Why A Biased Press Has Decided To Openly Back Barack Obama Over Hillary Clinton
Posted on January 29, 2008
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Media coverage of the 2008 presidential primaries and caucuses is a disgrace. And that goes for many political blogs as well as more mainstream media–in particular,CNN, which seems as if it has an exclusive contract to promote Barack Obama. Maybe CNN figures he’d make a pretty good co-anchor alongside Anderson Cooper one day should he fail to get the Democratic Party nomination…..Something CNN and others seem to be going out of their way to make sure he does.
This is not about partisan politics. It’s not really even about Barack Obama or Hillary Clinton. Rather, it is about fundamental fairness.
The coverage of Obama has been breathless. Yes, of course, there is something novel about the possibility that an African-American may be elected President of the United States. And, there is always the appeal of the new and fresh.
But, the writers,producers,anchors and reporters who cover politics are supposed to be professionals. That’s why they get the big bucks.
Instead, what has happened is an almost Kremlin like manipulation of coverage so that even the smallest of gains by Sen. Obama are portrayed as major victories contributing to his “momentum,” while, at the same time, larger accomplishments by Sen. Clinton are either downplayed, derided or ignored.
Take the Flordia primary. True, for the Democrats, it was what is known as a “beauty contest” because no delegates were up for grabs thanks to a punishment handed down by Democratic Party officials because Florida moved up its primary date despite party opposition.
Nevertheless, more than 1.5 million registered Democrats came out to vote for the three major candidates..and Clinton beat the crap out of Obama in terms of the number of people who voted for her instead of for him or former Sen. John Edwards.
And yet, the media-CNN in particular again-downplayed this “win” by Clinton saying it was not a victory for her because no delegates were at stake.
What a mockery of what Democracy is supposed to be all about. The last time I checked, in a free society, when one person gets more votes than another in an election, that person’s win is,without doubt, a victory.
My guess is, had the situation been reversed and Obama beat Clinton in the Florida vote, CNN and others would have played it as : “The momentum for Obama grows!” or something silly like that.
Even on the Republican side, the press seems to have decided that John McCain is going to be his party’s candidate whether voters agree with this or not.
When it comes to Obama, I do think the mainstream media are backing him out of a sense of redemption: Let’s face it, most newsrooms in this country, even in 2008, look like white social clubs, with a sprinkling of minority faces to create the illusion that true integration has occurred when, the fact is, for the most part, it has not.
Most decisions at major newspapers, television networks and radio news programs are still made by white men.
When it comes to Obama, it is almost as if there is collective guilt going on here and backing an African-American candidate must seem like a nifty way of saying to the world : “See, we’re not racists after all!”
Much has been made about new media…blogs…and some of the biggest advocates of blogs have claimed that they would serve as a check against the hackneyed reporting of more mainstream news organizations.
That is not what I see! Rather, most political blogs seem to just repeat and amplify what the main stream media have already reported.
This is shaping up to be one of the most interesting presidential elections in recent U.S. history. Too bad we don’t have an unbiased media to report on it.
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14 Responses to “Why A Biased Press Has Decided To Openly Back Barack Obama Over Hillary Clinton”
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So basically, because the media downplayed the “victory” in Florida, the only place they’ve not given equal coverage, and for the obvious reason you already stated, that means that the media in general has been up-playing Obama the whole time and ignoring Clinton.
I can accept that you want every “victory” of Clinton spot-lighted, just as surely any Obama fan would want his victories Spot lighted, but the Media was right to not spot-light a meaningless victory. Us readers are only interested in the things which matter in this race.
And to be fair, they didn’t even ignore her victory. They gave it the level of coverage a meaningless victory should get, more than I would have given it. If it had been Obama, the level of coverage would have been the same. Claiming it would have been so much more is a level of conjecture that a blogger (or a person in general) shouldn’t assume towards, and state it as definitive fact.
What a moronic position to take–that an event where more than one and a half million people vote is meaningless!
It is hard to get one and a half million people to do anything in this country except maybe sit on their collective ass and watch reality television,
The fact that no delegates were awarded in the Democratic race in Florida does not and should not take away from the fact that, in terms of numbers, Clinton beat the pants off of Obama.
And, if you have been actually reading newspapers instead of the comics, you’d know better than to say that an Obama win in Florida would have been handled the same way by the media. You look, my friend, but do not see.
It is meaningless. Perhaps not in the sense that people tried to make their voices heard, but definitely in the sense that the voices won’t be counted. Personally, if I were Obama, I’d want the media to cover it more fully. I’d want the other States, who are going to vote in the next few days, to see that Clinton continues to do her “Win at all Costs” style of campaigning, telling Iowa and New Hampshire with a signature, so as to glean their votes, that she will abide by the one rule, then going to Florida and doing the complete opposite. I can’t imagine there being a stronger message to the people as to what sort of politician they might be voting for. The type that you can never truly know their position, since they’ll change it as soon as it benefits them. Please… Media…. Cover the story! Include in that the whole Iowa and New Hampshire story so people can see why it’s such a big deal to those of us who actually care abotu the future of our country.
Fools like you give Democracy a bad name.
I am not an advocate for any candidate, only for fairness in reporting.
Having said that, let’s take a closer look at YOUR candidate of “change.”
Let’s see, he surrounds himself with endorsements from some of the last breathing fossils in Washington, uses establishment advisors and has a campaign run by the same old time political hacks who run all the other campaigns, including Clinton’s.
Now, let’s talk about Obama’s so called experience . Seems the record would show his best experience is in not showing up for important votes in the US Senate….
Want just a few examples ?
Implementing the 9/11 Commission Recommendations–NO VOTE
Nomination of the new US Attorney General –NO VOTE
No confidence vote for former US Attorney General–NO VOTE
Iraq withdrawl amendment- NO VOTE
Defense Authorization Bill- NO VOTE
Energy Act of 2007- NO VOTE
Farm,Nutrition,and Bioenergy Act of 2007- NO VOTE
Student Loan Lender Subsidy Cuts-NO VOTE
Sense of Senate on Guantanamo Bay Detainees-NO VOTE
Look it up …it’s all there for those who want to see.
Too bad people as ill informed as you can vote at all…
The fact that you slide into derogatory slander (name calling) when you get called on something tells me and anyone who reads this precisely how worthy your blogs are of being read.
This blog isn’t about Obama’s failures, or experience, or who endorsed him. It’s about the Media’s coverage. Changing the topic when you get called on a bad write doesn’t make you seem wiser, nor does it make your article any more valid.
When you do your next blog on all of his No Votes, I’ll be sure to comment with all the No Votes and Bad Votes of Mrs Clinton so readers can judge for themselves who is more ill informed.
Why don’t you just vote for Rudy and give it a rest.
What’s this? Suddenly it is alright for me to vote? I thought you were so keen on inhibiting my rights to do so since I disagree with your viewpoint and in doing so got classified as moronic, a fool, and ill-informed.
Anyhows, given a choice between Rudy or Clinton, hell, given a choice between Michelle Obama or Mrs Clinton, my vote would definitely go to Rudy or Mrs Obama. At least with them I don’t feel like someone’s lying into my face and pasting a fake Jimmy Carter smile on at the same time.
Too bad you think President Carter’s smile is fake….word in Georgia has it that he is an Obama supporter and may soon endorse him.
Better send an email to Jimmy to stop him from making a fool of himself!
Didn’t say his smile was fake (though I see that it was my grammatical error not your reading error). It should have read “pasting a fake smile that looks like a Jimmy Carter smile”. Everytime she smiles, I see an unintentional Jimmy Carter resemblance in the smile. Except hers seems entirely pasted on, not a real smile.
Now you have stumbled upon the best kept secret in politics: Hillary Clinton and Jimmy Carter are one and the same person! This no doubt explains for the first time what drove Bill To Monica.
Finally.
Mr. Feldman, you hit the nail on the head. The media coverage of the two democratic candidates borders on irresponsible.
Michelle Obama’s personal criticisms of Hillary Clinton were mainly ignored by the press while Bill Clinton’s criticisms of Barack Obama were villified. Much more was made of Obama’s wins than of Hillary’s wins, and more is made of Obama gaining in the polls than of Clinton’s leading in them. What disturbs me most is the constant question of whether or not Senator Clinton can win in a general elction against McCain. Recent national polls like that done by the LA Times have shown her ahead when matched head to head with Obama and again when matched head to head with McCain. Why, then, isn’t the press asking if OBAMA can win the general elction, when in all but one recent national poll he LOST head to head matches with McCain?
I guess we should ask Roland Martin over at CNN…now that CNN has had to admit that he is being paid by the Obama campaign. Or maybe we should ask Chris Matthews, who was taken to task by Emily’s List for his biased reporting and later made a public acknowledgement of and apology for that bias.
The press is making the news, not reporting it.
I agree with this article and have been shattered to see our “objective” news media turn to sensationalism. It does appear to show Obama in the most positive light and attempt to suppress the successes of Hillary Clinton. It can be subtle, until you spend sufficient time watching. I saw a recent CNN “news report” during which a newscaster stated that Bill Clinton had just yelled at reporters about their stories on his statements about Obama during the South Carolina campaigning. Then to illustrate, CNN cut to video of Bill Clinton very CALMLY and steadily addressing a reporter and saying something like “you guys (media) are making this into something it isn’t, you’re stirring the pot.” THAT was their example of Bill Clinton yelling. He was not only clearly NOT yelling, but his statement seemed very appropriate in light of ridiculousness of the pre-South Carolina primary. And the CNN report made his point!
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Only the low-rent section of hell will do for CNN and Fox “News”