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. “
