I’ve noticed that CNN’s political coverage this year has been heavily, indefensibly, shamelessly biased toward Hillary Clinton. That’s to be expected — after all, two of her top political advisers, James Carville and Paul Begala, are former CNN employees, and continued their “political coverage” for the network even while they were Hillary employees, until the network got complaints and had to boot them.
But I’ve been keeping tabs on CNN more closely in the past two weeks, since Barack Obama has all but locked up his place as the Democratic nominee, even by Carville’s own admission. One would think that they’d probably give a little less publicity to Senator Clinton, since she’s nearly out of the presidential picture, right?
Wrong. Let’s look at a rundown of just the last forty “blogs” on their faux-news gossip column “The Political Ticker” — and I assure you that it has been no different for the past two weeks. Here’s a graph breaking them into how favorably they reflect on a candidate (some overlap):
Number of “Positive” Hillary Posts: 7
Number of “Negative” Hillary Posts: 1
Number of “Positive” McCain Posts: 6
Number of “Negative” McCain Posts: 5
Number of “Positive” Obama Posts: 1
Number of “Photo” Obama Posts (The only posts about any candidate which deliberately have no commentary): 2
Number of “Negative” Obama Posts: 10
There you have it, folks. And the most striking thing isn’t the fact that stories which reflect negatively upon Barack Obama are those which appear most often. For me, the most striking thing is their refusal to say print anything which might make Hillary Clinton look bad. On the other hand, maybe that’s just a reflection of the fact that Obama and the GOP have stopped attacking Clinton. Most of the Ticker’s content is just inter-campaign trash talk.
What’s more, most of the time CNN uses their “Political Ticker” to back up their front-page political posting. So the bias in the ticker is equal to the bias they feature on their front page.
Let’s look at their front page, at a random time, to see what their coverage looks like. We’ll use, oh… right now as an example:
I see three political items, one of which is just a webcam feed to an Obama rally, so that’s relatively positive for Obama. The other two allow anti-Obama folks to use CNN.com’s front page as a mouthpiece for their particular views — one, in which McCain calls Obama’s foreign policy ideas of diplomacy (you know, the ones that don’t involve war) “Reckless;” and the other, which allows Geraldine Ferarro, a Clinton supporter and former Carville co-worker who has already proven herself a bigot, to slander Obama, calling him “Terribly Sexist” without foundation or examination.
And remember this all comes weeks after it became clear that Hillary Clinton would not be the Democratic nominee.
I’m not saying CNN shouldn’t report on every little piece of controversial “trash-talk” they hear in a political speech, like they do. They’re certainly allowed to do that.
What I’m saying is, readers should take their “coverage” with a grain of salt. They’ve got some cards they’re not showing.
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Thank you so much for your post. I refuse to watch CNN any longer, but have subscribed to their feed. I have noticed the exact same reporting for the last month and I do not understand it. Even though they have been called the Clinton News Network in the past, they have absolutely nothing positive to say about Obama, nor anything negative to say about Hillary, even though there is plenty. Apparently, I am not the only one noticing this as my google search was for “why does CNN hate Obama”. I’m just thankful that they have finally stopped with the Reverand Wright garbage every single day. At least I hope.
@Boston:
Feel free to use that graph anywhere you want. Even though people seem to have noticed this about CNN, many times they think it’s just a “hunch.” The graph makes it real.
This post also details the day that CNN inexplicably, for the first time I’ve ever seen it, linked to Essence Magazine about John McCain wanting to “reach out to black voters:” http://www.markcaseyonline.com/2008/05/21/the-mccain-mutiny/
I just find it odd that CNN chose to link to that article, that day, when they never had before.
I thought I was going crazy and not really understanding CNN anymore. Thanks for also seeing it as I do. What’s up with CNN and the Clintons? I mean I used to love “Larry King Live.” Now I refuse to watch CNN. Wolf Blitzer has become such a bore and not even fair when it comes to Obama. The Clinton campaign says the news isn’t fair they should just love CNN. Just my opinion.
Yes they are pretty hard on Obama even in a sneaky kind of a way, but guess what most bloggers are Obama supporters, so I point this out to say we AIN’T falling for CNN’s crap, but can see straight through them.
I have already warned them if they keep it up they will find themselves black listed just like FOX, but they select very carefully what they will allow printed about Hillary Clinton, for instance I have often tried ask why they do not report and make the voters aware of the Clinton’s past and I ain’t talking about adultry or whitewater I’m talking about the fact that they have been involved in a law suit while the primaries are going on, plus well jus tcheck it out for yourselves I have gotten to the point I am tired of even writing about them I never get posted when I do.
YOU TUBE:
HILLARY CLINTON / “BILL & HILLARY THEIR SECERT LIFE” (1-12EACH ONE GETS WORST
HILLARY THE MOVIE 1-9
SHOCKING SECRETS THEY DON’T WANT YOU TO KNOW” 1-2
GOOGLE:
HILLARY CLINTON SCANDALS
THE CLINTON SCANDALS
Now she wants to blame senator Obama for making this a big deal. Well, even if the Obama campaign helped spread this story, good for them. Remember when she took the words of Obama about bitter people totally out of context, even though there was plenty of video and audio evidence available about what he meant and ran it as a campaign theme? You know what they say about payback. LOL
I agree too, it’s quite obvious that CNN is backing Clinton and bashing Obama to the point that it is disgraceful. And all of their programs and anchors are doing it, except for maybe Jack Cafferty. They constantly blame Obama for the remarks that other people say, and yet glide right over the disgraceful comments that Hillary makes, such as the one about RFK getting assassinated in June. I’m at the point of dropping their channel from my subscription and boycotting their advertisers. Why does Clinton have such a hold on CNN??, that would be the real news story.
I was just telling my wife it seems that CNN does not like Obama, so I decided to do some research on line to see if its just me or are thier other who have noticed. Thank you for the artical.
It is somewhat late in the game, but this is my observations. I noticed that John McCain speaks very thoughtfully and seems to be genuine and honest, while Barack Obama speaks as if he is recalling what has already been said, and repeating what is already known as if he is the originator of what he is saying. John McCain’s speach pattern reflects intellect, experience and wisdom. Barack Obamas speach pattern reflects academics, inexperience and deceit. In some instances, Barack Obama appears to be just mimicking without any real knowledge and may have done this all his life. In essence, my observations of character and speech patterns tell me that Barack Obama is well educated in “Faking It”.
You must be listening to something different then the 49% that support Obama. I can’t help but wonder in the land of opportunity when it became distasteful to be “well educated”
You must be listening to something different then the 49% that support Obama. I can’t help but wonder in the land of opportunity when it became distasteful to be “well educated”
OMG! im so glad im not the only one! i hardly watch CNN and today i decided to flip over to it, and i noticed that even after the inagouration they were flaming on him talking about how one cannot trust him, that he doesnt know what he’s doing etc.. as soon as i was 5 minutes into watching the crapload of s—t they had to say, i went back to mtv! Im frikken 15 years old and i noticed it!
Ive noticed it too lately. Every single thing they say is just trashing him. I think the man is doing and amazing job considering. I mean wow! This is crazy!
Barack Obama is the best democrat president in my opinion. he makes the best judgment and foreign policies.. .
i could readily say that Barack Obama will be one of the greatest US Presidents*-,