Author: Dan Kennedy

As always, the first casualty

In my latest for the Guardian, I consider the plight of Zoriah Miller, a freelance photographer who’s been banned from covering U.S. Marines in Iraq because his images are too graphic. And I argue that the Bush administration’s ongoing censorship of the war’s photographic record is giving John McCain an unfair advantage.

The pros and cons of Google Reader

Summer is the time for media experimentation, so I’m giving Google Reader a whirl as my RSS aggregator.

Aesthetically it’s a much nicer experience than NewsFire. But the disadvantage of a Web-based aggregator is that you don’t get to choose how frequently it scours the Web for new material. Stuff I put up a while ago still isn’t visible — which makes me wonder about my other subscriptions.

Anyone know how often Google Reader updates your feeds?

A closer look at Obama and the media

No doubt you’ve noticed that the media are giving Barack Obama far more coverage than John McCain. According to the Project for Excellence in Journalism (PEJ), Obama’s trip to the Middle East and Europe last week ate up 51 percent of all campaign coverage. The PEJ adds:

The trip also helped Obama, for the seventh consecutive week, dominate John McCain in the contest for media exposure. The Democrat was a significant or dominant factor in 81% of the campaign stories studied compared with 53% for McCain. Interestingly, even with all the attention to Obama’s trip, those numbers dovetail closely with the weekly coverage averages since the general election campaign began in June. In that period, Obama has factored in 79% of the coverage with McCain at 52%.

(PEJ director Tom Rosenstiel discusses the findings on this week’s “On the Media.”)

It’s no wonder that the McCain campaign has taken to making videos that mock the media’s supposed love of Obama.

But hold on. More coverage doesn’t necessarily translate into favorable coverage. As it turns out, a new study by the Center for Media and Public Affairs (CMPA), at George Mason University, shows that coverage of both Obama and McCain has been more negative than positive — but that Obama has clearly gotten the worst of it. (“Media Bash Barack — Not a Typo” is the headline of the center’s press release, reproduced in full below.)

The study’s findings, reported by James Rainey of the Los Angeles Times, show that of 249 campaign stories airing on the three network nightly newscasts and the first half-hour of Fox News’ “Special Report with Brit Hume,” Obama’s coverage has been 72 percent negative and 28 percent positive, whereas McCain’s has been 57 percent negative and 43 percent positive.

The Fox effect does not appear to be too pronounced, as the study finds that “Special Report” was only slightly more negative to both candidates than the three broadcast networks.

How can this be? Well, think about the tone of the coverage in recent weeks. Obama has regularly been criticized for “presumptiveness” and “arrogance” because he has acted as though he might actually be elected president this November.

And think about how many times Obama has been asked if he was wrong about the surge in Iraq. In fact, it appears that he was wrong — but not nearly as wrong as McCain was about the war, which has now resulted in the deaths of more than 4,000 Americans and nearly 100,000 Iraqi civilians. Yet it is rare when McCain is grilled about the single most important issue of the campaign.

All this is having an effect. According to the latest USA Today/Gallup poll, McCain now leads Obama among likely voters by a margin of 49 percent to 45 percent, a swing of nine points over the past month.

McCain is not Hillary Clinton, who, along with her husband, have been despised by the media for years. Rather, McCain has been a media favorite for the past decade-plus. Remember, he once half-jokingly referred to the press as his “base.”

The CMPA study is not yet on the organization’s Web site. Here is the full text of its press release:

MEDIA BASH BARACK (NOT A TYPO)
Study Finds Obama Faring Worse On TV News Than McCain

Barack Obama is getting more negative coverage than John McCain on TV network evening news shows, reversing Obama’s lead in good press during the primaries, according to a new study by Center for Media and Public Affairs (CMPA). The study also finds that a majority of both candidates’ coverage is unfavorable for the first time this year. According to CMPA President Dr. S. Robert Lichter, “Obama replaced McCain as the media’s favorite candidate after New Hampshire. But now the networks are voting no on both candidates.”

These results are from the Center for Media and Public Affairs (CMPA) 2008 Election News Watch Project. They are based on a scientific content analysis of 249 election news stories (7 hours 38 minutes of airtime) that aired on ABC World News Tonight, CBS Evening News, NBC Nightly News, and Fox Special Report (first half hour) from June 8, 2008 to July 21, 2008. Previously we analyzed 2144 stories (43 hrs 30 min airtime) during the primary campaign from December 16, 2007 through June 7, 2008. We report on all on-air evaluations of the candidates by sources and reporters, after excluding comments by the campaigns about each other.

MAJOR FINDINGS:

Since the primaries ended, on-air evaluations of Barack Obama have been 72% negative (vs. 28% positive). That’s worse than John McCain’s coverage, which has been 57% negative (vs. 43% positive) during the same time period.

This is a major turnaround since McCain and Obama emerged as front-runners in the early primaries. From the New Hampshire primary on January 8 until Hillary Clinton dropped out on June 7, Obama’s coverage was 62% positive (v. 38% negative) on the broadcast networks; by contrast, McCain’s coverage during this period was only 34% positive (v. 66% negative).

Obama ran even farther behind McCain on Fox News Channel’s Special Report with 79% negative comments (v. 21% positive), compared to 61% negative comments (v. 39% positive) for McCain since June 8. During the primaries Obama had a slight lead in good press on Fox, with 52% favorable comments (v. 48 % unfavorable), compared to 48% favorable (v. 52% unfavorable) for McCain.

Obama’s bad press has come at a time when he was much more visible than McCain. Since June 8, he has been the subject of 120 stories on the three network evening news shows, 50% more than John McCain’s 80 stories.

Examples of Obama’s evaluations:

Positive: “Obama came to Baghdad and he brought his star power with him … hundreds of U.S. troops and State Department personnel mobbed Obama at the embassy here.” — Terry Moran, ABC

Negative: “You raised a lot of eyebrows on this trip saying, even knowing what you know now, you still would not have supported the surge. People may be scratching their heads and saying, ‘why’?” — Katie Couric, CBS

Negative: “Far more Americans say John McCain would be a good commander in chief than Obama.” — Jake Tapper, ABC

CMPA has monitored every presidential election since 1988 using the same methodology, in which trained coders tally all mentions of candidates and issues and all evaluations of candidates. For previous CMPA findings on the 2008 elections: http://cmpa.com/Studies/Election08/election08.htm

Cracking down on hit-and-run attacks

Well, I’ve done it. I just changed the settings of Media Nation so that you now have to register in order to leave a comment. What pushed me to flip the switch were some of the truly ugly comments made about Robert Novak’s brain tumor, as well as the news that Universal Hub’s Adam Gaffin is going to require registration. A terrific “On the Media” story about commenting on news sites was a goad as well.

The last time I considered this, I was talked out of it by a few smart people who explained the downside of registering with Google, Blogger’s corporate owner. (I’ve given my life to Google, but that’s my choice.) But those days are now long gone. In addition to Google/Blogger, you’ve got five options: OpenID, WordPress, LiveJournal, TypePad and AIM. With all those choices, registration should be a burden to no one.

Nor have I eliminated anonymity. I don’t mind pseudonyms. I think someone who adopts a consistent persona, like Mike B1, can be as valuable a contributor as someone who uses his or her real name. It’s the totally anonymous hit-and-run attacks I’m trying to eliminate.

There’s something in it for you, too. I’ve also changed the settings so that as long as you are commenting on a post less than two weeks old, it will go up immediately, without my having to moderate it first. Maybe it will work, maybe it won’t. We’ll see how it goes.

More: I’m not going to be around much today. But if you run into any problems posting comments, send me an e-mail at da {dot} kennedy {at} neu {dot} edu.

Robert Novak has a brain tumor

Here’s some bad news. Just a few days ago we were all snickering at conservative commentator Robert Novak after a pedestrian somehow ended up on his windshield without his seeming to notice it.

Now it turns out he’s been diagnosed with a brain tumor and is being treated in Boston at Brigham and Women’s Hospital.

Media Nation extends its best wishes to the Prince of Darkness, a true American original who helped define the modern political columnist and the television talking head.

Remembering Elizabeth Neuffer

Boston Globe columnist Kevin Cullen offers a heartfelt tribute to the late Elizabeth Neuffer today. Neuffer and her Iraqi translator, Waleed Khalifa Hassan Al-Dulaimi, were killed in a car accident in Baghdad in 2003.

Cullen notes the occasion of accused war criminal Radovan Karadzic’s arrest to remind us that Neuffer made her deepest, boldest mark as a foreign correspondent when she covered the genocide in the former Yugoslavia in the mid-1990s.

The International Women’s Media Foundation, which offers a fellowship in Neuffer’s memory, puts it this way:

Her coverage of the Balkan wars of the 1990’s was vivid and intense. And when a tentative peace finally came to Bosnia, she risked her life to track down those responsible for genocide as they returned to civilian life. Her dispatches, sent to members of Congress by human rights groups, helped persuade the U.S. government to make the arrest and prosecution of war criminals a top priority.

The Globe could pay tribute to Neuffer’s memory by restoring her coverage of the Balkans to its Web site. The paper does have a nice page here, gathering her Iraqi coverage. But with the Yugoslav tragedy in the news again, it’s time to dig into the archives.

What to do about Ramírez?

Yes, Dan Shaughnessy is correct when he observes that Manny Ramírez has wanted out of Boston almost from the time he came here. But he fails to note that, on other occasions, Manny’s wanted to stay. Wasn’t Manny agitating for the Red Sox to pick up his option just a few weeks ago?

So now Ramírez says he wouldn’t mind being traded. It’s probably not going to happen. But if the Sox have already decided that this is Manny’s last season here, I wonder what would be the smarter move: Hoping he gets hot (actually, he is hot) and carries the Sox into another post-season? Or trading him to shore up the bullpen?

It’s a tough call. I would imagine Ramírez’s trade value is pretty low, given that he’ll be a free agent after the season. I’m not sure the Sox can make it into October either without Manny or with the bullpen they’ve got.

But if I were Theo, if I could line up a trade for the right relievers, I’d pull the trigger and hope the Sox will somehow find enough offense to get by.

A boost for Internet radio

This is why you shouldn’t worry about the FCC’s decision to allow the merger of XM and Sirius — or, for that matter, why you’ll only have to live with the horrendous state of chain-owned commercial radio for a few more years.

Once it’s possible to have low-cost, reliable WiFi in your car, someone will start offering Internet car radios. And that will mark the end of the radio business as we know it.

Further thoughts on Ramírez

If past blowups are any indication, we should assume that Manny Ramírez’s semi-annual late-July/early-August unpleasantness is now over, and that he’ll return to being a productive hitter the rest of the way.

So what was it all about? There were several factors that struck me as being different from past occasions, including: (1) his still-impressive though declining productivity; (2) the fact that the Sox can walk away from him at the end of the season; and (3) the unusual steps management has taken to make clear that it’s had enough of Manny’s act.

It’s pretty obvious that if Ramírez had taken himself out of the lineup yesterday, he would have been suspended. And if that had happened, I doubt he’d have been back at all.

As great a hitter as Manny is, he’s 36 years old, and he’s gone from consistent to streaky the past couple of years. If he’s on his way to being a .280-25-100 guy, well, that’s still good. But you can replace someone like that for a lot less hassle and a lot less money.

That said, I hope he goes on a tear for the rest of the season.