Yeah, I know, I know. This is one of those "dog bites man" kind of stories. According to a column bit in USA Today, the Center for Media and Public Affairs has released a study of media coverage of the midterm elections and found that the coverage...favors Democrats! Imagine that! According to CMPA,
An analysis by the Center for Media and Public Affairs of midterm election stories aired on the ABC, CBS and NBC evening newscasts Sept. 5-Oct. 22 found that 2006's coverage has been almost five times as heavy as in the 2002 midterm elections: 167 stories, compared with 35 four years ago.
The study found that three out of four evaluations of Democratic candidates' chances of winning — such as sound bites — were positive, compared with one out of eight for Republicans. Coverage has been dominated by two major themes: the effects of the Foley scandal, and the impact the Bush presidency is having on the party's congressional candidates.
Some of this isn't surprising. The Mark Foley scandal was hot news and any respectable news organization couldn't have ignored it. But the Foley scandal accounted for 59 stories by itself, making it far and away the big story of the season. By comparison, there were 33 stories on Iraq and 31 stories on security/terrorism issues. So much for all that "why aren't we talking about Iraq" stuff liberals are spouting now that John Kerry's gaffe has hogged the spotlight for the last 3 days.
I found the study via F.A.I.R.'s website, which went on to whine that CMPA says it is non-partisan but gets most of its money from conservative organizations. I don't buy this argument, since I doubt F.A.I.R. is so persnickety about what groups like Planned Parenthood, the N.A.A.C.P., N.O.W., and other left-wing groups call themselves versus where their money comes from. Of course, I'm a little biased against F.A.I.R. since they never correct errors in their copy. I've found factual errors in their copy (usually about court cases), but they never correct them. Why should they? Lefties like their copy the way it is now.
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