Tilt?   

Did the media favor Bill Clinton, or did George Bush earn his negative coverage?

The aftermath of the second presidential debate in mid-October seemed to bring a coast-to-coast journalistic consensus. A full two weeks before Americans voted, the news media declared Bill Clinton the winner.

"Little Time Left For Any October Surprise," read a St. Louis Post-Dispatch headline. "Stick a fork in George; he's done," opined the Denver Post's editorial page. Newsweek made a big splash with its cover headline: "President Clinton? How He Would Govern."

Most journalists insist they were simply reflecting public sentiment, acknowledging the inevitability of Clinton's election and looking ahead to the consequences. To some supporters of George Bush and Ross Perot, though, the coverage then – and throughout the campaign – simply reflected the media's liberal bias.

Some of the complaints undoubtedly come from Republicans, still shell-shocked at having lost the presidency. But even some journalists suggest that the collective veil of objectivity was raised during the campaign's last two months.

"No one denies the press tilted toward Clinton during the campaign and was hostile to Bush," Fred Barnes wrote in the New Republic. "In pre-1992 days, journalists insisted they didn't really favor one candidate over another... This year the restraint was gone. Instead of denials, reporters offered explanations for their cheerleading for Clinton."

Added William A. Henry III in Time: "It is widely admitted in private that many journalists covering Bill Clinton feel generational affinity and unusual warmth toward him – and that much of the White House press corps disdains President Bush and all his works."

Veteran Clinton critic Paul Greenberg, editorial page editor of the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, agrees that there used to be "a kind of formal objectivity exercised. This year, the press seemed to be not quite as concerned with the impressions that it made. It would just regurgitate Clinton's lines or defend Clinton before [the campaign] had to."

Studies seem to back up the charges. The conservative Center for Media and Public Affairs analyzed network evening newscasts during the fall campaign and characterized 71 percent of the comments about Bush on the network evening newscasts as "negative." That compared to 48 percent negative comments about Clinton and 55 percent about Perot.

The Washington Post's ombudsman, Joann Byrd, examined the newspaper's photos, stories and headlines during the last 73 days of the campaign and concluded they were "very lopsided" in Clinton's favor. Executive Editor Leonard Downie Jr. says the newspaper should have run more stories toward the campaign's end summarizing earlier scrutiny of Clinton's gubernatorial record.

Many voters also sensed that there was favoritism. A November poll by the Times Mirror Center for the People and the Press found that 35 percent of voters surveyed nationwide felt that the press had been unfair to Bush. Another 27 percent felt Perot was treated unfairly while 19 percent thought Clinton was treated unfairly.

Other surveys – the most recent released in November by the Freedom Forum – concluded that journalists are more likely to identify with the Democratic Party than the public at large does.

Regardless of whether or not journalists were rooting for Clinton, it was only natural that Bush received tougher coverage in 1992 than he had four years earlier. The economy was lagging. Voters were restive. Bush's campaign was in disarray.

Reporters, meanwhile, seemed to develop a certain attraction for Clinton, or at least for his campaign, interviews with journalists, political observers and media critics suggest. Perhaps it was his ideology, or a generational pull, or that a prospective Clinton administration was a better story. Some thought the media were misguided in declaring him the winner weeks before the election.

Nevertheless, only the most conservative and conspiratorial media critics would suggest that journalists threw the election. Journalists are generally too cynical about politicians and too competitive with one another to take sides that easily. Besides, if they were that biased and that powerful, how did Republicans win five of the six previous presidential campaigns?

Yet widespread doubts about the coverage persist. Why did so many readers, viewers and journalists perceive a tilt, especially in the campaign's last two months?

There were some critical facts no good reporter could ignore.

The first, and most obvious, was that nothing affected Bush's reelection bid more than the public's perception of his presidency. Two years ago he was riding high in the wake of the Persian Gulf War, pumped up by the national media's portrait of the president as a courageous and decisive leader respected worldwide. The Democrats who lined up to run against him were largely derided as second-tier candidates.

But Bush's popularity plummeted, largely because of growing concerns about the recession and doubts about his ability to spur economic growth. Far from leading this effort, the media seemed to be as unprepared for voter disenchantment as Bush was when it first appeared in New Hampshire.

By the fall, unemployment hovered at about 7.5 percent and voters were anxious about the future. Many of the formulas designed by political scientists to measure the economy's effect on a presidential election presaged a Bush defeat.

Bush repeatedly cited a two-year study by the Center for Media and Public Affairs that found 91 percent of comments about the economy on the networks' evening news were "negative." The implication was that voters were being brainwashed. But it seems unlikely that viewers could subscribe to any economic outlook that didn't make sense in light of their own experiences. A majority of voters wouldn't have believed Ronald Reagan's "It's morning again in America" in 1984 if it hadn't reflected the optimism of the time.

"Voters are not empty vessels," says Richard Harwood, a former deputy managing editor and one-time ombudsman for the Washington Post. "They know what is happening in their own lives." Adds Thomas Patterson, a Syracuse University political science professor: "What cost Bush reelection was the same thing that cost Jimmy Carter reelection in 1980. You don't want to be the incumbent when the economy is sour and the immediate outlook isn't good. Almost always that means change."

While Clinton generally fared well during the fall, it can hardly be said that he enjoyed a free ride throughout the year. All three candidates rode a media roller coaster.

After being anointed – prematurely, in the eyes of some – as the early Democratic front-runner, Clinton was pounded for his alleged affair with Gennifer Flowers, avoiding the draft and shiftily answering questions about smoking marijuana. Hillary Clinton was portrayed as a radical. A Time cover story in April – later featured in a Bush ad – set out to explain "Why voters don't trust Clinton."

Characterizations of all three candidates often were shaped by their standings in the polls. This amplified rather than led public opinion. When Bush appeared to be losing, journalists "took it to be their mission to explain why this guy was such an irredeemable schlub as to be trailing in the polls," observes Richard Ben Cramer, author of "What It Takes: The Way to the White House," a chronicle of the 1988 primaries. When a Gallup poll in the campaign's final week indicated that Bush might be catching up, "the mission [was] to explain what sterling qualities have enabled this sterling character to fight back."

Newsweek portrayed various aspects of the Bush campaign as dire: consulting with British Prime Minister John Major's campaign staff "may seem a little desperate" (September 21), considering whether to replace budget director Richard Darman "may be a measure of the Bush campaign's desperation" (October 5), promising to anoint James Baker as domestic czar was a "desperation move" (October 19), and a Joe Klein column was headlined, "Bush's Desperate Game" (October 19).

Regardless of how they were characterized, Bush's charges against Clinton were widely aired. Thomas B. Rosenstiel, a media writer for the Los Angeles Times, says network coverage during the fall often showed Bush on the attack. Clinton's environmental record, draft avoidance, Moscow trip, lack of foreign policy experience and alleged propensity to waffle on issues were played prominently. It wasn't that Bush wasn't being heard, Rosenstiel says. "He never changed the dynamics of the race even though he was driving the press agenda."

"The main reason the president has received a bad press," Newsweek media critic Jonathan Alter concluded, "is that he's done badly."

Bush showed all the marks of a losing candidate, including serious division within his own ranks. "Republicans were constantly complaining that Bush is losing, running a bad campaign," the Post's Downie says. Moreover, conservative columnists William Safire and George Will were among Bush's harshest critics.

Media analysts couldn't miss the fact that Bush's campaign was failing. "I think the press was one-sided," Reed Irvine, chairman of the arch-conservative Accuracy in Media, told the New York Times. "But Bush had just as many opportunities to get his message across and he did a lousy job."

Even so, journalists are now questioning whether Clinton got better coverage than he deserved.

Reporters who covered Clinton were attracted to his informal style, love of politics, optimism and command of policy. They found it more exciting to write about Clinton's ideas, his aides, his family and friends, and his quest for a moderate Democratic ideology than to rehash stories about Bush.

"Reporters are biased in favor of a good story; it's their bread and butter," says Stephen Hess, a Brookings Institution senior fellow who focuses on the press. "An administration in office 12 years was no longer as interesting a story as a new administration would be."

Four years after following around dour Michael Dukakis, reporters' hopes for a more interesting campaign crystallized with Clinton and Al Gore's bus trips. Downie found reporters getting so caught up in the hoopla that he spiked one story on the bus trip and ordered that another be toned down. But, he adds, "It wasn't just us, it was the country that was euphoric about change."

Much was made of the generational appeal the Clinton-Gore ticket had on voters, but it held some sway with some baby boomers who covered the campaign, too. From agonizing over the Vietnam War to experimenting with marijuana, journalists who came of age in the 1960s found a kindred spirit in Clinton, says Larry J. Sabato, a University of Virginia political science professor. "His problems were their problems in a way they could never relate to Bush."

Perhaps the public detects more of a media bias because it is receiving more analysis and less straight recitation of the day's events. Journalists believe that is the only way to deliver in-depth coverage and avoid being manipulated by the campaigns. They are therefore more likely to cover issues, strategy and ads than what the candidates say.

Paul Friedman, executive producer of ABC's "World News Tonight," says the network aired 30 "American Agenda" pieces, spending four minutes at a time analyzing candidates' positions on issues. Correspondents also focused on trends and the campaign process, Friedman says, "in an effort not to be caught falling for a canned sound bite or a visual image that the campaign wanted us to have."

NBC Political Director Bill Wheatley says the network concentrated more on issues and the character of the candidates than the "here they come, there they go" approach of summarizing life on the campaign trail. He says the network ended up doing more "truth-telling" than it had anticipated about statements made on the campaign trail and in ads.

Many hailed the media for analyzing television commercials, given the ads' importance and potential to mislead voters. However, Sabato and some conservative groups question whether it's right for the media to act as a referee. They assert that the "truth-telling" often was overstated and tended to be tougher on Bush than Clinton. Others argue that could be because the Bush campaign ads were actually more misleading.

Providing daily analysis without being colored by one's own prejudices has long been a difficult balancing act for journalists. "There's a thin line between point of view and bias," says Deborah Howell, Newhouse News Service Washington bureau chief.

Readers and viewers are more likely to think that line has been blurred than reporters. "They tell us they want analysis, background, interpretation, and when we do that and it's not entirely keeping with their view of the world, they say we're biased," says Ellen Debenport, the St. Petersburg Times political editor who once covered Clinton from Little Rock for UPI. By traveling with the candidates, listening to their speeches and combing through issue papers, Debenport says, "I'm probably one of the best informed voters in America, and yet when I say the slightest thing someone disagrees with, I'm the one who's biased."

Political reporters take it as a matter of faith that their insight qualifies them to fairly analyze campaigns, but some readers and viewers disagree. One of the disenchanted is Marina Ein, president of the Washington public relations firm Ein Communications and a self-described moderate Republican, who chafed at the Washington Post's campaign coverage.

"That is exactly the extraordinary arrogance of the media today," Ein says when Debenport's remarks are repeated to her. "Who in God's name cares that this woman feels as though she's well informed?.. The press is literally a very small group of voices with a very, very narrow frame of reference."

Ein wants to get more of her political news straight from the candidates, without the filter of analysis. Sabato, on the other hand, recognizes the importance of political analysis. But he thinks newsrooms ought to be more diversified and include more conservative voices.

Once the debates began, the focus on Clinton's fortunes intensified. During the weekend of October 17, after the second presidential debate, the outcome seemed sealed. Or so the media reported.

"Analysis – Denial, anger and acceptance: The Bush campaign is moving through the classic stages of loss," the San Jose Mercury News told its readers. "Perot seems to accept role as noncontender," the Boston Globe concluded.

Wasn't this a bit premature two weeks before Election Day? Ellen Hume, senior fellow at the Joan Shorenstein Barone Center on the Press, Politics and Public Policy at Harvard University, thinks so. "They should have exercised more discretion," she says, "and held back more from making it seem that the election was over already."

Alan Ehrenhalt, executive editor of Governing magazine, doesn't see how that would work. "It was not the job of the media," he says, "to suppress the fact that Bush was about to lose the election."

The way viewers and candidates embraced the "new media," speaking directly to one another without journalistic intervention, was unsettling to some reporters. "We can certainly learn that we're not as needed as we would like to think we are," Howell says. Candidates "can bypass us and go directly to Larry King, and not pass go."

But no matter how enlightening a call-in show may be, it doesn't substitute for a challenging round with journalists – assuming journalists can move beyond campaign strategy to talk about issues.

The problem is that many readers and viewers do not understand – or accept – the role of a political reporter. They are not buying the notion that reporters are objective, or even fair.

Jon Katz, media writer for Rolling Stone, says people resent journalists not for having opinions, but for pretending that they don't. He says the public sensed that "journalists despise Bush and were dying for someone like Clinton to defeat him." Katz suggests that the media provide a greater diversity of opinions and re-examine the intense focus on candidates' personal lives that blurs the line between "Washington reporters and FBI agents."

Hume, who covered the 1988 presidential campaign for the Wall Street Journal, would like to see campaign analyses periodically linked with stories on the backgrounds and beliefs of the reporters who cover campaigns, as well as occasional explanations of what constitutes straight news stories, analyses and editorial endorsements.

Some journalists wonder if the propensity of analysis gives an overly negative cast to the coverage, portraying all of the candidates as conniving manipulators. In doing so, the media may be seen as responsible as elected officials for the gridlock and cynicism in Washington.

Wheatley finds this especially troubling. Despite the fact that the media did a better job covering the presidential campaign than in 1988, he says, it may be that "the public considers the media part of the power structure, part of what's not working in this country, and holds us responsible for the fact that there's a great many problems."

Even ABC's Friedman, who is wary of self-flagellation over campaign coverage, says, "I worry about whether our seemingly relentless criticism of the process adds to the cynicism."

The tone of coverage also leads to a fractured view of candidates, unconnected to their past and to the electorate, Cramer says. "All of the candidates end up depersonalized and dehumanized in the view of the press because there's never a chance to make them human beings whose stories we can identify with... We voters get the sense that the candidates are great manipulators. And because we have no full or fleshy sense of their lives that came before then, we get the feeling they are kind of empty suits into which this transcontinental manipulation has been poured."

Perhaps the media did go overboard in their determination not to be manipulated by the campaigns, as many thought they were in 1988. The propensity to describe candidates as cynically and desperately plotting to woo voters may have fallen disproportionately on Bush and Perot. Clinton quite likely did come across better to readers and viewers. Generational, ideological and journalistic reasons all played a part.

And yet, it is hardly the case that the media seriously and consciously distorted the fall coverage in Clinton's favor.

A plurality of voters in 1992 felt that the Democratic candidate best embodied their hopes for the future and was best prepared to improve the economy. The campaign coverage reflected that. Ignoring this critical element would have been a distortion indeed. l

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