Comparing Media

Mitt Romney released his 2011 tax returns after much criticism for his previous refusal to do so.

The Mercury News posted an online article the day of the release that presented an almost fair and balanced report.

The story is 10 graphs long and includes a link to the front page of the Romney's tax return.

Sources included Romney "campaign officials," a paraphrased statement from Brad Malt, the Romney's trustee, and the newspaper's own interpretation of the tax form.

They also noted President Obama as one of his critics, but failed to include direct quotes from anyone.

I mentioned that the article was an almost balanced report because they did not delve into comparing Romney's tax rate to that of the average American.

Other media sources made this comparison and it seemed to be inserted for the purpose of swaying people rather than informing them.

The Mercury News used the most named sources compared to the other media outlets I visited.

The story was written much like the usual print story and didn't really differ in many ways other than the ability to update it quickly.

NPR ran a two minute 58 second story regarding the release.

Their story consisted of the two radio personalities discussing the story, along with a short sound bite of Romney talking about his taxes one month ago.

The radio program managed to go into a bit of a backstory in the short segment, and spoke about how Romney essentially overpaid in 2011 so that he would have a higher tax rate.

They hinted that this was done purposefully in order for the taxes to match what Romney had previously told the media he thought he would pay.

They explained that he claimed less of his charitable donations than permitted so that he would  pay a higher rate.

According to NPR, the average American pays about 18 percent on their income taxes.

Local ABC affiliate, KGO-TV, provided coverage similar to the radio broadcast in regard to the sources used.

They used a clip of Romney speaking about his income taxes prior to the release of his 2011 returns and attributed information they had to his spokespersons. 

The whole story ran for approximately two minutes and began with a tie-in to Romney's previous comments about the 47 percent at the beginning of the week.

This was certainly used to grab the attention of the viewer.

The voice-over reporter explained that Romney can legally pay a low rate because there are perks to capital gains and investment income.

The strange thing about this story, and the thing that set it apart as perhaps the worst coverage, was that KGO-TV reported the average American's tax rate to be around 35 percent.

I am not exactly sure how they got that number but it seems pretty far from the 18 or 20 percent that other sources reported.

While I do enjoy the added enhancements that are possible with television or radio news broadcasts, a good old fashioned article reigned supreme for this story.

Neither KGO-TV nor NPR was able to add any soundbites from Romney that we haven't seen or heard before.

Both also seemed to add their own twist by using the comparison between Romney and the average Joe.

It's as if they are trying to hint that he is "out of touch" with the American people, a sentiment that has become tiresome even though I agree.

The Mercury News provided a straightforward presentation and allowed the criticism by Mr. Obama and others to say what they didn't and shouldn't.