Media continue to uncritically report McCain campaign attacks on their coverage, but case studies still show disparate coverage in McCain’s favor

Throughout the 2008 general election campaign, the media uncritically reported complaints by Sen. John McCain’s campaign that they favored his opponent in their coverage of the presidential race, while making little attempt to assess the accuracy of those complaints or to confirm or refute them. In September, Media Matters for America undertook a review of the media’s coverage of two stories negatively affecting or reflecting on Sen. Barack Obama and two stories negatively affecting or reflecting on McCain and compared the extent of media attention to each. Media Matters has since updated that review through Election Day, November 4. Specifically, Media Matters compared the media’s coverage of Obama’s association with Chicago developer Antoin Rezko to the media’s coverage of McCain’s associations with donors for whom McCain reportedly facilitated land deals. Media Matters also compared coverage of Obama’s association with former Weather Underground member Bill Ayers to coverage of McCain’s association with G. Gordon Liddy, whom Chicago Tribune columnist Steve Chapman has described as McCain’s “own Bill Ayers.”

Media Matters found that while the five major newspapers — the Los Angeles Times, The New York Times, USA Today, The Wall Street Journal, and The Washington Post – frequently mentioned Obama’s ties to Ayers and Rezko, they rarely mentioned McCain’s reported facilitation of land deals that benefited donors, and they almost completely ignored McCain’s association with Liddy. In addition, the three evening network news broadcasts mentioned Obama’s ties to Ayers and Rezko several times, but never reported on McCain’s reported facilitation of land deals that benefited donors or his association with Liddy. Indeed, since The New York Times first reported on April 22 that McCain facilitated land deals that benefited major donors, these media outlets mentioned such deals in only five additional reports and one editorial. By contrast, those media outlets mentioned Obama’s ties to Rezko — who was convicted in June in a case in which Obama was never accused of any wrongdoing — in 76 network evening news broadcasts, news reports, editorial, or opinion pieces during that same time period. Moreover, while these same media outlets mentioned Obama’s ties to Ayers 311 times in 2008 through Election Day, they produced only five reports mentioning McCain’s connections to Liddy, whom McCain has praised and repeatedly associated with in public and in campaign settings.

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Following Media Matters‘ September report — which found that those media outlets had yet to cover McCain’s relationship with Liddy — there was some media attention on that association. However, the broadcast networks continued to ignore the association on their evening news programs, and, with the exception of a single Washington Post column by Richard Cohen, mentions in the five major papers were limited to six articles noting that CBS host David Letterman had asked McCain about his association with Liddy.

Media Matters has previously noted McCain’s ties to Liddy. Liddy served four and a half years in prison in connection with his conviction for his role in the Watergate break-in and the break-in at the office of the psychiatrist of Daniel Ellsberg, the military analyst who leaked the Pentagon Papers. Liddy has acknowledged preparing to kill someone during the Ellsberg break-in “if necessary”;

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