Press coverage biased ‘in Obama’s favour’

THE founder of a prestigious institute on media and politics added his voice at the weekend to the chorus of complaints over perceived press bias in favour of Democrat Barack Obama.

Walter Shorenstein, a prominent San Francisco-based real estate developer, Democratic fundraiser and longtime supporter of Hillary Clinton, penned a memo to Democratic party “superdelegates” and other activists criticising media coverage of the presidential campaign. Shorenstein is the founder of the Joan Shorenstein Centre on the Press, Politics and Public Policy at Harvard University (Joan was his daughter, a media executive who died from cancer in 1985). The former first lady and her advisers have lashed out at the press in recent days suggesting unfair coverage has in part led to Obama’s victories in the last 11 voting contests.

In his memo, Shorenstein concurred with the Clinton campaign’s assessment.

“I am absolutely outraged with the media coverage of the presidential campaign,” wrote Shorenstein. “This is the most important election in my long lifetime, and to quote one of my favourite movies: ‘I’m mad as hell and I’m not going to take it anymore’.” He was quoting the 1976 movie Network, in which a mentally disturbed television news anchor played by Peter Finch went on the air and implored viewers to rebel against gimmicks staged by network news executives.

Shorenstein attached several studies to the memo indicating the press had given more favourable coverage to Obama and urged activists to forward the material to friends and voters and to complain to reporters.