ABC News reporters and commentators on all platforms seemed to make a concerted effort last week to downplay, if not completely ignore, the good news the network's own polling data revealed about Obama (i.e., a 65% job approval rating). It seemed that ABC had simply produced a poll with the wrong results at a time when the press corps was buzzing about Obama's supposed weak poll numbers. And since conformity is king inside the Beltway press, ABC staffers really had no choice but to play dumb about the survey.
Taken as a singular event, ABC's odd effort wasn't that big of a deal and might not even warrant close scrutiny. But ABC's stunt represented part of a larger trend within the Beltway press corps in which the so-called liberal media go out of their way to concoct story lines about looming troubles for Obama. Not satisfied to simply report the facts (the president remains very popular), the press is way too eager to dress up the story line. It's way too eager to inject GOP-friendly talking points about how Obama's not really that popular.
The press trend, of course, runs completely counter to the myth about an Obama media honeymoon. Because I'm pretty sure if Obama were enjoying a media honeymoon, ABC News would have touted its recent poll results, not gone out of its way to present the findings as bad news for Obama.