COMM 150 (optional for 337): Media bias, partisan politics and a Pew Research Center survey

In our reading assignment for today, John Vivian suggests the American news media aren't particularly biased in the sense of favoring one political party over the other, although more reporters tend to vote for Democrats than for Republicans. But he says they do have a built-in bias toward stories about change.

And there's confirmation of that in a Pew Research Center poll released today that shows presidential campaign newcomer Rick Perry got more positive coverage than presidential same-ole same-ole Barack Obama. The R's and D's don't matter very much. It's what's new and different, it's about change.

Here's how Vivian explains it: "In general, ... most U.S. newsrooms pride themselves on neutral presentation and go to extraordinary lengths to preserve it" (223). He cites professional standards of "detached, neutral reporting" and peer pressure. But that doesn't mean there aren't biases. One is what is often called the "Watchdog Function" of journalism, i.e. a heritage of holding government accountable for abuses of power. There's more to it than that, of course. Especially personal values like "ethnocentrism," free-market capitalism, social order and "individualism tempered by moderation" (Vivian 220-22). but the most important source of bias probably grows out of Vivian's idea that news is about change.

Says Vivian, in a "study preview" on the bottom of page 216: "News is a report on change that survives the competition for reporting other change that is occurring. What ends up being reported is the result of news judgments by reporters and editors who package their regular updates on what they believe their audiences need and want to know." They measure newsworthiness by factors like proximity, prominence, impact and a "gee-whiz factor," but it's always about change:

When journalists write about a presidential candidate's ideas to, for exampale, eliminate farm subsidies, it's not that journalists favor the proposed change. Rather, it's that the topic is more interesting than stories about government programs that are more interesting than stories about government programs that are in place, functioning routineley and unchallenged. In short, to conclude that journalists' concern with change is necessarly born of political bias is to overlook the nature of journalism - and also the natural human interest in what's new. (224)

So Vivian would probably not be surprised by today's survey of media coverage by the Pew Research Center’s Project for Excellence in Journalism. The highlights:

... Obama has received the most unremittingly negative press of any of the presidential candidates by a wide margin, with negative assessments outweighing positive ones by four to one.

Pew found that just 9 percent of the president’s coverage was positive, while 34 percent was negative — a stark contrast to the 32 percent positive coverage and 20 percent negative that it found Texas Gov. Rick Perry, the most covered Republican, received.

And here are some details of the poll:

The Pew study analyzed daily coverage in more than 11,500 news outlets — including news websites and transcripts of radio and television broadcasts, at both the local and national levels — as well as hundreds of thousands of blogs.

The top four most favorably covered candidates, the study found, were all tea party favorites: Perry was followed by [Sarah] Palin, with 31 percent positive coverage and 22 percent negative; Michele Bachmann, with 31 percent positive coverage and 23 percent negative; and Herman Cain, with 28 percent positive coverage and 23 percent negative.

Mitt Romney’s positive and negative coverage were almost in a dead heat at 26 percent and 27 percent, respectively.

The gap between the tone of the president’s coverage and that of his challengers also stood in startling contrast to the media’s sunny assessments of the president’s performance during his first 100 days. ...

How would Vivian explain the national media's fascination with Perry? Would he predict the media will get tired of Perry and turn to someone else once their attention span is exhausted? New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie anyone? Let's discuss.

Extra Credit. Double credit (= two check marks in my grade book) for finding, posting and correcting the error of fact in John Vivian's discussion of Vice President Spiro Agnew (Pres. Nixon's VP).

LATER [Wednesday]: Awesome alliteration. Thanks for looking up that quote in Time magazine, Kaitlyn. It ran Sept. 21, 1970, when Agnew was campaigning for Republican congressional candidates. Here's the full passage, written by speechwriter [and later New York Times op-ed columnist] William Safire, for delivery by Agnew: "WE have more than our share of the nattering nabobs of negativism. They have formed their own 4-H Club—the hopeless, hysterical hypochondriacs of history. These men are hard up for hard times. They can only make hay when the sun does not shine. The objective of this campaign is to replace those who moan endlessly about what is wrong with their country with men and women of the wit and will to stand up and speak out for what is right in America. This campaign presents us with a clear choice between the troglodytic [cave-dwelling] leftists who dominate Congress now, and the moderate, centrist and conservative supporters of President Nixon."

How's that for alliteration? Safire was quite a good writer, a legend on the NYT op-ed page. I'll see if I can find one of his columns to link to.

Read more: http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,942262,00.html#ixzz1bFR7tadT