Sweet blog special: Harvard's Shorenstein Center and Project for Excellence in Journalism study finds Obama gets the most positive press treatment.

WASHINGTON–A study on press treatment on president candidates the Project for Excellence in Journalism and Harvard’s Joan Shorenstein Center on the Press, Politics and Public Policy finds White House hopeful Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) “enjoyed by far the most positive treatment of the major candidates during the first five months of the year.” For entire study of the Invisible Primary LINK

EXCERPTS FROM THE STUDY….

“In the early months of the 2008 presidential campaign, the media had already winnowed the race to mostly five candidates and offered Americans relatively little information about their records or what they would do if elected, according to a comprehensive new study of the election coverage across the media.

The press also gave some candidates measurably more favorable coverage than others. Democrat Barack Obama, the junior Senator from Illinois, enjoyed by far the most positive treatment of the major candidates during the first five months of the yearfollowed closely by Fred Thompson, the actor who at the time was only considering running. Arizona Senator John McCain received the most negative coveragemuch worse than his main GOP rivals.

Tone of Coverage

Percent of All Stories

Positive

Negative

Hillary Clinton

26.9

37.8

Barack Obama

46.7

15.8

Rudy Giuliani

27.8

37.0

John McCain

12.4

47.9

Meanwhile, the tone of coverage of the two party front runners, New York Senator Hillary Clinton and former New York Mayor Rudolph Giuliani, was virtually identical, and more negative than positive, according to the study by the Project for Excellence in Journalism and the Joan Shorenstein Center on the Press, Politics and Public Policy. “