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Late Night Punchline Imbalance: the details undermine the headline

Oh noes! Late-night comedians are making fun of John McCain more than they are making fun of Barak Obama!

While conservatives queue up to complain about media bias and liberals smirk that it's just because John McCain deserves it, allow me to make three quick points.

1. The study analyzed all jokes from January 1 through July 31. Show me how the trends have looked since Hillary dropped out and it became a two-candidate race, and it will mean a lot more.

2. The study focused on monologues by Jay Leno, Conan O’Brien, David Letterman, John Stewart, and Stephen Colbert. If there is evidence of liberal bias in the gag-writers for these shows, that is not the same as a bias in "the media".

3. There were more jokes targeting Hillary Clinton than John McCain. If Obama had been forced to drop out of the race a few months back, would you even care about some study that showed late night comedians making fun of Clinton more than McCain? Would that still be a liberal media bias?