ABC News Officially Endorses John McCain For President

After tonight’s broadcast of ABC News with Charlie Gibson, ABC might as well openly declare its support for John McCain.

Hours after first watching it, I’m still stunned at just how blatant its bias was. About the only good thing I can say about it is that at this point Charlie Gibson and George Stephanopoulos are so confident that they won’t be held accountable that they are getting arrogant and sloppy. As a result, tonight they made some glaring mistakes that make it easy to prove their bias towards McCain.

Here’s a video from the broadcast, followed by a writeup documenting the many ways in which it was biased.

Of the five points, the third is the most clear cut example of bias on purely objective grounds, but I think that each demonstrate clear bias towards McCain.

1. Gibson started by setting up John McCain’s most recent Iraq surge attack on Barack Obama, parroting McCain’s attack almost verbatim, without any critical analysis. He then allowed McCain to speak unfiltered for nearly a full minute, attacking Barack Obama the entire time. Gibson did not give the Obama campaign an opportunity to respond.
• Also worth noting: In addition to not giving the Obama campaign a chance to respond, Gibson failed to report on John McCain’s stunning flip-flop (at least rhetorically) on the virtue of a 16-month timetable.
2. Gibson then jumped to Obama in France, saying the Sarkozy had lavished “effusive” praise upon Obama that “bordered on an endorsement.” By itself, this might have been a fair segment, but it was a highly suggestive way to phrase things, particularly in light of the previous story in which McCain had challenged Barack Obama on issues of war and peace.
3. Gibson then turned to George Stephanopoulos to discuss polling in the wake of Obama’s overseas trip.
   • He noted that Obama is leading in national polls, but then said that recent state polls show Obama is losing ground in key swing states. Stephanopoulos then took over, using as evidence three new Quinnipiac ("Q") polls (Colorado, Michigan, and Minnesota).
   • Stephanopoulos failed to disclose the dates that the polls were taken and curiously excluded a fourth Q poll released in the swing state of Wisconsin on the same day as the other three. (The Wisconsin poll had Obama leading by 11.)
   • Gibson asked Stephanopoulos to explain why the polls were tightening, but Stephanopoulos failed to note that these polls were outliers. (For example, while the Q poll in Minnesota does show a tightening race, Pollster.com shows Obama with a 12.5% average lead, even factoring in the Q poll.)
   • Stephanopoulos concluded his discussion of the Q polls by saying that there’s no question that Barack Obama hasn’t seen evidence of a bump in the polls after his overseas trip. The thing Stephanopoulos didn’t tell viewers was that none of the polls were conducted afterbefore his most high profile event, the speech in Germany. In fact, the polls were conducted from the 14th-22nd, so they were mostly conducted while Barack Obama was still on U.S. soil. Stephanopoulos must have been aware of that information, which leads to the conclusion that he intentionally withheld it deceive his viewing audience.
   • Stephanopoulos also failed to note that both the national tracking polls of both Gallup (+5) and Rasmussen (+4) showed Barack Obama gaining ground from before he left for the trip.
4. Gibson closed the discussion with Stephanopoulos by raising what he said the McCain campaign described as a serious error: Barack Obama’s decision to not visit troops in Germany. Of course, it seems very likely that some politics was played by the DoD to screw around with Obama, and in any case, the whole issue is entirely symbolic, certainly not more important than probing McCain's flip-flop on timetables. Predictably, Stephanopoulos agreed with McCain that Obama should have gone to visit the soldiers. (Update: Joe Sudbay has even more evidence that politics was played.)
5. Gibson finished by promoting Stephanopolous’ interview with McCain this Sunday from Phoenix, Arizona, and for no apparent reason, he said that he was confident that mccain would talk about the German troop visit issue again. Hmm. How does he know?

It should now be clear that ABC News cannot be trusted -- its journalistic integrity has been succesfuly challenged far too many times. At this point, we have to acknowledge that ABC News is at least as pro-McCain as FOX News, and its impact is certainly far more insidious because most people don’t realize just how tilted their “news” really is.

Now, as far as what to do about it? I don't honestly know. It starts with documenting their bias and telling your friends and family to not trust ABC News. That isn't to say that ABC will never provide useful information, but it is to say that news from ABC must be viewed with an especially critical eye.

And if I were giving advice to the Obama campaign, it would be this: read both Gibson and Stephanopoulos the riot act over their blatant bias. It's clear where they both want to go with their coverage, but the brighter a light we are able to shine on it, the harder it will be for them to spread their partisan political propaganda.

(By the way, if you have any questions about just how biased these two guys are, just take another look at their Philadelphia debate performances.)