Does the media unfairly dissect Romney — and go easy on Obama?

In a controversial article, Politico accuses fellow news outlets of squashing stories that reflect badly on Obama while scrounging for any bit of dirt on Romney

Mitt Romney
(Image credit: Rick Friedman/Corbis)

"Republicans are livid with the early coverage of the 2012 general election campaign," say Jim VandeHei and Mike Allen at Politico. The New York Times has published a front-page article on Ann Romney's horse-riding hobby — implying that the Romneys are "silly rich" and "a tad shady" — but buried revelations that Obama was a shameless high-school pothead inside the A section. Similarly, The Washington Post went big with an article "that hit Mitt Romney for bullying a kid who might have been gay," an incident "invested with far more significance than it merited." (Both the Times and the Post have aggressively pushed back against Politico's claims, and the influential website has been accused of publishing an "astonishingly bad piece of reporting.") Politico's controversial article has renewed an always-polarizing discussion about whether the media has failed to vet Obama. Is the media really protecting Obama?

The media is clearly in love with Obama: "Good on Allen and Vandehei to state the obvious here," says Mark Hemingway at The Weekly Standard. The Politico piece "generously lets prominent Republicans air some pretty legitimate complaints." Just don't expect The Times and The Post "to be chastened into providing balanced coverage of the candidates."

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