The media is costing him. People will not be force fed their candidate, especially one with questions of qualification.
The media tries to use tricks to manipulate behavior. For example, they will talk about rigged opinion polls...
" New florida orange juice is much more popular than previous citrus orange juice... 87% of people that tried the new stuff prefered it to the old stuff and sales are breaking records etc. etc. etc. What do you think people are going to do after reading that hype?
Same thing with candidates. They keep posting articles about how great he is... how POPULAR he is, and how EVERYBODY ELSE IS VOTING FOR HIM ( WHO DON'T YOU). These articles are laced with these techniques, and then at the end they talk about how Mary Johnson in Charlotte NC was on the fence before, but chose Obama because she wanted "change" ( and you should too).
Anybody who ever worked at a newspaper knows these tricks.