The Faces of Media Bias

This morning on CNN, Wolf Blitzer was talking to a panel about media bias in favor of Obama and against McCain as perceived by media consumers. In response to this, a senior analyst for Politico said something interesting, that yes, the media are biased in favor of Obama, but not because of ideology, not because they're necessarily "liberal." 

The biases, this panelist said, are as complex as the subjects they report. 

For one, the media favors momentum of any sort. Because Obama seems to have the immense forward momentum (raising tons of money, drawing huge crowds at rallies, moving ahead in most polls, etc.), the media casts him in a positive light. With McCain seemingly stagnant in some polls and losing ground in others, the media dramatizes this and casts him as the loser. 

Another aspect of the media's bias towards McCain stems from the "newness of Obama," for the media always favor new and unusual. While they never really point out Obama's race, the media do realize that a black man as a serious candidate running for president, much less a party's nominee, is a new and unusual occurrence in American politics. Of course they would put more emphasis on him than on an aging white man who's been in politics for decades. 

In these ways and others, I think that the media has been biased in their coverage of this election. These are rational biases, however, that result from the fact that reporters are human and that the institutions they work for are out to make a profit. No one covered Ron Paul during his campaign because who wants to watch a loser. 

I don't think that this means that all media are always out to get the conservatives, though that sometimes may be the case. For the most part, I think the intentions of the media reflect that triangle of accountability that was drawn on the board in class. We can't expect the media to ignore their markets, not with the model for journalism that we currently use in the US.