A study released today by Mediachannel.org demonstrates the media bias of the national broadcast news networks -- and the disparity of treatment of George Bush and John Kerry isn't subtle in the least:

The report reveals a strong negative cast to ABC, CBS and NBC news coverage of the president thus far in 2004. Meanwhile, Senator John Kerry, Bush's certain opponent for November, has received more positive coverage by the same three networks.

According to data compiled for MediaChannel.org by international media monitoring firm Media Tenor, network news broadcasts in January and February contained on average nearly three times more negative news statements about President Bush than about Senator John Kerry.

This trend is demonstrated on all three major network news broadcasts, but none so pronounced as on CBS, where 35% of statements about Bush were negative, as opposed to 8% positive. In contrast, CBS was positive about John Kerry 38% of the time, closely followed by ABC and NBC in the mid-thirties as well. Positive Bush statements averaged 11.9% across all networks, with NBC being the most positive.

When pundits like Eric Alterman attempt to claim that the American mass media is either neutral or conservatively biased, you can read this report and determine their credibility on all other issues. If you can't figure this out just by listening to their broadcasts, then you are either hopelessly extreme or completely clueless. (via Blogs for Bush)

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