McCain camp attacks media over Obama trip

By: WILLIAM MARCH Media General News Service
Published: July 23, 2008

TAMPA — Openly frustrated at the heavy news coverage of Barack Obama’s trip to the Middle East, the John McCain campaign is responding with a public relations offensive, including a new web video that accuses television news reporters of being “in the tank” for Obama.

“The media is in love,” was the subject line of an email news release from the campaign Tuesday, introducing two versions of the web video posted on his web site.

Meanwhile, the campaign has released two new national TV ads and hosted a nationwide series of veterans’ gatherings, including one in Tampa, to boost McCain’s image on national security and the war in Iraq and criticize Obama’s.

Campaign press aides have pointed in recent days to what they say is an imbalance in network news coverage, as TV anchors travel with and interview Obama in the Middle East while devoting fewer newscast minutes to McCain.

There has even been speculation that McCain might make an early announcement of his running mate this week in an attempt to deflect the spotlight from Obama’s trip. The campaign refused to comment Tuesday on when an announcement will be made.

There’s no question, several experts said, that Obama and his trip have received heavy coverage. But they differ on whether that implies bias or simply that Obama’s trip is a big story.

Obama gets heavy coverage, several said, because he’s a historic candidate, a new face with many unknowns, and because his ideas on national security are an area of perceived weakness – which McCain has only emphasized.

“They’re disproportionately fawning over him to some extent,” said Darryl Paulson, a University of South Florida political scientist, and a Republican. “When you have two candidates who are relatively equal in the polls, you would think the coverage would be somewhat equal.”

But David Colburn, a historian and specialist on the presidency at the University of Florida, noted that prior to the trip, McCain raised repeated questions about Obama’s stands on terrorism and security issues and criticized him for not having been to Iraq recently. That only made the trip a bigger story, he said.

“John McCain baited Obama about his lack of consultation with our military leaders in Afghanistan and Iraq,” he said. “So McCain is a bit disingenuous when he now criticizes Obama and the coverage.”

Two of Tampa’s best-known military names, retired Rear Admiral Leroy Collins Jr. and retired Air Force Brigadier General Chip Diehl, former commander of MacDill Air Force Base, spoke up for McCain at Tuesday’s Tampa event, where attendees watched McCain blast Obama at a town hall meeting in New Hampshire.

Both said a former military man with McCain’s record of sacrificing for his country is the best choice for commander-in-chief.

But Diehl also indicated some of the problems McCain is up against in wooing public opinion and news coverage, when he noted that Obama is “very charismatic, a good speaker.”

McCain campaign spokesman Jeff Sadosky denied the campaign is frustrated, but said it is “cognizant,” of what he called an imbalance in coverage.

“The network anchors [are] falling over each other to get their exclusive abroad interviewing Obama,” he said. “It’s clear he’s their darling.”

Attacking news organizations, of course, is a tried and true Republican tactic for rallying their supporters.

“A fight with the New York Times – what better way to stoke the base?” said one McCain campaign aide, after recounting the campaign’s complaints about the newspaper, which printed an Obama op-ed piece on Iraq but refused one by McCain.

The newspaper said it wanted to print a McCain op-ed, but wanted one with new information and specifics about McCain’s plans, which it said Obama’s contained.

Robert Lichter of the Center for Media and Public Affairs at George Mason University said his organization’s analysis indicates that Obama has received more network news coverage than McCain, in the time since Obama clinched the Democratic nomination.

Lichter said the analysis showed Obama getting more positive comments in television news stories during the primaries.

Since June 7, Lichter said, the “big three” networks – ABC, CBS and NBC—have also given Obama more air time—120 stories on Obama and 80 on McCain. Fox News, for whom Lichter formerly was a paid commentator, has aired 73 Obama stories and 54 McCain stories, he said.

But, Lichter said, “There are entirely plausible reasons other than bias” for the intense coverage of Obama’s trip.

As the first black major party presidential nominee, “His candidacy is historic,” and of great interest overseas, he said. In addition, he is little-known, and major questions have been raised about his knowledge and opinions on foreign affairs.

“In a way McCain has himself to blame” for questioning that, Lichter said. “It’s big news because Obama had to respond.”

Obama also attracts news coverage because he is comparatively new on the national political scene, Lichter said.

WILLIAM MARCH is a staff writer for The Tampa Tribune