CONFIRMATION

Posted at 8:28 a.m. ET

It's gratifying when something we know in our gut to be true is confirmed by a respected study.  Consider this, from The Washington Times:

President-elect Barack Obama has received the most positive campaign news coverage on the main network news shows in the 20-year history of such studies by the Center for Media and Public Affairs (CMPA).

Mr. Obama received 68 percent positive evaluations from the four major networks, according to the study released Friday.

"Obama's positive press is the strongest showing CMPA has ever recorded for a presidential candidate since we began monitoring election news in 1988," said Robert Lichter, director of the nonpartisan research group affiliated with George Mason University.

And now the contrast:

By contrast, his Republican rival almost set the record for hostile press coverage.

Just 33 percent of the stories on Sen. John McCain were positive in nature -- "the worst showing" since former President George H.W. Bush received only 29 percent positive press in 1988, Mr. Lichter said.

And McCain was said to be a "darling" of the press.  Some darling.  These reporters are unfaithful lovers.

NBC was the most Obama-friendly of the four networks, with 73 percent of the coverage being favorable. Fox News was the sole network to mix it up with Mr. Obama, with only 37 percent of the stories on him positive in tone, although that was only slightly less favorable than the 41 percent favorability of the network's McCain coverage.

The face of NBC News used to be Huntley/Brinkley.  Today it's Chris Matthews.  Gone slumming.

A Pew Research Center survey released in late October found, for example, that 70 percent of voters agreed that journalists "wanted" Mr. Obama to win the White House; the figure was 62 percent even among Democratic respondents.

A Harvard University analysis in early November revealed that 77 percent of Americans say the press is politically biased; of that group, 5 percent said it skewed conservative. Even The Washington Post's ombudsman, Deborah Howell, offered evidence of an "Obama tilt" in her own newspaper in a recent op-ed piece.

Despite all this, have you seen a single editor, publisher or head of a broadcast news division apologize?  Have you heard any pledges to do better, even to review their work?

The reality is that many journalists don't care.  They're in journalism not to report the news, but to "make a difference," and they made the difference they set out to make.  It's a sad time in journalism, and a dangerous time for this democracy.  Wise decisions depend on information that is fair, accurate and complete.  Clearly, we're not getting the information we, as citizens, deserve.  What does that say about the future of our democratic process?

December 6, 2008.