Prometheus 6

...is not shared by the media.

Haters of the mainstream media reheated a bit of conventional wisdom last week.

Barack Obama, they said, was getting a free ride from those insufferable liberals.

Such pronouncements, sorry to say, tend to be wrong since they describe a monolithic media that no longer exists. Information today cascades from countless outlets and channels, from the Huffington Post to Politico.com to CBS News and beyond.

But now there's additional evidence that casts doubt on the bias claims aimed -- with particular venom -- at three broadcast networks.

The Center for Media and Public Affairs at George Mason University, where researchers have tracked network news content for two decades, found that ABC, NBC and CBS were tougher on Obama than on Republican John McCain during the first six weeks of the general-election campaign.

You read it right: tougher on the Democrat.

During the evening news, the majority of statements from reporters and anchors on all three networks are neutral, the center found. And when network news people ventured opinions in recent weeks, 28% of the statements were positive for Obama and 72% negative.

This has been amply demonstrated this week, when most of the media coverage of Obama seems to support McCain's attempts to "define" Obama.

...the reason that Obama’s getting so much coverage is because for every five minutes they covered what Obama did, there were twenty minutes covering whether or not they were discussing Obama too much, if he was screwing up or going to screw up, if Americans would think he was, yes, arrogant or presumptuous, and if McCain was being ignored in favor of Obama. 

In short, a regular week of coverage, give or take.