It seems like the Washington Post’s ombudsman is only now discovering what everyone knew a year ago: their coverage was mostly free of policy content and wildly skewed in favor of Barack Obama. Washington Post Ombudswoman Deborah Howell writes:
The [Washington] Post provided a lot of good campaign coverage, but readers have been consistently critical of the lack of probing issues coverage and what they saw as a tilt toward Democrat Barack Obama. My surveys, which ended on Election Day, show that they are right on both counts.
My assistant, Jean Hwang, and I have been examining Post coverage since Nov. 11 last year on issues, voters, fundraising, the candidates’ backgrounds and horse-race stories on tactics, strategy and consultants. We also have looked at photos and Page 1 stories since Obama captured the nomination June 4. Numbers don’t tell you everything, but they give you a sense of The Post’s priorities.
The count was lopsided, with 1,295 horse-race stories and 594 issues stories. The Post was deficient in stories that reported more than the two candidates trading jabs; readers needed articles, going back to the primaries, comparing their positions with outside experts’ views. There were no broad stories on energy or science policy, and there were few on religion issues.
It wasn’t just the Post: the New York Times, Los Angeles Times, San Francisco Chronicle, Associated Press, CNN, ABC, CBS, and NBC were all good little propagandists for the Obama campaign. The LA Times, my local paper, even went so far as to suppress a videotape that could have illuminated Obama’s ever-shifting positions on Israel and the Palestinians.
They all tried mightily to ignore Obama’s radical associations, his history with the Chicago and Cook County political machines, his work supporting the Leftist agenda with millions of dollars during his time on various charitable boards, and even his voting record while in the Illinois State Senate.
Yet they had plenty of time and resources to dig through Sarah Palin’s trash to discover a) she had bought herself a used tanning bed with her own money, and b) a non-scandal about her dismissal of an insubordinate cabinet member.
Walter Duranty would be proud.
Ed Morrissey throw his hands up in exasperation:
The media never bothered to make a hundredth of the effort on Obama that they did with Palin, and they had two years to do it.
That’s the issue Howell should have addressed in her column. We already know that the Post gave imbalanced coverage of Obama and McCain, as did most of the rest of the media. And now Howell gives the mea culpa in her first column after Election Day, when it’s far too late to do anything about it. Where was Howell during the last three months? Why wait until the election is over to speak up? That’s an answer in itself.
The major media has abdicated its role as the guardians of an informed citizenry, and it’s time we sought replacements.
LINKS: Sister Toldjah.