A new study finds that John Edwards doesn't exist.
Allow me to explain.
After John Edwards placed second in the Iowa caucus on January 3, Elizabeth Edwards took to the airwaves to argue that his finish should occasion the media to stop covering the Dem contest as little more than a showdown between two political superstars, Hillary and Obama. Not surprisingly, nobody listened to her.
Comes now some statistical evidence of this fact. The Project for Excellence in Journalism has released its latest campaign coverage index for January 6-11, a study that does its damndest [sic]to try to quantify which political figures are sucking up the most media oxygen and why.
There's an excellent graphic in the linked article showing who was getting all of the media love, so I suggest you click through the jump and take a look. Yes, it's true that Edwards got virtually no coverage in the specified period. But he didn't get the least. There was one candidate who got even less... Rudy Giuliani. In fact, over the last month, you'd be more likely to find an article about Rudy here at Middle Earth Journal than you would in the New York Times.
To be fair on both counts, the media follows the heat (which pretty much defines their purpose in the world) and Edwards simply didn't generate enough support and excitement. Rudy may still be lurking in the grass with a shot at getting back into the thick of things after Florida. But again... in the early running he intentionally kept a low profile, preferring to keep his powder dry for the later, bigger states. The media probably responded accordingly by pretty much ignoring him. But statistics like these will give many of the second tier candidates fuel to talk about the inbred bias and shortcomings of the media in matters political.
