The Washington Post’s Howard Kurtz reports on the media bias favoring Barack Obama and giving an example of why it is unlikely to change:
Would Clinton have skated as easily if she were found to have visited radicals tied to violence? Or bought land from an indicted businessman, as in the Rezko case? Or if the pastor of her church had talked about “this racist United States of America,” as the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, who heads Obama’s church, has?
That is hard to imagine. Clinton’s complaints about media imbalance are buttressed by a new study from the Center for Media and Public Affairs. From Dec. 16 through Feb. 19, it says, the three network newscasts aired reports that were 84 percent positive for Obama and 53 percent positive for Clinton. She scored higher on evaluations of policy and public performance, but that amounted to only 10 percent of the coverage.
Kurtz then quotes Jake Tapper of ABC News:
“It’s very difficult to argue that the level of scrutiny of Barack Obama has been the same as the level of scrutiny of other candidates.”
But, Tapper says, holding Obama accountable is difficult because he speaks to reporters infrequently.
Actually, the Obama campaign is all too glad to do rapid response work with Jake Tapper when it believes damage control is necessary. Nor do they limit themselves to Tapper.
On Saturday, the Politico ran a piece about Obama’s lagging support with Catholics. Camp Obama was on the phone complaining in a very bellicose manner within minutes.
If Obama was a Republican, the press would simply run the story without getting Obama’s side of it, or perhaps give his campaign a few hours to sort through documents they had never seen before. The press would get Obama to respond.
When the topic is Hillary Clinton’s tax returns, the media does story after story after story after story after story after editorial after story after Obama campaign memo after story and so on until the candidate budges. If the press on Obama’s bus decided the daily story would be “Day ___ of Obama refusing to answer questions about Tony Rezko” (or Farrakhan or Wright) until Obama agreed to sit down with a reporter — preferably from a Chicago paper that knows the story – they might get Obama to budge, too.
On the other hand, if the media decides to treat Obama’s stonewalling and evasions on these issues as they treated Bill Clinton’s refusal to release his complete medical records, or John Kerry’s refusal to release his full military records, those questions will probably get sucked down the memory hole.ÂÂ
Obama is betting on the media’s laziness and bias, which seems like a pretty safe bet.
Aside: As for why Obama has been slow to catch on with Catholics, PW readers may want to revisit the discussion Rick Locke and I had regarding Mike Huckabee’s failure to catch on with Catholics.
Ahh, I am starting to see what Teh Changieness is all about. Sure, it’s the same old dogmatic left wing positions and vicious media campaigning… but with a New and Improved Rhetorical Sugar Coating. Same old statism, same old slightly creepy personality cult, same old inspiring platitudes, with 75% more sweetness.
I, for one, welcome my new messianic leftist overlord and his journalist-reaming press team.
It’s like a comfortable, soft kangaroo leather Prada boot, buffed to a high sheen, stamping on a human face forever.
Re: John Harris’ rebuff to Obama’s staffers for attacking David Mark’s original article’s titleage…
A sausage slap?
What’s happening more is that the press is slowly starting to realize that having elevated Obama to godhood, they are closer to becoming de facto media organs of the State. They like it.
Translation: We can’t focus all our energies on electing Obama. We have to take time to co-opt the non-State media as well.
[…] For much more depth on Obama’s easy-button relations with the media in general, read Karl’s PW essay “Dems 2008: Te media cannot investigate Obama unless he talks to them?” […]
Buffered, so as not to upset the stomach.
I read stories like this and I can’t help but smile, a big knowing smile reflecting my mirth at the ironies both stated and assumed.
Barry is doing nothing less than ripping a page from the Clinton playbook. Hillary is now bearing the spoiled fruits of her campaign’s aggressive courting and behind-the-scenes questioning of the press. Both She and (to a greater extent) Bill enjoyed a substantial period of widespread positive press coverage, complete with all of the trimmings of inevitability.
Now Time Magazine, as aggressive a Clinton promoter as there has been outside of DNC flyers over the last several months, has two articles in their current edition that drop kick the Clinton First! meme to the side walk.
The two headlines on the current cover are stark in their implied assessment of the current state of Hillary’s campaign.One is “How Much Does Experience Matter?” raising the oft produced talking points of Obama’s lack of same. Yet the subheadline is even more telling: “The Science of Experience” and a another sub headline that suggests science says not necessarily. A related article makes the clear implication that Obama’s experiene is commesurate with … wait for it .. Abraham Lincoln’s!
Even more astonishing from a press narrative view is Karen Tumulty’s article Bill Clinton: The Bitter Half in which named and unnamed supporters talk about previously verboten opinions like the damage Bill has done to the campaign and the fact that he doesn’t see it that way, that he has “…no self knowledge” of his blunders. Even more brutal is the sourcing that suggests Bill’s political pros, while adopting a hands off approach to allow Hillary to rise free, were privately grousing months ago about the the way her people were running the campaign.
Such blunt analysis of the Clintons would have been unthinkable a few months ago. One is left with the thought that the years of their carrot and stick media approaches have now come to roost, with some who have felt the sting of either exclusion or direct browbeatings finding some smug satisfaction in hitting back with impunity. What once were transcendant media victors are now the whining press victims.
Boo. Freakin’. Hoo.
The wry humor in my smile is that Obama now employes the very same tactics with nary a concern that they will bounce back on his campaign. Hard data that clearly shows the slant will be ignored as what was good for the formerly hopefull geese is now good for the changeytudinous gander.
heh
What? You mean to say that the media is biased, distorted and unethical? Who knew…I miss real reporters, the kind that wouldn’t make a celebrity or media cretion into a presidential candidate.
changeytudinous – Great word, BJ.
I don’t buy it, at least for now.
Wait till he is nominated and will start running against Republican in the general election..
Everything then will be a fair game. You just wait and see, Karl
Another pillow, Senator? Some cookies? Tea?
[…] Yesterday morning, I noted that the media would have to get more aggressive if they want to get Obama to budge on answering their questions. The media finally treated Obama as they would Hillary Clinton or John McCain. They have not gotten answers to their questions (yet), but Obama’s reaction was revealing in itself. Having criticized the media for falling down on the Obama beat, it is only fair to note that on Monday, Marin and Sweet stood up. […]
[…] media has done numerous stories on Hillary Clinton’s failure so far to release her tax returns. She reportedly plans to […]