16 Comments Add your own

• 1. Wade  |  May 28th, 2008 at 5:01 am

  It is amazing to see how the media is doing and saying what ever they can for Obama. At least come November we might have a good speaker in office. Thank you liberal media!!

• 2. Pat Cunningham  |  May 28th, 2008 at 6:14 am

  You’re right, Wade. It’s truly amazing. The damn media haven’t said a word about Rev. Wright, flag pins, Obama’s “bitterness” speech or anything else that might embarrass him.

• 3. Henry  |  May 28th, 2008 at 9:04 pm

  Liberals want the truth from the media. Conservatives want spin.

• 4. Millard Fillmore  |  May 29th, 2008 at 12:07 pm

  Pat, two things about your comment (#2). First, do you think your guy is running for dog catcher or something? The tenor of your comments suggests somehow it is unbelievable to you that Sen. Obama actually has to answer tough questions. But more important, do I need to remind you about the fawning media coverage January through late March — a time period which covers the “10-in-a-row?” This includes the famed Chris Matthews getting positively orgasmic!

• 5. Pat Cunningham  |  May 29th, 2008 at 12:21 pm

  Millie: Anybody who says the media have been soft on Obama hasn’t been paying attention. You admit yourself that Obama “has to answer tough questions.” When is John McCain going to get the tough questions about his endless flip-flopping and his confusion over who’s who and what’s what in Iraq? As for Chris Matthews, his show and Olbermann’s and O’Reilly’s and the rest of the cable yakkers are mostly irrelevant. Those programs have very small audiences compared to the stuff on the major networks. Moreover, the cable talk shows are just so much preaching to the choir. Those are shows for political junkies, most of whom have their minds made up on everything.

• 6. Millard Fillmore  |  May 29th, 2008 at 2:39 pm

  No Pat, I’m afraid you are the one so *clearly* not paying attention.
  First of all, you can’t issue a blanket “the media has been too tough on poor Barack” and then start picking and choosing which “media” you are talking about. Chris Matthews was frequently sitting there on primary nights on NBC. But OK, let’s stipulate they are “irrelevant” - let me re-cite JUST two pieces of evidence I’ve provided before:

  “As one who has assigned journalists to cover Obama at both Politico and The Washington Post, I have witnessed the phenomenon several times. Some reporters come back and need to go through detox, to cure their swooning over Obama’s political skill.”
  – John F. Harris, writing for Politico.com.

  Well, heck, let’s throw in one Brian Williams as well:

  “I interviewed Lee Cowan, our reporter who covers Obama, while we were out yesterday and posted the interview on the web. Lee says it’s hard to stay objective covering this guy. Courageous for Lee to say, to be honest. ”

  Oh, wait, and I suppose we’re to believe that the SNL skit, where they mocked the softball questions to Obama, was just the “conservative bias” of the entertainment industry? As you well know, the best satire has elements of truth to it. Otherwise it wouldn’t be satire.

  In answer to your McCain question (which of course changes the subject, but we can debate that at another time) there is a simple answer - let’s wait and see what happens in the general election, shall we?

  As a political blogger, I don’t expect you to have “objectivity” - whatever that means. Sharp opinions are obviously why we come here. But I would hope that you could at least see the media’s performance for what it is. And stop whining about the fact that someone is challenging Obama to explain himself.

• 7. Pat Cunningham  |  May 29th, 2008 at 4:19 pm

  Millie: Three things: When did I say “the media has been too tough on poor Barack”? Rather, I disagreed with Wade in comment No. 1 and his implication that the media have been easy on Obama. 2) The Harris quote cites no examples of favorable media treatment of Obama. 3) The same goes for the quote from Brian Williams. So, you’ve got nothing here, Millie, not one single example of biased reporting in Obama’s favor. Try again.

• 8. Millard Fillmore  |  May 29th, 2008 at 9:13 pm

  Pat, I have to say, I am close to being stunned by your response. John Harris covered the Clinton White House for six years and served as an assignment editor at the Washington Post for a short period before helping found Politico.com. Lee Cowan reported from Ground Zero, from Iraq and Afghanistan, reported on Katrina and the Tsunami. So using your same conventiong, I guess I will ask

  1) Arent’t their statements (made in print and on the air) examples of media bias on their face? Do you hear journalists talking openly about going into “detox” over McCain or having a hard time remaining objective about Clinton? and

  2) Even if you discount those plainly over-the-top comments as “unbiased” (yikes if you do), how can you not wonder about the mindset of the reporters … i.e., what those viewpoints do to affect their perspective in allocating newshole and broadcast time, in choosing angles and images, in what to write, what to say and how to say it? To me, ANY editor with any brains would take Cowan and whichever journalists are in Obama detox and send them to cover HS sports. They don’t belong anywhere near the most important election in a generation.

• 9. Pat Cunningham  |  May 30th, 2008 at 9:26 am

  Millie: In my 40 years as a journalist, I usually tried my best to make sure my reporting didn’t reflect my personal biases. The extent to which I succeeded in that regard was reflected by remarks from some conservative Republicans who said I treated them fairly in my reporting. By the same token, there were a few instances in which liberal Democrats complained that I had been unfair to them. Getting back to the subject at hand, you still haven’t cited any examples of biased reporting in Obama’s favor. I’m sure there have been instances of such, but you seem not to have found any. Let me know when you do.

• 10. Millard Fillmore  |  May 30th, 2008 at 1:02 pm

  Pat, I am most certain that you have done as you described during your career.

  Currently, however, I think you are in wholesale and very deep denial if you cannot see bias in having journalists say they are “swooning” and comment that they find it “hard to remain objective” and that they get a “thrill up their leg” when the candidate speaks. Is it REALLY your argument that we should assume that journalists with these attitudes are truly serving the public in a dispassionate manner?

  All I read in your responses WRT to Barack Obama is pure, unadulterated blind partisanship — no different, really, from the right wing commentators you so often disdain.

  Sorry, that’s just the way I see it.

• 11. Pat Cunningham  |  May 30th, 2008 at 1:49 pm

  Millie: I’m still waiting for you to cite one example of biased reporting in Obama’s favor. I know such examples exist. There are examples available of bias (one way or the other, for or against) in reporting on Obama, Clinton and McCain alike. Why can’t you come up with one example that supports your thesis? I could find one if I tried, but I want you to do it. Of course, I’m still baffled that you would think Obama gets a pass from the media after we went through six weeks of endless airing of tapes of Rev. Wright. Oh, and don’t forget the “bitterness” speech, the flag pins, the Bill Ayers matter and the rest of the negative stuff on Obama. We wouldn’t know much about those things if it weren’t for the media, would we? That would be the same media that you and our friend Wade (in comment No. 1) think are invariably pro-Obama. I’m not saying that these matters don’t deserve coverage. They do. But in light of the coverage we’ve seen of these matters, how can you and others of your partisan ilk pretend that the media always give Obama a pass? Are you blind?

• 12. Pat Cunningham  |  May 30th, 2008 at 2:06 pm

  Millie: You might want to check out a new study showing that Obama “has not enjoyed a better ride in the press than rival Hillary Clinton.” Read about it here: http://journalism.org/node/11266

• 13. Pat Cunningham  |  May 30th, 2008 at 2:18 pm

  One more thing, Millie: Let’s not confuse negative (or, for that matter, positive) reporting with biased reporting. For example, if a candidate is caught making contradictory statements and the media report on it, that’s not necessarily an example of biased reporting. By the same token, if a candidate makes big gains in the polls or wins a couple of major primary elections or has some other good fortune, media coverage of those matters is not necessarily an example of bias in favor of that candidate. Discerning bias can be a tricky business. It can be a matter of emphasis, balance (or lack of it), repetition and other factors. Were the media biased against Bill Clinton when they reported on the Monica Lewinsky affair and the subsequent impeachment of Clinton? I don’t think so. But it would be silly to say the media showed pro-Clinton bias in those days.

• 14. Millard Fillmore  |  May 30th, 2008 at 4:17 pm

  Pat, the reason I haven’t provided what you’re begging me for is simple: You have yet to explain how my original quotes are not examples of bias. This is the real baffler to me. These were not people commenting on Obama’s surge in the polls, as you suggest in #13. These were “personality” driven observations … people commenting to large audiences about how inspiring and exciting and refreshing Obama is. These are prima facie examples of bias.

  And contrary to your comments in #11, my “thesis” has nothing to do with partisanship. My thesis is that in an election when the stakes are so incredibly high, that will shape our country for the next generation, this type of fawning from the media is simply embarrassing.

  Given that media coverage doesn’t exist in a vacuum, I don’t disagree that the tenor has changed in recent weeks. And we will see what the general election brings — I certainly expect the heat to rise.

  Let me just end with a question: Based on what you’ve said here, then, you obviously had no problem with the fawning “Straight Talk Express” of McCain in his 2000 campaign. Right?

  (P.S. - just as embarrassing.)

• 15. Pat Cunningham  |  May 30th, 2008 at 5:03 pm

  The only kind of reporting with which I have a problem is unfair or unbalanced reporting. The personal biases of the reporter have nothing to do with it unless those biases materially affect the reporting. As I said before, during my years as a reporter, I was able to give fair and unbiased coverage of people with whom I didn’t agree and for whom I never voted. When my career changed to opinionizing in columns or on radio or TV, the game changed for me. Then, I wasn’t paid to be objective. Quite the contrary. Maybe some day we can have a long exchange about the history of American political journalism and how the Founding Fathers had no concept of objectivity or fairness when they wrote Freedom of the Press into the Constitution. In those days, and for many decades thereafter, newspapers almost invariably were partisan political organs with no pretenses of objectivity or balance. Most people today know nothing of that history. Some people seem to think that there’s a law or a hallowed American tradition requiring fairness and balance. The Constitution, of course, would bar such laws. Freedom of speech and freedom of the press mean freedom to be biased. We could go on forever about this stuff, but not here and now. My point to you is that you cannot rightly say the media have given Obama a pass. The record to the contrary is overwhelming. Fairly or unfairly (depending on your point of view), the media have given Obama lots of trouble over the Rev. Wright, etc. To say they haven’t is just silly. Newspapers, radio, television and the Internet have aired or published countless reports and opinions that are unflattering to Barack Obama. I don’t necessarily object to some of that stuff, but I do object to the uninformed idea that this stuff hasn’t been aired or published. I mean, get real.

• 16. Millard Fillmore  |  May 30th, 2008 at 9:46 pm

  Well now I think we are getting somewhere….We have a fundamental difference of opinion. I believe when a reporter openly declares a bias (as some have with Obama), every subsequent piece of reportage is caught under a cloud. Why is it, do you suppose, that judges are forced to recuse themselves from certain cases in which they have openly expressed opinions?

  My argument isn’t really that he hasn’t had to answer tough questions. What I believe is, for the crucial period in which this nomination was decided — January to mid-February — he received extremely favorable and over the top treatment. Again, we will see what the rest of the year brings.

  Far more interesting to me is the other issue you raise, which I think transcends this election and these candidates, and that is the nature of media. Have you read Eric Alterman’s New Yorker column about newspapers from March? The article recounts an interesting history about the relationship between the public and the press — won’t bore you here, because I bet you’re up on it, but he talks of the early days of media theory — recounting the theories of Walter Lippman and John Dewey. Lippman, as I am sure you know, favored a model for journalism that was closer to today’s — dispassionate reporting…telling the score of the game but not so much how it was achieved. Dewey (again as I am sure you realize) saw journalism as a way of seeding and continuing a conversation, where a multiplicity of opinions was a desired, not feared outcome.

  Intriguingly enough, with the web, we are moving toward a Dewey model. Our exchange is evidence enough!

  I have to retract an earlier comment. If you were truly like the right wing commentators of this world, you clearly would have cut off this conversation about 4 or 5 dispatches ago.

  Though we still disagree, I feel better and will stop belaboring this point. Carry on, sir.

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