Posted on 11/21/2008 5:36:03 PM PST by wagglebee
Washington, DC (LifeNews.com) -- If some Americans voted for Barack Obama for president without knowing his strong pro-abortion views, a new Pew study finds the media is partly to blame. The new Pew Forum study found less than 1 percent of campaign news coverage related to abortion issues.
The Pew study examined 7,592 campaign stories from 48 news outlets during the general election.
They covered from June 1, the week that the primaries ended and Hillary Clinton suspended her campaign, to October 15, the day of the last presidential debate.
Pew found only 283 stories in which religion or religious issues played a significant role and only 9 percent of these stories covered the issues of abortion or stem cell research, with abortion getting the most attention of the two.
Although abortion was covered more prominently in previous presidential elections, Pew found this year was an exception.
Pew's report said the coverage abortion and pro-life issues did receive "tended to come in the form of reaction to statements by the candidates and quickly receded without generating any sustained narrative."
When the mainstream media bothered to cover pro-life issues, a good portion of it centered around criticism of Governor Sarah Palin.
"Culture war issues were not a driving narrative of this election cycle. The extent to which they were present, they emerged late in the campaign and were largely tied to the nomination of Palin," Pew explained.
"When Palin was introduced to the nation as McCain’s running mate, her parenting choices raised the issue of abortion, but only momentarily," Pew added. "These stories on Palin’s biography usually fell short of examining how her belief system informs her policy choices."
Other coverage was limited to the week of the Saddleback forum.
"In one of the more episodic narratives – evangelical megachurch pastor Rick Warren’s presidential forum held at his church – the candidates’ answers on a question about abortion gained attention in the press the week of the event," Pew said.
The forum drew brief but intense media coverage -- it made up 10% of all campaign coverage the week it occurred -- but quickly dropped to 5% the following week. By the end of August, it was no longer a major press topic at all. Still, that was enough to have that one event account for 11% of religion-focused campaign coverage in the general election.
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It’s because John McCain didn’t make it an issue. If we had had a Conservative running instead, the life debate would have taken center stage.
Bambi,...We hardly knew you!
I asked any number of people if they were aware that he fought hard to have children born alive from a failed abortion left to die alone and without even palliative care and they were shocked and had never heard such a thing.
How frightening that our Pravda media did not even have to be forced to take the DNC line. They did this willingly.
Most of the fault has to fall on the Republicans. We didn’t bring it up. Then again would talking more about it and less about the economy and security changed things? Who knows.
Exactly, this is a major issue for conservatives and McCain ignored it.
Pew Study Finds Less Than One Percent of Election Coverage Included Abortion
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That’s still more than illegal immigration came up. ;-)
I can’t think of even one major issue that was covered during this campaign.
And McCain was really given a huge opportunity in the debate to knock Obama across the head with a 2 by 4 on the Born Alive Act, and instead McCain wiffed.
McCain seemed to like being the underdog - the “maverick” fighting against the powers that be.
I’ve seen people who give up their chance to win....in order to play the part of the loser.
They were too busy covering “hope” and “change”.
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