McCain had a hugely positive relationship with the media, allowing him to make gaffes like the "Iraq/Pakistan border" and referring to countries which haven't existed in decades right up until the point he started complaining about the press Obama was getting and denying them access.
And oh yeah. The press are supposed to act like journalists, not stenographers. The job of the press isn't to just put the candidates up on pedestals, it's to investigate their claims. John McCain didn't give them anything positive to say about his own campaign; he ran the entire race about Obama. How on earth, even if they did intend to give equal airtime to both candidates, could they have avoided talking more about Obama? When all of the bogus charges McCain/Palin leveled at the man turned up false, how could they have avoided speaking positively of him?
