I completely agree. It's somewhat like back during the primaries when Hillary accused the media of being tough on her while giving Obama a free pass ("We should ask Barack if he's comfortable or needs another pillow."). The media coverage about him changed in a moment and there were very few positive articles about him afterwards. This is happening again, only more so this time.

The problem is that I think most people don't listen to the candidates and base their decision on that (because the candidates themselves would just say anything to win, so they can't be trusted - which is partly true), nor do they base their decisions on their own research and reasoning (they don't feel the need to do that, because they think all the necessary knowledge has already been poured into their heads by the media); instead, they decide mostly based on what they hear from the media.

And of course the media and the pundits can spin anything either into a good or a bad thing, so the election is really more about which media people trust than about candidates themselves.

One important factor, though, is that all media love excitement and scandals, so whichever campaign produces more scandalous content gets their memes repeated more often (doesn't matter whether they're true or not and how irrelevant it might be). A typical example is the Obama-muslim smear. Every reporter knows it's not true, but they're still asking: "Is it true? Could it be true?" They know the answer, but they repeat it nonetheless, which raises doubts and pollutes people's minds.

All in all, the vast majority of reporters are a bunch of suckers. They think it's their job to make news as exciting as possible, so they report complete and utter crap (in the most excitable way possible) if they think people will find it exciting. And they fall for it every time. They've literally all turned into tabloids, with a few exceptions like The Daily Show (when a fake news show becomes the most trustworthy news source, you know there's something seriously wrong with the country).

The Obama camp should hit the media back with this message.

Oh, and we should never stop repeating how the blogosphere is overtaking the media because their "24-hour news coverage" has become completely irrelevant and the "professional journalists" are now nothing but a bunch of gullible clowns (nowadays, if people want to be informed, the FIRST thing they need to do is turn off the TV). I hope they get this message and adapt to save their own asses, before it's too late.