the MSM has been carrying on with Obama for the last 100 days.
MediaBistro reports, “Not only has Obama gotten more coverage, but that coverage has been more positive than his predecessors.”
“On the ABC, CBS, and NBC evening newscasts, 58% of all evaluations of the president and his policies have been favorable, while 42% were unfavorable. That compares with 33% positive in the comparable period of Bush’s tenure and 44% positive for Pres. Clinton.”
Maybe you’re wondering how the MSM (sans Fox) can be in such agreement with The One’s agenda. Turns out there’s a reason beyond the Administration’s daily phone calls with George Stephanopolous.
Washington Post media writer Howard Kurtz reveals that key MSM journalists are meeting furtively for swanky dinners at The Watergate where Administration bigwigs spoon-feed talking points to their left-wing media enablers. (Off the record, naturally.) Kurtz comments, “the catered gatherings…sound rather cozy, like some secret-handshake gathering of an entrenched elite. Are the top-level officials, strategists and foreign leaders there for serious questioning or risk-free spin sessions? And what exactly is the journalistic benefit if the visitors are protected by a shield of anonymity?”
Fortunately these reporters are no longer anonymous. Want to know the names of the media lapdogs eating out of the Administration’s hand? According to Kurtz, “Among those in regular attendance are David Brooks and Maureen Dowd of the New York Times, Gene Robinson and Ruth Marcus of The Washington Post, NBC’s David Gregory, ABC’s George Stephanopoulos, PBS’s Gwen Ifill, the New Yorker’s Jane Mayer, Vanity Fair’s Todd Purdum, former Time managing editor Walter Isaacson and staffers from Bradley’s Atlantic and National Journal, including Ron Brownstein, Andrew Sullivan and Jonathan Rauch.”
As Kurtz next points out, unsurprisingly, “The networks have given President Obama more coverage than George W. Bush and Bill Clinton combined in their first months — and more positive assessments to boot.”
“On Fox News, by contrast, only 13 percent of the assessments of Obama were positive on the first half of Bret Baier’s “Special Report,” which most resembles a newscast. The president got far better treatment in the New York Times, where 73 percent of the assessments in front-page pieces were positive.”
This explains a lot. While the competition is busy slobbering, Fox is clobbering.
Source: MediaBistro.com, Washington Post
