The Vice Presidential Debates and the "Non-partisan balenced" coverage thereof.
I started looking at the Vice-Presidential Debates with the local paper the Star Tribune. The focus immediatley in the article was Palins inability to say anything of substance that plced her in a position of credibility for the Republican ticket. They sadi she was merely a puppet for the ticket and but did conceded that the previous eight years have seen some "huge blunders". For the credit of the Strib they did look evenly at the two candidates and fairly criticized Biden on his faults as well. This piece seemes to cofus on what the candidates said against each other rather than the substance of thier message.
Looking into a smaller market paper, The Intelligencer out of West Virginia made a solid statement that Palin had stood her ground well and held the pressure of Biden and his more experienced tenure as a politician. In general the coverage that the Intelligencer provided was a very basic blow by blow of what the candidates had talked about during the debate. It offered no in depth analysis of the debates or even and opinion of who had won. While there did seem to be bit of a bias towards the Republican ticket because they led off with Palins remarks, it seemes farily even coverage.
The Washington Post said Sarah Palin came in a a much more confident and leader-ready individual to break her previous image of nevousness and fragility behind the camera. They thought she cam across as knowledgable with the exception of what the vice president does. Biden presented himself as very compitent and has the ability to take care of the issues. He squarely took charge of what his responsibilities would be as a VP candidate. Bidens appeal to the people showed a very poised individual who knew his role in the future of government. While this also was a very play-by-play look, it was much more in deapth and with greater understanding of what the candidates were actually saying.