One
of the saddest developments of the 2008 election is the death by
suicide of the national news media. Any lingering questions of a
liberal media bias have been laid to rest since the party conventions.
That
the media is biased is not news to objective observers, who have been
saying so for years. But this year’s fawning favoritism shown Barack
Obama has caught the attention of everyday Americans, 49 percent of
whom said in a Rasmussen poll last July they believed the media would
slant their coverage toward Barack Obama in the race for the White
House. They were right. Only 14 percent said they thought the media
would benefit John McCain.
The
Center for Media and Public Affairs (CMPA) 2008 Election News Watch
Project confirms media favoritism for Sen. Obama in an October 14
statement. CMPA, a non-profit, non-partisan research organization
affiliated with George Mason University, found that “since the party
conventions kicked off the final phase of the presidential campaign,
comments about Senator Barack Obama on the network evening news shows
have been 65% positive, compared to only 36% positive comments about
Senator John McCain.” CMPA also found that “despite
a brief flurry of good press during the GOP convention, comments about
[Alaska] Governor Sarah Palin have been only 42% positive.”
While
the statement didn’t go into detail about the treatment of Gov. Palin
when she came out of the blue to be John McCain’s vice presidential
running mate, it was evident that the media didn’t know how to react,
and resorted to spending time and ink on allegations against Gov.
Palin’s husband and children, her newborn Down syndrome baby boy, and
accusing her of being an unacceptably fundamentalist Christian.
And,
it’s not only the news media that are biased, as late night comedians
heaped ridicule upon Gov. Palin and John McCain along with the humor,
and the two were more frequently the target of such humor than Sen.
Obama and Sen. Biden. It is a sad commentary on American culture that
millions of Americans allow late night TV to form or affect their
political opinions, but that is reality.
From
January through September of this year, CMPA found that John McCain was
the butt of late night jokes 790 times to Barack Obama’s 502, 57
percent more often.
Sarah
Palin only collected 185 jokes, but then she only came to prominence
when she was named the VP candidate August 29. In September alone Palin
was the subject of jokes 168 times, the most in a single month of all
politicians in the report. Biden was the subject of jokes only 24 times
in August and September combined.
An
explanation of why Gov. Palin has attracted so much negative attention
among comedians was explained by “The View’s” Joy Behar, an Obama
worshiper reputed to be a comedienne herself, who told Larry King that
Palin is a joke and has oodles of things to make fun of. Of Obama, she
said, “he’s not funny; he’s not a joke. There’s nothing to make fun of
with the guy.” Maybe it all depends upon your perspective, Ms. Behar.
The
fawning and favorable treatment Sen. Obama and Sen. Biden have received
must have lulled them into a sense of warm, fuzzy security, which
perhaps explains the crazy events of last week.
Appearing
on an Orlando, Florida television station Thursday, Sen. Biden was
asked some pointed questions by WFTV anchor Barbara West. It is
apparent from watching the interview that Mr. Biden expected to be
asked the usual puffball questions he is accustomed to, and when Ms.
West referenced the Karl Marx dictum “from each according to his
ability, to each according to his needs” when asking if Senator Obama’s
comment about “spreading the wealth around” was a socialist mechanism,
Mr. Biden responded by asking, “Is this a joke? Are you joking? Is this
a real question?” Told that it was a real question, the Senator laughed
and then denied that Sen. Obama’s plan is “spreading the wealth around.”
Other
appropriate questions were equally unappreciated, and the Obama-Biden
campaign responded to this brazen act of responsible journalism by
cutting WFTV out of future interviews during the campaign, the first of
which was the cancellation of a scheduled interview with Sen. Biden’s
wife Jill. This immature and petulant reaction strongly indicates that
the campaign expects to not be asked tough questions by the media, and
won’t stand for anything else. That reflects a troubling attitude that
has no place in the White House.
The
First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution protects free speech, not the
least of which is that of the press. It guarantees the press the
freedom to tell the American people the unbiased and objective truth,
and provide them the information to make sensible, informed decisions
in life and in elections.
Through
its disgraceful abandonment of its duty to the American people the
media has been it’s own undoing, and perhaps that is justice of a sort.
But
what do we do about its role in trying to elect a President of the
United States, and how do we restore the media to its honorable and
proper station?
Visit my Web site, Observations