Only a minority of Gore backers see the media as biased, not surprisingly, but 35 percent of those who do concede that their man has gotten more than an even break. Bush by and large has better relations with his press corps than Gore does with his. When Gore was behind in the spring, his campaign was portrayed as constantly making mistakes. Since Sept. 4, according to the Center for Media and Public Affairs, comments about Gore on the ABC, CBS and NBC evening newscasts have been 55 percent positive, compared with 35 percent positive for Bush. By contrast, Bush got 62 percent positive evaluations in July.
Most journalists dismiss such charges of liberal bias as a stale stereotype.
First, they say reporters personally like Bush, who enjoys slapping backs and giving journalists nicknames, and that the governor garnered plenty of favorable headlines from the moment he jumped into the race in the summer of 1999. Second, they say that once Gore shed his lackluster image and surged in the polls after the Democratic convention, it was inevitable that the media spotlight would focus on how he managed to overtake Bush. But conservatives from Rush Limbaugh to Robert Novak scoff at such explanations. What really riles those on the right is the conviction that not all gaffes are treated equally by the media. For example, they say, the rats were big news and the dog was not.