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July 22, 2008
Categories: Barack Obama

Obama trip dominates news cycle

Did you hear that Obama is traveling overseas? Well, in the past week, (June 14-20), more than one third of campaign coverage "focused on Iraq and Afghanistan and Obama’s trip," according a study by the Project for Excellence in Journalism.

Similar to every week since the general election race began, Obama dominated media coverage, appearing significantly in 83 percent of campaign stories, with McCain at 52 percent.

That advantage for Obama is only slightly higher than what he has enjoyed throughout this early phase of the general election period. In the six weeks since Hillary Clinton suspended her campaign and the general election phase began, Obama has been a significant factor in 78% of the stories and McCain in 51%. The closest they have come in coverage was the week of June 30 through July 6, when Obama enjoyed an 11 percentage point advantage (73% of stories about Obama vs. 62% for McCain).

There were some other storylines in the campaign last week. After Obama’s trip (23% of the campaign newshole) and Iraq as an issue (another 13%), came the appearance of the two candidates before the NAACP (12%) and controversy over a satirical New Yorker magazine cover (10%).

The Obama tour is already being covered extensively, with still four more stops to go after today. So even if McCain tries to steal the show with a VP pick, it seems nearly impossible that Obama won't lead in next week's coverage study, too.

By Michael Calderone 10:00 AM

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I am seriously getting Obama overload from all this news coverage, and the biased, glowing coverage does not help. He's way over-exposed.

Posted By: Kate | July 22, 2008 at 10:06 AM

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"Similar to every week since the general election race began, Obama dominated media coverage, appearing significantly in 83 percent of campaign stories, with McCain at 52 percent." I find it ironic that Obama coverage is viewed as an advantage to his campaign, when, in fact, most of the coverage prior to his Middle East trip, has been NEGATIVE coverage. I might add that McCain has only himself to blame being the lead instigator in this coverage with his many inaccurate accounts of Obama's positions.

Posted By: nobillary | July 22, 2008 at 01:41 PM

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So, is it really true that this trip is being taken under the guise of BO doing a senatorial fact finding mission, so therefore, we the taxpayers get to foot the bill for the foreign love fest??? If so, why does the press plane have his campaign slogan??? Oh, and where the frick is the American flag???

Posted By: dmooney | July 22, 2008 at 02:39 PM

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