Biased Information on Bias
Mon Mar 10, 2008 at 10:43:08 AM PDT
Bill Maxwell, in his St Petersburg Times column, uses a Clinton supporter's analysis to try to make an objective case for anti-Clinton media bias. He fails miserably, on both the case and the objectivity, as he is duped by a flawed analysis. The evidence that Maxwell presents may point to some problems with how the media performs its function, but it doesn't show anti-Clinton bias.
Media tainted by anti-Clinton bias
For a brief period last week, earnest members of my chosen profession, the press, did a little soul-searching and asked if we have been, and are, biased against Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Hillary Clinton.
The conclusion: Of course we are. Any journalist who denies this fact is unable to recognize objectivity if it were branded on his eyeballs.
After watching SNL and doing some "soul-searching", Maxwell finds objective evidence of bias from Walter Shorenstein, a Clinton fundraiser and founder of the Joan Shorenstein Center on the Press, Politics, and Public Policy (link). The crux of Shorenstein’s argument (pdf, via Marc Ambinder) is that
Our democracy depends upon the Fourth Estate (journalism) to fulfill the uniquely critical role of informing voters about the important issues facing our nation - yet far too often, the campaign coverage has been biased, blase, or baseless.
Maxell chooses this Shorenstein quote to support his point that the media favors Obama:
The stakes are so high - for our security, our economy, our health care, our future and our country. ... Is it in the country's best interest that voters received far more information about Hillary's laugh than Obama's legislative record?
Replace "Obama’s legislative record" with "Clinton’s foreign relations experience", or any other substantive issue, and the fundamental argument doesn’t change. Instead of pointing to an anti-Clinton media bias, this points to an anti-issue media bias. Those who believe the contest between Obama and Clinton is one of style versus substance may say that this favors Obama, but that’s a separate argument, and neither Shorenstein nor Maxwell make the case for it. It’s hard to take issue with the argument that the press often doesn’t always inform voters on the issues, but that's not the claim that Maxwell is trying to make.
Maxwell next turns to independent watchdog organizations, which he says, "have documented persistent and widespread bias against Clinton and in favor of Obama." He cites several different studies counting the number of negative and positive media comments and stories. These studies show that Obama has gotten more favorable press coverage than Clinton. Maxwelll essentially rests his entire case on these studies.
If we only had anecdotal evidence, I would be willing to question, or even dismiss, claims of media bias against Clinton. But each watchdog group conducted content analyses and crunched the numbers.
What Maxwell fails to consider is that Obama was making more positive news than Clinton. Since the start of the campaign, Obama has attracted a huge number of supporters, moved up consistently in the polls, gained more votes and delegates than Clinton, made strides toward reshaping the electorate, and caused a large number of people to reconsider the way they think about politics, while Clinton has struggled in an election that most thought she'd win handily. It’s reasonable to expect the news media to be even-handed, but it’s not reasonable to expect even-handedness from the events that make up the news.
The news media does have a bias toward information that supports the greater story of the contest. If the media, in documenting Obama’s successes and Clinton’s struggles, was more critical of Clinton than Obama, it was in the same way that they are more critical of a losing sports team than a winning one. If the headline is "Obama Wins 11th Straight Contest", you’re going to write about what Obama is doing right and Clinton is doing wrong, not vice-versa. Maxwell may have a valid argument about horse race style news coverage, but the anti-Clinton bias claim is unfounded.
As an example of how misguided Maxwell’s reliance on the studies is, we can look at what he cites as the most egregious example:
The most surprising finding, at least to me, was the pervasive bias in coverage of the two candidates' foreign policy. "When it comes to foreign policy coverage - perhaps the most important issue in the coming election," Shorenstein wrote in his memo, "the media monitoring group, Media Tenor, found that there was not a single positive story about Hillary Clinton and foreign policy in the month of February."
According to Media Tenor, this is true, if you only look at only the network news coverage. What Shorenstein and Maxwell leave out is that of 63 foreign policy mentions for Clinton, approximately 89% of them were neutral and 11% were negative. During the same time period, there were 140 foreign policy mentions for Obama, with approximately 85% neutral, 2% good, and 13% negative. This equates to approximately 3 favorable foreign policy mentions for Obama for the month, and a far greater number of negative mentions for Obama than Clinton. The greater number of Obama mentions overall can be accounted for by Obama’s positions on Pakistan and negotiating with enemies as well as the fact that Clinton has not proposed anything terribly out of the ordinary on foreign policy and hasn’t made an attempt to push the issue except to attack Obama’s positions. If anyone is to blame for Clinton not getting more press coverage on foreign policy, it’s Hillary Clinton herself.
Maxwell has additional complaints about a couple of pet stories that he’d like see to see on the front page (Rezko and NAFTA), perhaps showing his own bias, but he has a special disdain for the pundits. I won’t deny that some in the news media, and especially the pundits, sometimes show bias one way or another, but mostly it's of the type that I described above. Yes, there has been a little fawning, but most of it by a guy who would fawn over a South Philly Ward Alderman election. In any case, Maxwell's larger claim that evidence of anti-Clinton bias is anything but anecdotal is unfounded.
Maxwell's argument is somewhat moot today in any case. Anyone who's been paying attention for the past couple of weeks can see that coverage of the race has swung in Clinton's direction. This change isn't because of any soul-searching by the news media; Clinton's working of the refs has helped her far more with voters than with the media. The media has turned to issues more favorable to Clinton because she's connecting with some punches, getting her campaign at least somewhat turned around, and showing an ability to reach voters. If Clinton keeps making gains with voters, Maxwell may have to complain about anti-Obama bias. In the meantime, maybe he can explore anti-Devil Rays bias, and tell us why the Red Sox have gotten more positive coverage than the Devil Rays in the national press.
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