The Obama Infatuation

The Obama infatuation is a great unreported story of our time. Has any recent president basked in so much favorable media coverage?

Quote :

The study examined 1,261 stories by The Post, the New York Times, ABC, CBS and NBC, Newsweek magazine and the "NewsHour" on PBS. Favorable articles (42 percent) were double the unfavorable (20 percent), while the rest were "neutral" or "mixed." Obama's treatment contrasts sharply with coverage in the first two months of the Bush (22 percent of stories favorable) and Clinton (27 percent) presidencies.

Unlike George Bush and Bill Clinton, Obama received favorable coverage in both news columns and opinion pages. The nature of stories also changed. "Roughly twice as much of the coverage of Obama (44 percent) has concerned his personal and leadership qualities than was the case for Bush (22 percent) or Clinton (26 percent)," the report said. "Less of the coverage, meanwhile, has focused on his policy agenda."

When Pew broadened the analysis to 49 outlets -- cable channels, news Web sites, morning news shows, more newspapers and National Public Radio -- the results were similar, despite some outliers. No surprise: MSNBC was favorable, Fox was not. Another study, released by the Center for Media and Public Affairs at George Mason University, reached parallel conclusions.

Link

Mongo wrote:

The Obama infatuation is a great unreported story of our time. Has any recent president basked in so much favorable media coverage?

Quote :

The study examined 1,261 stories by The Post, the New York Times, ABC, CBS and NBC, Newsweek magazine and the "NewsHour" on PBS. Favorable articles (42 percent) were double the unfavorable (20 percent), while the rest were "neutral" or "mixed." Obama's treatment contrasts sharply with coverage in the first two months of the Bush (22 percent of stories favorable) and Clinton (27 percent) presidencies.

Unlike George Bush and Bill Clinton, Obama received favorable coverage in both news columns and opinion pages. The nature of stories also changed. "Roughly twice as much of the coverage of Obama (44 percent) has concerned his personal and leadership qualities than was the case for Bush (22 percent) or Clinton (26 percent)," the report said. "Less of the coverage, meanwhile, has focused on his policy agenda."

When Pew broadened the analysis to 49 outlets -- cable channels, news Web sites, morning news shows, more newspapers and National Public Radio -- the results were similar, despite some outliers. No surprise: MSNBC was favorable, Fox was not. Another study, released by the Center for Media and Public Affairs at George Mason University, reached parallel conclusions.

Link

You have to admit that the Bush admin. gave reporters and people around the world plenty of negative ammo to talk about. Maybe people are wanting to remain positive in such uncertain times? Nobody wants to think this country is going to fail so what are they supposed to do? Talk badly about the new president all the time when we are in a time where we need to be hopeful of our future. President Obama is so much more accessible than the Bush admin. Cheney is talking more now than he ever did while he was vice president and Bush never wanted to answer questions and explain his ideas. We were just supposed to trust them and hope they were doing the right thing off in their undisclosed locations. Barack is more human and just easier to like. I don't think Barack should be punished because people believe in him more than Bush or Clinton. I see nothing wrong with asking the president how he plans to do all the things he wants to do and so far he has come through on that. I haven't seen him refuse to talk about his plans yet. If people have a problem with his plans, then they need to speak up. That's certainly not his fault.

Mongo wrote:

The Obama infatuation is a great unreported story of our time. Has any recent president basked in so much favorable media coverage?

My answer to your question is a quite simple ..NO. I really can'think of any at all, Clinton imo got some preferale treatment for sure from the media but nothing to even compare to "Obama the Great" . Obama has the GE, NY Times, NBC hate an smear machine falling all over him and pushing their brand of bull crap they call journalism.

The Drifter wrote:

Mongo wrote:

The Obama infatuation is a great unreported story of our time. Has any recent president basked in so much favorable media coverage?

My answer to your question is a quite simple ..NO. I really can'think of any at all, Clinton imo got some preferale treatment for sure from the media but nothing to even compare to "Obama the Great" . Obama has the GE, NY Times, NBC hate an smear machine falling all over him and pushing their brand of bull crap they call journalism.

If Bush was getting patted on the head, I'm sure that none of you would be making a peep. Sounds a lot like jealousy and it's kinda funny.

This is a bit jarring. I wonder if this will wane as his honeymoon with the public ends. Though, it is a political maxim that the more access an administration provides to the media, the more favorable the coverage. Perhaps that plays a part in this.

Ja'far wrote:

This is a bit jarring. I wonder if this will wane as his honeymoon with the public ends. Though, it is a political maxim that the more access an administration provides to the media, the more favorable the coverage. Perhaps that plays a part in this.

Very good point. The Bush Administration was very secretive and quite rude to the press at times. I'm sure that didn't help much.