Last year, a review conducted by two nonpartisan groups, Project for Excellence in Journalism and the Pew Research Center, found that a stunning seventy-six percent of the Gore campaign coverage in early 2000 centered around two negative themes: that he lies and exaggerates, and that he's tarred by scandal. "We call it the metanarrative," says Tom Rosenstiel, director of Project for Excellence in Journalism.

President George W. Bush has dominated the coverage, but much of that reportage, at least when linked to character traits, has been critical-by a margin of more than three to one. (...)

There is some bad news for Kerry. He has not been much of a presence in the news, and this problem has grown with time. As a result, most people surveyed have difficulty associating any character traits with Kerry as opposed to Bush. The only major theme that even a third of the public links to him is that he flip flops. (...) More than four in ten character assertions were made with no evidence cited to back them up.