Who is Fair and Balanced?

Surprise, surprise, surprise!

John McCain supporters who believe they haven't gotten a fair shake from the media during the Republican's candidacy against Barack Obama have a new study to point to. Comments made by sources, voters, reporters and anchors that aired on ABC, CBS and NBC evening newscasts over the past two months reflected positively on Obama in 65 percent of cases, compared to 31 percent of cases with regards to McCain, according to the Center for Media and Public Affairs.

ABC's "World News" had more balance than NBC's "Nightly News" or the "CBS Evening News," the group said.

Who would have ever guessed it? Just like one of those studies that determines rich people will be hurt less by a bad economy, we have a new study on the media that reveals the obvious.

Meanwhile, the first half of Fox News Channel's "Special Report" with Brit Hume showed more balance than any of the network broadcasters, although it was dominated by negative evaluations of both campaigns. The center didn't evaluate programs on CNN or MSNBC.

"For whatever reason, the media are portraying Barack Obama as a better choice for president than John McCain," said Robert Lichter, a George Mason University professor and head of the center. "If you watch the evening news, you'd think you should vote for Obama."

Aha! Fox is the fair and balanced network!

ABC recorded 57 percent favorable comments toward the Democrats, and 42 percent positive for the Republicans. NBC had 56 percent positive for the Democrats, 16 percent for the Republicans. CBS had 73 percent positive (Obama), versus 31 percent (McCain).

Hume's telecast had 39 percent favorable comments for McCain and 28 percent positive for the Democratic ticket.

It was the second study in two weeks to remark upon negative coverage for the McCain-Palin ticket. The Project for Excellence in Journalism concluded last week that McCain's coverage has been overwhelmingly negative since the conventions ended, while Obama's has been more mixed.

Media Bias Bothering Liberals

Even liberals are complaining about the liberal media.

In a room full of television industry executives, no one seemed inclined to defend MSNBC on Monday for what some were calling its lopsidedly liberal coverage of the presidential election.

The cable news channel is "completely out of control," said writer-producer Linda Bloodworth-Thomason, a self-proclaimed liberal Democrat.

Maybe she's still angry about Hillary?

She added that she would prefer a lunch date with right-leaning Fox News star Sean Hannity over left-leaning MSNBC star Keith Olbermann.

Olbermann was criticized by many who attended Monday's luncheon sponsored by the Caucus for Producers, Writers & Directors at the Beverly Hills Hotel. The event was dubbed "Hollywood, America and Election '08."

Bloodworth-Thomason and others seemed especially critical of the way MSNBC -- and other media -- has attacked Republican vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin while demeaning her supporters.

And last week, Dan Rather said that Sarah Palin would have been skewered for saying what Joe Biden promised would be a testing of the new President if Obama is elected.

Former CBS anchorman Dan Rather says there is a huge double-standard in the media when it comes to coverage the Barack Obama campaign receives, which is clearly made evident in the lack of scrutiny given to comments Obama’s vice presidential running mate Sen. Joe Biden made earlier this week.

That's pretty good coming from a guy who used to say things like this in his TV newscasts.

“The new Republican majority in Congress took a big step today on its legislative agenda to demolish or damage government aid programs, many of them designed to help children and the poor.”

— Leading off the March 16, 1995 CBS Evening News.

It's funny. Every self-respecting liberal I've ever debated has insisted that media bias is an imagined, and impossible, phenomenon, a symptom of conservatism.

Power Play

Media bias has gotten so bad that now they're complaining about it within the biased media.

The liberal news channel MSNBC is taking Keith Olbermann and Chris Matthews off as anchors of live political events in the wake of growing criticism of both commentators during the network's coverage of the conventions. White House correspondent David Gregory will anchor the presidential race's remaining events such as the debates. NBC News people, including veteran newsanchor Tom Brokaw have felt that MSNBC's overt liberalism is damaging to NBC's credibility as a member of the liberally biased mainstream media.

Rendell Rage

Is the healing complete between Hillary's camp and Obama? It doesn't seem to be.

Pennsylvania Gov. Ed Rendell was supposed to give “closing remarks” during this afternoon’s Shorenstein Center-sponsored panel discussion with all three Sunday show moderators — NBC’s Tom Brokaw, ABC’s George Stephanopoulous and CBS’s Bob Schieffer — but instead, he opened up a can of worms about bias in 2008 election coverage

"Ladies and gentleman, the coverage of Barack Obama was embarrassing," said Rendell, in the ballroom at Denver's Brown Palace Hotel. "It was embarrassing."

Even though he's supposed to be supporting Obama now, the Pennsylvania governor couldn't restrain his anger over how Hillary was treated.

Rendell, an ardent Hillary Rodham Clinton supporter during the primaries, now backs Obama in the general election. Brokaw and Rendell began debating campaign coverage, including the on-air comments by Lee Cowan, and when MSNBC came up, Rendell went after the cable network.

It's so much fun to hear Democrats going after the media for something they'd always said just couldn't happen.

“MSNBC was the official network of the Obama campaign," Rendell said, who called their coverage "absolutely embarrassing."

Chris Matthews, Rendell said, "loses his impartiality when he talks about the Clintons.”

And he gets that tingle up his leg when he hears Barack speak!

At that point, PBS's Judy Woodruff, who was moderating the moderators event, said: "Why don’t we let Governor Rendell sit down."

How quickly they turn!

That was met with applause from the crowd of big-time media figures, which included Arianna Huffington, Gwen Ifill, Al Hunt, and Chuck Todd.

Woodruff allowed Brokaw to respond, and in defending the network, he said that Matthews and Keith Olbermann are "not the only voices" on MSNBC.

Now that's quite a defense of MSNBC.

Mitchell/Davis Spat

Andrea Mitchell and McCain campaign honcho Rick Davis had quite a spat on MSNBC yesterday! It is an awkward thing to interview someone over the phone when you're on TV, especially when your attempts to interrupt them go unnoticed, but she was particularly bad here - throwing out dumb questions then having no reaction to Davis' answers.


While Davis may have had trouble explaining things to Andrea, Senator Lindsey Graham has no problem making the point clear:

But this is a hysteria around a personality that's attractive, but when you look under the hood, there's not a whole lot there. So fame without portfolio is, sort of, fashionable. But leadership without experience is dangerous.

Dan Rather's Osama Moment

Are you ready for a laugh? Watch the rest of the panel sit frozen as Dan Rather confuses Barack with the world's most famous terrorist. No one helps!