Anti-Clinton Bias: Where It Exists and Where It Doesn't

MSNBC's Dan Abrams has made it his personal mission over the last few weeks to point out--correctly I believe--that there has been an anti-Clinton/pro-Obama slant to much of the mainstream political coverage this election cycle. Though I'm rooting for Obama, I think there's no doubt that this phenomenon is real, at least to some extent. The worst offender is, by far, Abram's colleague Chris Matthews, who wears his emotions on his sleeve, but it's not hard to find other examples of reporters who seem to be putting their thumbs on the scale.

That said, the examples Abrams cites on his show strike me as being totally off the mark. On tonight's show, he went on and on about how reporters are over-hyping Obama's recent string of victories and only showing the polls that are most favorable to Obama. He was outraged by this blatant favoritism, and claimed that if Obama and Clinton's positions were reversed, reporters would be talking about how close the race is, not about Hillary's momentum.

This claim strikes me as ridiculous. First of all, based on what I've seen, all the polls are being reported, and many of them favor Clinton. Moreover, if reporters are ignoring polls that are favorable to Clinton, that can only help Clinton. Given how desperate both campaigns are to lower expectations prior to each contest, the Clinton campaign would like nothing better than to have reporters ignore favorable polls numbers. Remember, Clinton only won New Hampshire by two points, but because she was seen as such an underdog there, her slim win was characterized as a major victory and her campaign was given a new lease on life.

Second, and more importantly, I think Abrams is actually highlighting the one area where there is a pro-Clinton slant to campaign coverage. Both Hillary and Bill get more than their share of unfair press coverage, but it's just flat out inaccurate to suggest that the media is somehow over-hyping Obama's recent string of victories. The fact is that since Super Tuesday, Obama has won eight straight primaries and caucuses, all of them by overwhelming margins. If the reverse were true, the media would have long ago written Obama off. He would be treated much like Mike Huckabee is now, as someone who is soldiering on despite having no realistic chance at success.

But the reality is, despite Obama's string of impressive victories, most of the press coverage has focused on how close the race is and how the outcome might hinge on the votes of super delegates, etc. Obama's growing lead in pledged delegates is almost always obscured by the inclusion of super delegate numbers, which make it seem as if both candidates have earned roughly the same number. In other words, I think the coverage on this point has been exceedingly fair to Clinton.

Indeed, I'd go as far as to say that this is the one area where the media has been more than fair to Clinton. To reinforce this point, consider what the headlines will be if Hillary Clinton wins the Wisconsin primary tomorrow. If that happens, I'm virtually certain that the story all week will be that Hillary is back. And that will be the case even if she only wins Wisconsin by a few points and simultaneously loses Hawaii, running her record to 1-9 over the last ten contests.

In other words, while eight straight blowout victories has earned Obama some bragging rights, much of that will be undone, at least from the media's perspective, by even a narrow loss in Wisconsin.

All of this is basically a long way of saying that while I think there is an anti-Clinton bias to much of the political reporting this election cycle, it is by no means uniform or all-encompassing. There are some aspects of campaign coverage in which Clinton has a clear advantage.