WaPo: Shocked By Its Own Pro Obama Bias

publiusforum.com ^ | 08/03/08 | Warner Todd Huston

[Mobile Vulgus]

The Washington Post's Deborah Howell has a howeller in the Aug. 3 edition of the paper revealing how shocked and amazed she was that her own paper had a lopsided tally of Obama photographs compared to how many McCain photos appear in its pages. Of course, the amusing thing isn't that the Post had far more Obama photos than McCain pics but that, regardless of the raw numbers staring her in the face, Howell still insisted it wasn't because of bias. Apparently it's just because Obama has a "great smile." I guess we can mark that trenchant observation as the best reason to cover political candidates as far as the Washington Post is concerned. It's a big win for a justification for hard news, surely.

Howell apparently was contacted by a retired USA Today reporter who alerted her to the singular fact that Obama's photo appeared more often than did McCain's in the paper's A section from June 4 to July 14. Howell got curious and replicated that study, but expanded it to the entire paper and found interesting results.

What we found: 122 photos of Obama have been published in the paper during that time to 78 for McCain, counting tiny to big. Most of those photos ran inside the paper; most on the politics page. The Page 1 photos are closer: Obama had nine to McCain's seven. Five of Obama's were above the fold; McCain had four. Obama also got more color photos, 72 to 49, and more large photos -- mostly those that spanned three or more columns, 30 to 10.

Howell also tried to see the numbers in a wider context.

To look at the phenom factor, du Cille went to the Merlin database to see how many pictures have been run of Obama since he first appeared in Post pages in 2003. That would be 1,109. McCain's pictures go back to the early days of the database, 1995, with 1,032 published. Obama is still ahead.

So, why this disparity? Howell has some excuses... er, I mean explanations.

Read the rest atPubliusforum.com...

[Mobile Vulgus]

Yeah, they are really, really shocked. Not they are serious. Stop laughing. They mean it.

[Turret Gunner A20]

The Post is really hot-to-trot behind a Fairness Doctrine for Talk Radio -- I wonder what they would say about a Fairness Doctrine for newspapers?

[counterpunch]

[Starboard]

The Post is really hot-to-trot behind a Fairness Doctrine for Talk Radio -- I wonder what they would say about a Fairness Doctrine for newspapers?

Very good point.

I wouldn't subscribe to the WaPo if they reversed the fees and paid me!

[Eroteme]

Obama also got more color photos, 72 to 49,

This cannot be happenstance. I don't buy that photographers suddenly go all Ansel Adams when the see McCain, and scramble to reload their cameras with B&W to get a great coffee-table book shot. More likely, they just convert the color photo to grayscale to insert yet another "subtle" suggestion that McCain's older than the hills....a guy from Pleasantville--a time of Brownie cameras, soda jerks, hygiene class and horn-rimmed glasses.

[SunkenCiv]

from the 3rd. Related, from March:

CNN Pro-Obama and Pro-Wright All the Time
American Thinker | March 19, 2008 | Peter Barry Chowka
Posted on 03/19/2008 10:27:12 AM PDT by Orwells Ghost
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1988254/posts