We need to bring back the Dodd talk clock. No, not for debates, because, if we're lucky, there won't be any more of those in the primaries.
We need the Dodd talk clock for network news coverage. Case in point: I was just reading a comment that CNN's ballot bowl '08 coverage during a particular one hour block had two Hillary Clinton speech clips, a Bill Clinton speech clip, and a McCain clip, but no Obama or Obama surrogate clips.
Enter the Dodd talk clock: just put up the numbers, broken down by program, of unfiltered time given to video of the candidates by CNN during their political coverage, and publish the numbers. That's it. (We'd have to not count clips less than, say, 30 seconds, because otherwise we'd end up including time given to speech clips that are then picked apart by know-nothing pundits.)
Would someone be willing to do this? (I rarely watch TV, let alone CNN.)
What would be the motivation? The motivation would be that that it would objectively present a damaging case of CNN's bias, let alone Fox News or MSNBC. And the best part would be that the bias on some networks (such as MSNBC) is likely to swing like a pendulum with the media's narrative; we can expose the fact that the media always drastically overcompensates when one campaign claims they're getting beaten up too much.
How might this be done? I'm not sure how the Dodd folks did it, so maybe there's a better way, but I think it's easiest with a Tivo. (I don't own one.) Then it's just a matter of recording everything on CNN/Fox News/MSNBC and visually scanning in fast forward for candidates or their surrogates. Then it's a matter of pausing, looking at the time marker, and then fast forwarding again, and subtracting the two time markers. Sure beats a stopwatch.
Which networks should we watch? I'd start with CNN, because they seem to be the most consistently pro-Clinton of the networks. I feel like Fox News is simply showing whatever they think will help the GOP in the long run, and that MSNBC just has no backbone and swings back and forth depending on what the magical "media narrative" tells them they should do. But perhaps there are others? PBS? CBS? The Hallmark channel?
What do we do with the results? That is something for you, kind reader, to discuss. I'm not entirely sure. Would the results be significant? What sort of bias would it show? Would they care? Is it illegal? (I remember reading that certain aspects of "equal time" requirements went away in the Reagan years.)