After NBC's Tim Russert on May 6 crowned Senator
Barack Obama as the inevitable Democratic nominee, the Illinois
Senator garnered just 41.1% of the vote in the six remaining
primaries, to Hillary Clinton's 58.9%. Nevertheless, the media
chose not to highlight Obama's weakness with voters last week,
but the "magic moment" of Obama finally gaining his party's
nomination.
ABC broke into regular programming Tuesday night for a lengthy
(23 minute) special report: "It is just over 50 years since
America officially desegregated its schools," anchor Charlie
Gibson celebrated, "and now, an African-American nominated for
President." The next night, Gibson and his CBS and NBC
counterparts treated Obama to a series of softball interviews on
their evening newscasts.
"When everybody clears out, the staff is gone, you're in the
hotel room at night, and you're alone, do you say to yourself,
‘Son of a gun, I've done this?'" Gibson wondered. CBS's Katie
Couric giddily asked Obama: "Did you ever think you'd see this
day?" That night's CBS Evening News ended with a report from
Byron Pitts that cast Obama as a civil rights pioneer, not an
ambitious politician: "Barack Obama and his wife Michelle walked
into history's arms last night....One of America's oldest and
ugliest color lines has been broken." Pitts later confessed to
CNN's Howard Kurtz that he was "certainly" excited by Obama's
candidacy.
Over on MSNBC, Chris Matthews luxuriated in "last night's magic
moment for a lot of Americans, in fact, me included." As the TV
screen showed Barack and Michelle Obama bumping fists, Matthews
was thrilled: "That picture is right out of Camelot, as far as
I'm concerned." [Audio/video (0:33): Windows Media (2.09 MB) and
MP3 audio (146 kB)]
Two new polls show that most Americans recognize the supposedly
objective news media's preference for Obama.
A Pew Research Center survey of 1,002 adults released
Thursday asked about media bias in the Democratic race; more
than four times as many (37%) thought reporters favored Obama as
saw a tilt in favor of Clinton (just 8%).
A Rasmussen survey of 1,000 likely voters released
Sunday found nearly seven out of ten "believe most reporters try
to help the candidate that they want to win" — and more than
half (54%) "say Obama has gotten the best coverage so far."
For more, see the June
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