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I'm taking a break from big political posts. There's plenty to write about with Sen. John McCain's smear campaign, which we all knew was coming. The press has done a miserable job dealing with McCain's tactics. As Jamison Foser writes,
All week, McCain's attacks have been driving news coverage. Those same news organizations that have declared McCain's charges false have given them an extraordinary amount of attention, repeating them over and over. They have adopted the premises of the McCain attacks even as they acknowledge the attacks are based on false claims. The media narrative of the week has not been, as you might expect, that John McCain's apparent dishonesty may hurt him with voters. Instead, the media's basic approach has been to debunk McCain's attacks once, then run a dozen stories about how the attacks are sticking, how the "emerging narrative" will hurt Obama.
I'm also a little perplexed that the media continues to report percentages for the general election, but not any projected electoral counts. Consider Electoral-vote.com. It has Obama leading McCain in 316-209 in electoral votes. A lot of states are toss up's including Nevada, Colorado, Michigan, Indiana, and New Hampshire, and Florida. Obama leads in these states, but within the margin of error. I'm not saying all is said and done, but since it's the electoral map counts, shouldn't the media be trying to count it?
--Mb
1 response so far ↓
1 JD
// Aug 3, 2008 at 3:56 pm
That's because the media likes to report on the horse race of presidential campaigns, not the actual issues. The general polls are much closer so those are the ones reported. This is also why the word "veepstakes" has been coined, and you can't watch five minutes of election coverage without speculation of vice presidential candidates. I find it despicable. It's easier and cheaper to sit around a table and argue over who is the best VP.
Reporting takes initiative and effort that the corporate media aren't willing to expend. Take the recent episode this past week about Obama, quoted by Dana Millbank at the Washington Post (found here: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/07/29/AR2008072902068.html) , as being (the new favorite word of the week) presumptuous. Every single major media outlet followed suit saying that Obama was arrogant, and had a huge ego. Leaving aside the fact that you must have a TREMENDOUS ego to think you can be the most powerful person in the free world, Millbank was wrong. He used a second hand "summary" of a quote from someone who was in the room during the speech. (Don't you fail Journalism School for stuff like this?) Talking Points Memo has a great video about how it happened here: http://tpmtv.talkingpointsmemo.com/2008/07/tpmtv_dana_milbank_we_salute_y.php