I’ve said it so many times that I’ve lost count: Counting words and measuring column inches are lousy measures of a newspaper’s fairness and balance. Numbers aren’t words, and cold calculation hardly reflects what readers perceive in The Kansas City Star.
Case in point these days: the presidential election. The last two weeks brought both major parties’ vice presidential choices and their conventions, and most media sources The Star included blew the doors off in their coverage.
The morning after Barack Obama’s Aug. 28 acceptance speech at the Democrats’ convention, The Star’s front page was dominated by a large photo at the top, along with the headline, Obama tells America, We cannot turn back.’”
“It’s so over the top that I can’t believe it,” said one caller. “You even put The Kansas City Star’ name right over the picture. This looks like an ad sponsored by your paper.”
Another reader, a self-described “staunch conservative,” had a different view: “I don’t see anything wrong with it with the assumption that The Star will have the same play the morning after the Republican convention is finished in Minneapolis next week.”
The follow-up on Sept. 5 was at least equitable to my eyes. A large, vertically-oriented photo of McCain waving to the crowd ran beneath the huge headline quote: “Fight for what’s right.” Here, only two other stories shared the page, whereas Obama’s had three neighbors.
“I guess you all thought this was some kind of payback for the nice photos of Obama last week,” said a caller about the McCain cover. “Put me down in the camp of those who think this kind of reasoning is misguided. Barack Obama as the Democratic Party choice is more important than McCain.”
That last bit is debatable but I think that’s at least partly behind many conservatives’ impression that The Star and other sources are biased towards Obama. His candidacy is a major milestone for this nation: The first time anyone other than a white male has led one of the major parties’ ticket. Regardless of the person’s platform or beliefs, it’s a watershed moment, and I think it’s only natural that it shakes things up and gets people talking.
I feel pretty confident that similar buzz will follow when a woman first gets the nod though Geraldine Ferraro and Sarah Palin have now softened the beaches with their vice presidential bids.
And though I said I don’t like numbers, I did go ahead and simply count the photos of each candidate from Aug. 1 to Sept. 5, after the GOP convention. In The Star, Obama came out ahead: 46 images to McCain’s 35. But those are partially misleading numbers, as some images of both men were used to illustrated negative opinion pieces about them.
The next eight weeks will bring plenty more about the election. I’m sure I’ll be back down this road again.
