Journalistic Integrity, Political Flack/Hackery and Media Bias, an Essay in 3 Parts (with Video!!!!)

Part 1: Campbell Brown on Campaign Journalism, BS, Pregnancy, and Callin' it Like it Is
Campbell Brown visited the Daily Show yesterday and among other things discussed CNN's goals with regards to campaign coverage. She nicely summed up her goals, saying, "If one candidate is saying it's raining and the other says it's sunny we should be able to look outside and say, 'it's sunny.' Which means one guy is wrong!" It's a simple concept, but one so easily lost in the world of debate-style match-ups of talking heads from "each side" of an issue and demands that equal time go to each side, or that fairness or balanc-ed-ness is measured in the number of minutes given to each "side" while the other often has the opportunity to blabber over them as much as they can manage.



Part 2: Taking Flack Poster Child Tucker Bounds to School
I've got a growing list of campaign flacks I hate, and I think anyone who watches cable news with any regularity likely does as well. While I've been an Obama fan for awhile, I don't think John McCain has helped himself by having Nancy Pfotenhauer and Tucker Carlson Bounds out there spewing idiocy on his behalf. How bad is Mr. Bounds? Apparently at least 3 cable news outlets have more or less taken him to school. Check out the video (I couldn't embed this one) by following the link.

Part 3: Bill Burton Won't Back Down
The left has talked about Fox News' bias for quite some time now, and that bias has been documented in various ways (but honestly, what progressive who has watched Faux News for more than 5 minutes even feels like documentation is actually necessary?). Anyway, the Obama campaign has recently gone after Faux News head-on with the candidate himself even taking some digs here or there. Bill Burton, a campaign spokesman, recently released a statement about Fox picking up and distributing a story no other major news network has touched after the Drudge Report started the rumor mill churning a day before. Fox had him on to get a spanking, but Bill Burton would not take his licks quietly, no no. Instead, what they got is the combative exchange you see below. Nice.

Rabinowitz on Obama and the Media

Although I am a now a bonafide Obama supporter, I remain somewhat troubled by the treatment Obama receives in many journalistic circles. I think this has less to do with ideology than with narrative appeal. Obama is a fascinating subject: supremely charismatic, fresh, multiracial. His running for president is almost something out of a movie. My guess is magazine covers with his face sell much better than those featuring an old grumpy-gus like McCain. Whatever the cause, however, I do feel that many journalists and news outlets have made it clear that they have a horse in the race: essentially, they have become to Obama a classier version of what Fox News was to Bush.

In this light, I enjoyed reading Ms. Rabinowitz's editorial in the Wall Street Journal, a publication which is not exactly known for a politically neutral agenda. The key point:

The single constant in the eternal election remains the media, whose activist role no one will seriously dispute. To point out the prevailing (with honorable exceptions) double standard of reporting so favorable to Mr. Obama by now feels superfluous -- much like talking about the weather. The same holds true for all those reports pointing to Mr. Obama's heroic status outside the United States -- not to mention the cascade of press analyses warning that if he fails to win election, the cause will surely be racism.

I think the editorial is worth reading, although it is at times somewhat meandering and unfair. Rabbinowitz seems convinced that "liberals" spend all their time chatting with Europeans about the moral failings of the United States, while "conservatives" unfailingly love their country. However, a self-styled right-winger who can maintain a lucid thought for more than two paragraphs is a rarity, and so we should judge the article by the standards of its peers.

Zinger VS Burns

Last night I watched a good bit of SNL's the Best of Alec Baldwin, whose presence has been amazing on 30 Rock, no matter what you may think of his voicemail messages and other nasty habits. Some fine laughs were had over the absurdity of the Zinger v.s. Burns skit featuring Seth Meyers and Baldwin. Today, I caught a couple stories out there that struck me as little blogosphere zingers on Camp Clinton... both interesting in their own way.

First, I saw a piece from Andrew Sullivan over at the Atlantic, describing a poll that shows New Jersey democrats, who voted for Hillary by a 10% majority are now demonstrating some buyer's remorse. I think polls like this one are really interesting, especially given how much recent political conversation has been focused on who is electable in the fall.

Then, this afternoon, a piece floated out across the AP wires about how fake Hillary's stop by a gas station was. Wonkette had a nice tongue-in-cheek (surprise there) piece on how hilarious it is for the AP to stress the fakeness of one photo op, when all the campaigns are pretty much daily engaging in little choreographed exhibitions... anyway, whether it's fair or not, I thought the piece was pretty interesting, if only for the fact that they give you a nice portrait of the staging that goes into a "casual visit to a NC gas station."

Is anyone surprised when politicians are playing fake-it-till-ya-make-it? It's old news that a large chunk of America's best informed citizens (or at least best informed young people) tune in more reliably to the fake news than almost any other news source. Still, if the scheduled conversation between BillO and Hillary tonight is any indication, I don't see the Democratic discussion in the next few days veering back towards the land of the sensible. I bet we'll be hearing more about useless "tax vacations" and crazy preachers. YAY!

Does all that sound... jaded? Be not jaded! Laugh at this (Hillary trying to figure out a coffee machine):



Ok... not sure that last one was entirely fair... but it is funny. Promise to you: my next post will be about something entirely apolitical.