Numbers don’t tell you everything, but they give you a sense that the earth may be round. Washington Post ombudsman Deborah Howell counted up the Post’s campaign stories, their focus, and balance, and before she reveals the obvious results she tells us that, “numbers don’t tell you everything, but they give you a sense of The Post’s priorities.”

Ed Morrissey of Hot Air continues:

 

Ombud Deborah Howell’s column goes on to justify or at least rationalize the imbalance:

Stories and photos about Obama in the news pages outnumbered those devoted to McCain. Post reporters, photographers and editors — like most of the national news media — found the candidacy of Obama, the first African American major-party nominee, more newsworthy and historic. Journalists love the new; McCain, 25 years older than Obama, was already well known and had more scars from his longer career in politics.

So that must mean they absolutely adored Sarah Palin and gave her the same benefit of the doubt, right?  Er, no:

When Gov. Sarah Palin was nominated for vice president, reporters were booking the next flight to Alaska. Some readers thought The Post went over Palin with a fine-tooth comb and neglected Biden. They are right; it was a serious omission.

The hell with Joe Biden.  Howell never answers the real issue here — why did the Post, and the rest of the national media, go on the attack with Sarah Palin and not with Barack Obama?  The two candidates had a similar amount of time in politics, and Palin had more executive experience than Obama.  Obama ran for the top job, while Palin ran for VP.  And yet the national media parachuted dozens of reporters into Wasilla and Juneau looking for dirt and scandal, coming up with a tanning bed in the governor’s mansion (which Palin bought herself) and the Troopergate story that turned out to be a nothingburger and was already known prior to her nomination.

Where were the Post reporters doing the same thing in Chicago?  Why didn’t the Post want to look at the files of the Chicago Annenberg Challenge, Barack Obama’s only executive experience prior to his run for the presidency?  The media never bothered to make a hundredth of the effort on Obama that they did with Palin, and they had two years to do it.

 

Eric Allie

Eric Allie