The Kicker

According to the new Campaign Coverage Index by the Project for Excellence in Journalism, last week “cable news devoted 74% of airtime to the election despite significant breaking events such as the Chinese earthquake and ongoing coverage of the Myanmar cyclone.” Beyond cable, “stories about the race for president captured 37% of the overall newshole […]

Hate? I thought the campaign press loved polls — those snapshots from which all sorts of alarming conclusions may be drawn and discussed. Thank you, Chuck Todd (“Chuckie T”), for bringing a voice of reason to the discussion of one particular type of poll over which reporters seem to love to get worked up: MSNBC’s […]

From Matt Bai’s New York Times magazine cover story on John McCain: John McCain has never been very good at political artifice. Like every politician I’ve known, McCain will sometimes surrender to the cheap ploy or prevarication when the moment demands it, but it is often with a smirk or a wince, some hard-to-miss signal […]

A couple weeks ago, Observatory freelancer Russ Juskalian wrote an excellent column about the proliferation of the term “green-collar jobs” on the presidential campaign trail and in the media. This weekend, he appeared on National Public Radio’s On the Media to elaborate on some of his points. Russ points out that the candidates, going back […]

This CNN ad campaign was new to me (I saw it over the weekend on NY1). (VOICEOVER) Every American is an independent thinker. No matter your party. No matter your candidate. Get the facts from the only news channel to give you all sides. No spin. No affiliation. No agenda. Just the facts. Demand the […]

Interesting and laudable. From McCain’sprepared remarks for today’s big vision speech: My administration will set a new standard for transparency and accountability. I will hold weekly press conferences. I will regularly brief the American people on the progress our policies have made and the setbacks we have encountered. When we make errors, I will confess […]

What really matters (some version of which can be found in most of the Edwards Endorses Obama coverage): “[John ]Edwards is a prominent Democrat who speaks on behalf of lunch bucket-carrying, hard hat-wearing, Dunkin’ Donut-eating Democrats,” said Chris Lehane, a Democratic strategist who worked on Gore’s 2000 presidential campaign. He can help Obama “counter the […]

TV Newser rounds up the networks’ treatment of the Edwards Endorses Obama Rally last night. ABC News “spent nearly six minutes” on the event, all told (Charlie Gibson: “Timed for maximum exposure. Timed to coincide with the evening newscasts.”) Fox News “spent the least amount of time on the event,” all voiced over by Brit […]

Give what the Boston Phoenix‘s Adam Reilly sees as John McCain’s “well-documented knack for charming the press into submission,” Reilly offers the campaign press a ” handy list of 10 McCain stories worth pursuing over the next few months.” Writes Reilly: [T]he political press has…embraced an expansive criterion when it comes to coverage: if a […]

In January, I wrote about the complicated contracting relationship between Stars and Stripes, the military-backed paper that insists on its editorial independence, and “America Supports You,” a Pentagon public affairs initiative created under Assistant Secretary of Defense Allison Barber that’s been described as a pro-war propaganda. While details weren’t clear, the paper, which operates with […]

Reuters (with help from stringers) puts images to the phrase China’s “deadliest earthquake in decades.”

What is it with TV anchors and the f-bomb? Bill O’Reilly dropped it (while helming Inside Edition). Last night, “in solidarity with you, Bill,” Stephen Colbert revealed that he did much the same (back in his mid-day local news anchor days). And now: News Channel 4’s Sue Simmons. Per The New York Times: On Monday […]

From Dana Milbank in today’s Washington Post: If there is importance in the results of the primary in West Virginia, the press corps isn’t letting on. During the security sweep at Dulles, some play Hacky Sack with a cigarette carton. Awaiting the candidate on the tarmac, two guys from CNN toss a football. Aboard the […]

To quote a colleague: “The does-the-candidate-bowl-and-drink- beer-in-a-masculine-seeming-way? approach to political punditry is [Maureeen Dowd’s] one move—never mind that it’s been shown, as clearly as possible, to be facile and destructive. But really, what does that matter when you’ve got a New York Times column to write?” Yeah. Back in March, Dowd’s Obama was “effete.” Today, […]