No Such Thing As Liberal Media Bias

I don't have the time or energy to catalog the outrageous antics of the Associated Press and its reporter Jennifer Loven. Good thing the boys at Powerline have it covered. Read this story first, where Loven brazenly tried to write the equivalent of a Kerry press release as news. The followups here and here provide more detail about Loven's marriage to a veteran Democrat operative, her earlier hit pieces for the left, and the AP's continuing willingness to turn a blind eye to all of it.

And people wonder about the polarization of the media. As Howard Kurtz noted in today's Post, people are increasingly turning to sources more in tune with their points of view...

If you were watching the network evening news in June, July and August, you would have seen somewhat favorable coverage of John Kerry -- six out of 10 evaluations were positive -- and somewhat unfavorable coverage of President Bush.

If you were watching Fox News Channel's 6 p.m. newscast, you would have seen about the same coverage of the president. But Kerry's evaluations were negative by a 5 to 1 margin.

That finding, by the Center for Media and Public Affairs, might suggest that some Fox folks have it in for Kerry. Or it might suggest that the broadcast networks are too easy on Kerry, who the group says has gotten the best network coverage of any presidential nominee since it began tracking in 1988. Or that we have entered an era of red media and blue media to match the country's polarization.

...On every major story this side of Hurricane Ivan, the media are seen by partisans as blowing in one direction or the other. Iraq war? Journalists are either unpatriotic naysayers hurting the morale of American troops, or pathetic pantywaists who blindly carried the false White House claims of WMDs. The campaign? Journalists are either nasty nitpickers who are painting Kerry as an elitist flip-flopper the way they distorted Al Gore's record, or liberal sympathizers who are openly rooting for Kerry and can't hide their distaste for the president. CBS? They are fellow travelers who share Rather's bias and had to be prodded into challenging "60 Minutes" by fearless bloggers, or White House lackeys stoking a phony media controversy rather than uncovering the real story of Bush allegedly being AWOL.

Brit Hume, Fox's Washington managing editor, whose "Special Report" was examined by the study, says he's surprised by the anti-Kerry findings. "Our day-in, day-out coverage by Carl Cameron has been extremely fair to Kerry, and the Kerry campaign has recognized this," he says.

... Matthew Felling of the media center is skeptical. "If this is what passes for 'fair and balanced' journalism, it looks like someone has a finger on the scale at Fox News," he says. For the NBC, CBS and ABC evening newscasts, Kerry drew 62 percent positive evaluations and Bush 41 percent.

Some of the anti-Kerry comments come from the show's commentators, not its reporters. On Thursday, after airing straightforward news reports on a speech by Iraq's interim prime minister, Ayad Allawi, and Kerry's criticism of the remarks, Hume asked his pundit panel for reaction. "Disgraceful," said Charles Krauthammer. Michael Barone called it "bad politics." Mort Kondracke accused Kerry of "pessimism."

But read the last sentance of the second-to-last paragraph. According to the Media Center, Kerry's getting better coverage than any other candidate... and he's still a terrible candidate. Imagine if they treated him objectively -- he might make McGovern look good by comparison.