Media, and the Need For Blogs

From the March 14th OpinionJournal.com:

What Liberal Media?
"U.S. media coverage of last year's election was three times more likely to be negative toward President Bush than Democratic challenger John Kerry, according to a study released Monday," Reuters reports:

The annual report by a press watchdog that is affiliated with Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism said that 36 percent of stories about Bush were negative compared to 12 percent about Kerry, a Massachusetts senator.

Now, a newsman might say in his industry's defense that the media were simply reporting the facts, and the haughty, French-looking Massachusetts Democrat, who by the way served in Vietnam, was simply a more appealing candidate than President Bush. Which we guess would explain why Kerry won . . .

See also

http://reuters.myway.com/article/20050314/2005-03-14T150130Z_01_N11229264_RTRIDST_0_NEWS-MEDIA-REPORT-DC.html

Update, 3/24/05 1:58pm: Now there's this backpedaling. Glenn has it right; why weren't they saying this before the election?

Keep in mind, this is from al-Reuters. But of course, the mainstream media are not left-leaning!