From the Center's 12/1/04 forum "Mandates, Morals & Margins of Error: The Great Press Failure of 2004?"

Associate Professor Diane Winston, Knight Chair in Media and Religion at Annenberg, categorized red media (cable news, talk radio, Internet and blogs), blue media (major newspapers, broadcast networks, old-line news organizations) and white media (local news outlets). Each, she posited, played different roles in the coverage and interpretation of the 2004 presidential campaign - especially in the discussion of "moral values" that immediately followed:

"For the people on the right it was very convenient to say "yes, moral values trumped," because it sort of furthers their narrative. For the more progressive media people, saying this trumped fit into the whole paranoid, "uh-oh, they’re-going-to-get-us-what's-happening- to-our-country" narrative. So it was in everyone's best interest to perpetuate this idea of the election...

"I think this whole construct is attractive to red media because it builds up passion one way or the other, which is part of what galvanizes their audiences. I think it’s attractive to blue media because...the traditional media knows it does not do a great job of covering religion. They haven't quite figured out what to do about it, but the fact that they can say mea culpa almost gets them off the hook."