More MSM nonsense

posted by The Vidiot @ 10:13 AM Permalink

Last night's Daily Show had an excellent comparison of the primary news coverage. On the dem side, even though Obama blew out Clinton in the primaries this week, like getting 60% of the vote, and he's won the last 9 primaries or something like that, the media portrayal of their race is "they're neck and neck." Now, on the rep side, McCain and Huckabee having been swapping wins. Yes, McCain is ahead in delegates for the moment, but Huckabee keeps pulling states, but the media portrays their race as "Huckabee will need a miracle."

Fascinating, no?

Of course, Ron Paul wasn't even mentioned. A caller to an NPR program with Tom Rosenstiel of the Project for Excellence in Journalism asked about the media's coverage of Ron Paul. Here was his response:

It raises obviously one of the fundamental questions: is press coverage a self-fulfilling prophecy? Can a candidate who doesn’t get press coverage win votes, or do you need the exposure, the oxygen of attention? Last week, the week before Super Tuesday, the coverage that ended Feb. 3, Ron Paul was a significant or primary figure in zero percent of the stories that we analyzed, 600 stories across 48 different news outlets.

Andrew is correct in suggesting that the press has discounted the chances of Ron Paul having any success. The fundraising success that he’s having is one of the traditional metrics that journalists use to test viability. If someone is raising money, usually that translates into some attention.

For a variety of reasons, some of them are obvious and some of them are mysterious, Ron Paul gets less coverage than he does raise money, and he gets less coverage than he gets votes. We can go on and on about this. There is no doubt, it’s an objective fact, that the press has decided Ron Paul is not a viable candidate.

MSM. The more you're aware, the less useful they are.

Labels: 2008 election, MSM