Brendan Nyhan
NEW HAMPSHIRE One of the most frequent problems with campaign reporting is the way that journalists construct candidate-centric narratives that coincide with the ups and downs of the race.
Weve seen this pattern recur with Mitt Romney in the last few weeks. The weak May jobs report and economic turmoil in Europe have helped to push down the estimated probability of President Obamas re-election on the Intrade futures market by approximately five percentage points this month. With the GOP finally closing ranks behind its presumptive nominee, Romneys chances of winning appear stronger than ever.
As if on cue, the press corps that previously savaged Romney as a flip-flopper and phony has started to portray him in a more positive light (though soul-crushingly stupid gaffe coverage continues).
In particular, Romneys manner on the campaign trail, which has previously been derided as wooden and inauthentic, is now being described as more confident, which is journalism-speak for seeming more likely to win. During a CBS This Morning segment on June 8, for instance, reporter Jan Crawford said, On a campaign trail this week, Romney has sounded confident
And why not? In his first head-to-head fund-raising battle with the President, Romney came out on top
[T]he fund-raising numbers were just the latest example of a not-so-great week for Mister Obama`s reelection bid. Sam Youngman and Steve Holland of Reuters likewise portrayed an increasingly confident Mitt Romney in a June 14 dispatch that described the GOP nominees improved fundraising and polls immediately before describing him as [l]ooking confident and more relaxed than his wooden image would suggest. Finally, a June 14 commentary by E. Thomas McClanahan that ran in my local newspaper, the Valley News (NH), noted a nightmare of bad news for Obama before remarking that Romney, chronically off guard in the primaries, has been campaigning with more confidence.
http://www.cjr.org/swing_states_project/why_romney_looks_more_con.php
