“As he marks his 100th day in office, President Barack Obama has enjoyed substantially more positive media coverage than either Bill Clinton or George Bush during their first months in the White House, according to a new study of press coverage. Overall, roughly four out of ten stories, editorials and op ed columns about Obama have been clearly positive in tone, compared with 22% for Bush and 27% for Clinton in the same mix of seven national media outlets during the same first two months in office, according to a study by the Pew Research Center’s Project for Excellence in Journalism. The study found positive stories about Obama have outweighed negative by two-to-one (42% vs. 20%) while 38% of stories have been neutral or mixed. […] In contrast with Clinton and Bush, Obama’s treatment was more favorable than skeptical both in news coverage and on newspaper opinion pages. For Clinton, on the other hand, news coverage tilted toward the negative, while newspaper op eds and editorial offered favor. The treatment went the other way for Bush, with news coverage leaning positive, while op ed and editorials studied were decidedly negative.” [Journalism.org]
Don't forget to share:
@Daniel_Baylis
Yes, B’Oba is well loved by the press.
But is he loved by queers?
Hmmm…
Michael
I found that to be a much more interesting measurement in the fact that both op-eds and news stories were positive in tone. There is generally a difference between who writes news stories and who writes op-eds. Op-ed writers include industry professionals, scholars, and elected officials. They don’t really count as “the press.”
Zeus almighty, Queerty is nearly becoming as Obama obsessed as the Free Press or the NRO.
Michael W.
I think there were more positive stories about Obama than Clinton because Obama isn’t a philanderer with a line of scum and filth that followed him from Arkansas to DC. Not to mention the trouble he had with his cabinet and the hostility of a strong conservative opposition. And since the media loves to give rightwingers a bullhorn, it no doubt contributed to the negative static.
As for Bush, that would probably have something to do with Obama winning a landslide election rather than losing a highly divisive one that tore the country apart and was handed to him by the Supreme Court after weeks of angst and uncertainty.
hyhybt
Could it have anything to do with how heartily sick of the *old* administration everyone was?