Losing His Magic Touch?

Barack Obama has “suffered the most unrelentingly negative treatment” at the hands of the media as the battle for his job heats up.
According to a new study by the Pew Research Centre’s ‘Project for Excellence in Journalism’, negative assessments of Obama have outweighed positive by a ratio of almost 4 to 1 in the news media in recent weeks.
Over the last five months, no week has seen more than 10 per cent of coverage of the president positive in tone.
Anyone would think Americans are unhappy about something.
While the figures are perhaps not surprising in these economic times, they are certainly a worry for a president so often portrayed as being the darling of the liberal media machine in the United States.
Especially as the study’s scope covers the early months of the race for the White House.
For much of it Texas Governor Rick Perry was receiving both the most and the most positive news coverage.
Two weeks ago, after a dodgy TV debate performance and a poor showing in the ‘straw poll’ in Florida, he was suddenly being outshone by rival Herman Cain.
Interestingly, the study found that “the blogosphere, it turns out, is proving a much rougher environment than the news media for candidates, including contenders associated with the Tea Party movement.”
If you like stats, here’s what they reveal about Obama: 9% of the news coverage about him over the last five months has registered as positive while 34% has been negative and 57% has been neutral or largely straight news accounting of events.
The tone of Obama’s coverage on blogs, while still overwhelmingly negative, was slightly better with 14% positive and 36% negative.
All this and the presidential seals were nicked on the first day of his bus tour across North Carolina and Virginia.
The road ahead could be bumpy – especially if the media climate has turned against him.