than half of those who grew up with the Internet, those 18 to 29, get most of their news and information online, compared to 35 percent of people 65 and older. Older adults are the only group that favors a primary news source other than the Internet, with 38 percent selecting television.

Howard Finberg, of the Poynter Institute in St. Petersburg, Florida, said the public often doesn't understand that the sources they are accessing online such as Google News and Yahoo News pull stories from newspapers, television, wire services and other media sources.

"It's delivered in a non-traditional form, that doesn't necessarily mean there isn't traditional journalism underneath it," he explained.

But Finberg said the study does support the belief among many large media companies that focusing on local issues is important to their journalistic and economic survival.

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Media Expert: Public Wants Better TV Coverage

"The public wants a different kind of TV election coverage," declares Jeffrey M. McCall, professor of communication at DePauw University.

In today's Indianapolis Star, Dr. McCall writes, "A recent study by the Pew Research Center found that 80 percent of Americans want more coverage of where candidates stand on issues and more coverage of lesser-known candidates. This is not likely to happen any time soon. It is easier and cheaper to cover elections with a template that tells us where a particular prominent candidate is, which celebrity appeared with the candidate, the latest poll numbers, and who feels momentum. It is more sensational to show and analyze Hillary's teary eyes than detail her policy initiatives."

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Main Stream Media Rushes To Blame Guns

From Brent Bozell's Media Research Center ~ Without any regard to how school shootings in recent years have occurred in states and nations with stricter gun laws, ABC, CBS and NBC on Tuesday night focused on Virginia's "lax" gun laws. ABC anchor Charles Gibson teased an upcoming story, "Virginia's controversial gun laws: How lax are they? Brian Ross investigates." Ross confirmed that "Virginia's gun laws, indeed, are regarded by law enforcement officials as among the most lax in the country." Ross relayed how "for gun control advocates, the ease with which Cho [Seung-Hui] was able to legally get his Glock and a box of ammunition reveals the problems with Virginia's gun laws." Over undercover footage recorded by the New York City Police Department (which NBC's Dateline also featured), Ross explained how it shows "it's possible to buy a handgun at a Virginia gun store with no waiting period and only what is called an instant background check." Though Ross aired a condemnatory soundbite from NYPD Commissioner Ray Kelly, he failed to note that Virginia has a lot fewer gun crimes per capita than does New York City.

Image: ABC News, pushing gun control agenda, with Edmond Post Office shooting in 1986 portrayed at upper left

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Dimwit Reporterette

A dimwit reporterette on a news report late last night on the Virginia murders said, "Well, clearly, this guy had an assault pistol." (What's next? An "assault" baseball bat or knife?)

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