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WASHINGTON, October 27, 2004 (LifeSiteNews.com) – Project for Excellence in Journalism has reviewed over 800 news stories for the first two weeks of October and has concluded that the news media is ‘battering’ President Bush. The study shows that since the televised debates, more than half of all Bush stories studied were decidedly negative in tone where only a quarter of all Kerry stories were clearly negative.

That the mainstream media has favoured the socially liberal Kerry will not surprise pro-lifers, but it is a departure from the media’s coverage of the last presidential election.

In 2000, then-Texas Governor George W. Bush had largely positive coverage in the closing weeks, particularly from the debates, with twice as many positive stories as his rival Vice President Al Gore.

This election, the media, especially newspapers, have been decidedly critical of the president. 68 percent of daily newspaper stories or editorials about Bush were classified as negative, compared with only 26 percent of the stories about Kerry.  The study also notes the influence of the ‘bloggers’ who embarrassed CBS News by exposing fraudulent documents that accused Bush of shirking his National Guard duties. The phenomenon of independent journalists working from home on such sites as “littlegreenfootballs.com” have often contradicted and confounded mainstream media efforts to influence public opinion on the Bush presidency. Very often the group known collectively as the Iraqi Bloggers, working mostly from Baghdad, flatly contradicted mainstream reports of the circumstances of the Iraq war.  “The tendency toward negative tone stands out because it suggests the press is prone to act as an enabler, accomplice or conduit for negative campaigning,” the study states. “The study reinforces the sense that the press, at least the political press, has become highly interpretive and even judgemental in its approach,” it said. The study also found that only 14% of news stories related events in a “straightforward and factual manner.” The Project for Excellence in Journalism exists to “clarify and raise the standards of American journalism.”  Washington Times coverage:  https://www.washtimes.com/national/20041026-115155-4733r.htm   ph