Of Course the Media Coverage of Obama Has Largely Been Positive

Why would Clinton receive more negative coverage? Losing 11 in a row doesn't help. Complaining that election rules that your own staff and supporters helped put in place are unfair and should be changed to help you - not very positive. Allowing comments that might be interpreted as even mildly racially insensitive isn't a plus either.

Obama's campaign has been incredibly disciplined in avoiding remarks that could be interpreted as sexist. When the former general mocked Clinton's emotional moment, he had to immediately apologize. The obvious response to the red phone ad is "do you want someone who gets 'hot' (her words) at a campaign flier to answer that phone at 3am?" The Obama campaign doesn't go there since it might sound sexist.

If you believe the press, the Clinton campaign has not been well run. If you run a better campaign, you'll probably get better coverage.

Why would clinton receive more negative coverage? (Nevermind that the links you provide are all prior to Iowa). Of course, losing 11 in a row doesn't help. Complaining that election rules that your own staff or supporters helped put in place are unfair and should be changed - not very positive. Allowing comments that even might be interpreted as racially insensitive isn't a plus either.

Obama's campaign has been incredibly disciplined in avoiding remarks that could be interpreted as sexist. When the former general mocked Clinton's emotional moment, he was made to immediately apologize. The obvious response to the red phone ad is "do you want someone who loses her temper at a campaign flier to be answering the phone at 3am?" The Obama campaign doesn't go there since it might sound sexist.

If you run a better campaign, you'll probably get better coverage.

The Obama story was completely developed by the press and blown up like a hot air balloon. Actually the race is very close and has been from the very start. Of all the questions that surround Obama, almost none have been asked by the press.

No, it has not been positive. Clinton is LYING again.

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Check your local paper and or any paper for that matter:

EVERY SINGLE DAY the front page has a story like "Clinton camp says Obama is weak on terror" or "Clinton slams Obama over health care"

Why is this news, as opposed to one-sided propaganda?

I think the press has been unfairly co-opted by Clintons team, so much so that no one notices that the front page is dominated by the Clinton Machine's spin:

Somali photo
Plagiarism
Health care
Reagan quote
on and on ...

The press has totally been in the Clinton team's pocket this whole race.

Last year, they bought into the inevitability narrative.

This year, they been putting Clinton's daily barrage of talking points in their headlines almost verbatim.

"Clinton say Obama .... " is the typical daily headline on the NyTimes. It's remarkable she has totally coopted the newscycle and yet still is losing, and still complains about "unfairness"!!!

The Bush Administration, for a long time, lived and died by the (almost) truism that, if you say something is true long enough and loud enough, it will come to be believed to be true. Over the last four years, in particular, the public has caught on to that bull, and the media has tended to follow, so that Bush's approval ratings are in the toilet.

The Clinton campaign seem to be following the same mantra. If we say that the negative press we're getting is because the press is unfairly positive about Obama, or has drank the Koolaid, then it must be true. Ignore the fact that our campaign is on a huge losing streak, that our campaign can't seem to find its message, and that our campaign is going increasingly negative -- though still without a core message that's consistent -- and that we're likely to lose at least two of the four primarys on March 4th, including at least one of two "Must-Wins," -- oh, right, we've changed that message as well, they're now "must-wins" for Obama!!!

Hillary Clinton has no one to blame but herself -- and her Million Dollar a month Salary core campaign team. For that much money, she should have done much better. That she hasn't says much, much more about Hillary (and Bill) Clinton than it does about Barack Obama.

Of course you can't just look at percentages of favorable stories to conclude that there's media bias. Some candidates might have more newsworthy negative things than others.

And perception of media bias depends heavily on what you take to be the 'truth' ahead of time. Republicans really do think MSM is biased against them. Democrats seem to think the same. So what's the truth of the matter?

My take is that the media perpetuates various memes, and that leads to a mish-mash of reporting that shades the truth, albeit not in any one clear way. There seems to be little interest in scandal-type reporting at the moment. So we aren't hearing much about Rezko. And we aren't hearing much about Clinton's refusal to release her tax returns until it's too late to impact the race.

There's a lot of interest in the horse race. Clinton has lost 11 in a row, and as a result her campaign has released a series of memoes containing some of the lamest spin in history. This generates some pretty negative stories about what the campaign has done worng. Obama is winning, so he gets stories about how well his campaign is working.

As for framing the contest, the media has let stand Clinton's frame. It's assumed that she has the experience and that Obama needs to prove something there. It's assumed that she's the one with all the wonky policy detail, and that Obama lacks this as seen by his reliance on oratory. Neither of these narratives are obviously true, but they are taken as givens in most of the reporting I've seen.

There are, of course, individuals with strong visible bias in the media. Matthews really doesn't like Clinton. There are other reports (Dan Abrams) who are pretty clearly Clinton supporters, but they tend to be not quite so blatant about it.

Seems to me that on different points, both candidates have had to swim upstream. And if there's currently a generally negative picture of Clinton in the press, it's because she's losing and her campaign is flailing and it's hard to see how that can be reported in a way that is not unflattering to her.

Of course Obama is getting more positive press...

There's more about Obama to be positive about!

I think the reason Hillary Clinton has been getting negative (and since her complaint I've noticed all she gets now is positive) press is because she's the one doing the negative campaigning. With her mocking Obama every chance she gets, she earns herself negative press. I don't think the media has been in a lovefest with Obama either. They've reported many a negative thing about him too. He just has chosen to handle it differently.

I was just trying to imagine myself as a reporter and working on something positive to say about HRC. Damned if I can come up with anything.

Check your local paper and or any paper for that matter:

EVERY SINGLE DAY the front page has a story like "Clinton camp says Obama is weak on terror" or "Clinton slams Obama over health care"

Why is this news, as opposed to one-sided propaganda?

I think the press has been unfairly co-opted by Clintons team, so much so that no one notices that the front page is dominated by the Clinton Machine's spin:

Somali photo
Plagiarism
Health care
Reagan quote
on and on ...

Working the refs!!

The press has totally been in the Clinton team's pocket this whole race.

Last year, they bought into the inevitability narrative.

This year, they been putting Clinton's daily barrage of talking points in their headlines almost verbatim.

"Clinton say Obama .... " is the typical daily headline on the NyTimes. It's remarkable she has totally coopted the newscycle and yet still is losing, and still complains about "unfairness"!!!

With three United States Senators running for President, the following quote seems appropriate:

Suppose you were an idiot. And suppose you were a member of Congress....
But then I repeat myself.
-Mark Twain-

Enough of this "media is too hard on Clinton" storyline already. She was practically annointed the nominee a year ago by this same media who did as much as her campaign to enforce the "inevitability" argument.

She was humiliated into third place by VOTERS in Iowa yet somehow managed to leverage a measly 2-point win in NH (what happened to the paper/electronic ballot discrepancy story by the way?) and proclaimed herself the front-runner again.

Now we have the tax story. Russert has been the boldest so far but then he dropped it and everyone else ignores it. If this had been a Republican refusing to release his tax returns in time for the primaries, the media would be on this daily. Same as with the Clinton Library records. She is claiming 8 years as First Lady as relevant experience, yet will not release documents from that time.

Finally, just ask yourself, what other candidate after 11 losses by a minimum of 17 points, firing of staff, mismanagement of money, a 150+ delegate deficit, super-delegate defections, and behind by 1 million in the popular vote, would ever be considered in contention by the news media? This alone stands the media bias charge on its head.

While the bulk of the Obama coverage has been positive, we just can't give all the credit to Hillary Rodham Clinton.

So far, the media has chosen to give Obama a free ride and support a majority of his baseless rhetoric. Is there "kool-aid" in the newsrooms? Who knows?

But, I do know that any time someone dares to question the Obama hype and rhetoric, they are labeled as racist, hateful, or fear mongers. Labels for having a different opinion, I guess.

I also know that Clinton, Obama, and the Democrats are spending huge amounts of money on advertising while McCain and the Republicans are spending a relatively small amount.

The big Republican donors (Corporate America)are smiling as they watch the drain of opposition funds. And, they will be ready to spend their share for the vote that counts in November.

As a former Democrat and newly declared "Independent," I can now sit back and watch the Democratic campaign circus with amusement.

Gimme a break. The media is using the media to defend itself against Hillary Clinton which the media has been attacking at every turn. Actually, if Hillary started aiming her ads at the media, where the real fight is, she would probably move the voting mass when it finally dawned on them what's up.