It might be Democrat v. Democrat in November

“In the election last night, sound bites and personality profiles finished a strong first and second. Real issues, which came in at a distant third, might drop out of the race.”

In the race for media attention, both Democratic candidates are scoring sweeping victories. For the week of February 11 to the 17th, Hillary Clinton has snagged headlines twice as often as McCain has, and slightly more than her rival Barack Obama (a two percent difference).

Despite winning 57 percent of the political stories, the tone of pieces highlighting Clinton was generally more negative than stories about Obama.

The media, as it is wont to do, has all but ignored Huckabee. He may be refusing to back down, but major news organizations don’t seem to care and do little more than afford him the occasional pat on the head. His percent of the campaign stories for the week was a dismal ten percent – his highest in the past month. (The week before Super Tuesday, Huckabee was all but forgotten, with only three percent of news stories going to him.)

Cable television news spent 62 percent of airtime waging their tongues about the elections. Radio came in second place with a slightly less pervasive 46 percent of their coverage going toward the candidates.

Anchors continued their fair and balanced use of biased language. Instead of saying by how much Obama was ahead of Clinton, or that a Clinton supporter was considering switching, Katie Couric said that “a chill went through Hillary Clinton's campaign today” during a Feb. 15 newscast.

And so went the week.

Source: PewResearch.org