The Oprahfied Third Rail of Politics is the Fourth Estate

The mainstream media both electrifies and electrocutes campaigns. WaPo is one of the final few covering John Edwards:

An ongoing study by the Project for Excellence in Journalism placed Edwards a distant sixth among Democratic and Republican candidates in volume of campaign coverage last week; the former senator from North Carolina was a main newsmaker or significant presence in just 6 percent of campaign stories. Obama and Clinton? Almost five times the amount of coverage.