Media & Govt. Final

Governing Ourselves: The Election, The Media, The Lack-of-Bias

This year’s election has been a dramatic election in every way. History was made, reputations were shattered, lies were spread, and heroes emerged. The media was scrutinized while Sarah Palin shopped and Barack Obama probably sold more T-shirts than Macy’s. Now that all the back-and-forth has ended; the election can be reflected on, analyzed, and seen with 20/20 vision. Howard Kurtz’ article for the Washington Post, “The Pulse of the Pol”, though written in October, is much like a scrapbook of this year’s election. He pulls together clips of various interviews, polls, articles, and analyses which paint a picture of the way the media has handled this year’s Presidential race. Kurtz’ article along with an article by Elizabeth Drew, “The Truth about the Election”, also give way to explaining one subject constantly brought up in this election, media bias. Neil Postman’s book “Amusing Ourselves to Death”, argues that news has become solely a means of entertainment and Bill Kovach and Tom Rosenstiel raise a similar concern in their book, “The Elements of Journalism”. Kurtz’ and Drew’s articles, however, show that the media, though focused primarily on entertainment, did a fine job of providing American’s the information needed to make an informed decision on election day, which is a vital key to the participation in American democracy.
From the very beginning of the race, even in the primaries, Obama set the tone for how his campaign would be run. As Drew shows, Obama understood the concept of thinking long-term when running for the Presidency. He knew that people wanted to see a leader, someone who could govern. “The best way to judge presidential candidates - aside from whether one basically agrees with their values - are to try to envision them governing. Will they inspire people to follow them? What kind of people do they have around them? How do they run their campaign?” She goes on, “In Obama’s case, from what we have been able to observe… there will be a straight line from his campaigning to his governing.” This “straight line” was seen by millions of voters and picked up on by the media and bloggers alike. It was this conceptual understanding that differentiated Obama’s run from all the others.
Kurtz also hits on this concept in his piece. Kurtz cites Matt Bai from the NYT magazine when discussing Obama’s calm demeanor. Bai explains how Obama lets people come to him, he doesn’t chase the voter. This kind of confidence mixed with his understanding of the long-term stood out in stark contrast to McCain’s erratic, whatever-needs-to-be-done-for-now tactics. As Drew put it, “Obama seemed unshakeable throughout the campaign. He quite evidently unnerved both Clinton and McCain, because they couldn’t rattle him.”
Kurtz’ article does a good job of showing the media’s reception and understanding of Obama’s calm throughout the election. He reports that Paul Waldman, in American Prospect, says “While McCain’s campaign is showing who he is and what he’ll stoop to, voters are discovering that whatever else you think about Barack Obama, the man is calm.”
Obama played to the idea that people want what they can’t have, and in doing so, David Brooks makes clear, “at Obama rallies, the candidate is the wooed not the wooer.”
After Kurtz scrapbooks the media’s response to Obama’s collected manner, he paints a very accurate portrayal of the Sarah Palin dilemma. Citing a then-recent poll, Kurtz explains America’s security in Palin is very low, but aside from that, voters became disheartened and confused when reports came out regarding Palin’s stump-speech hypocrisies. First, she’s just your average “hockey mom” who can relate to all the “Joe-six-packs” then she’s spending $150,000 on clothes. She touts her reputation as a reformer and maverick, then the Associate Press reports that she’s charging the state to fly her children around.
Then, with obvious irony, the McCain campaign began attacking the amount of money Obama’s campaign was collecting. The campaign failed to realize that Obama’s money was donated by small amounts given by every-day, average-income citizens, not the monstrous corporate donors that are typical of the Republican Party. The race had gotten petty, and Kurtz showed that with his ensuing collage of reports by Rich Lowry, Joe Klein, and Rick Moran.
Klein is essentially kicked off the McCain campaign’s planes for his criticisms of the Maverick while Moran tries to reason with the ludicrous accusations being flung at Obama by the Republican Party, “Obama will not turn America into a Marxist state… Obama will not cancel future elections… place his smiling visage on 10 story high office buildings… ‘take away’ your guns, close churches… shut down Fox News… or any other actions that would smack of dictatorship…”
Drew makes a similar case, “He won’t do many of the things that Democrats usually call for: the reform of health care will be less sweeping than what’s been proposed in the past… and there won’t be dramatic cuts in defense spending.”
Kurtz’ article also does well in showing the two sides of the media seen in the election. He cites Tina Brown’s defense of Sarah Palin, a large task that was commonly being undertaken. “They treated her as a retard and wouldn’t let her talk to a reporter. The Couric debacle was just about those idiots giving her the wrong lines…” Kurtz then contrasts Brown’s defense with the scrutiny of Christopher Hitchens. “The problem with Gov. Palin is not that she lacks experience. It’s that she quite plainly lacks intellectual curiosity.”
Along with giving a great overview of the election, Kurtz’ piece offered up a lot of evidence on the subject of media bias, or lack thereof.
Fox News and MSNBC will shine through as the champions for their chosen candidates, despite how “Fair & Balanced” either “tried” to be. However, aside from the obviously biased media outlets, the McCain campaign was complaining at just about every chance he got this election that the media as a whole was out to get him, or rather to praise Obama’s every move. Never mind that, as Tom Ferrick reported, the Inquirer’s endorsement of Obama had “a dissenting opinion that ran below the main editorial that stated the case for John McCain.” And “Insiders at the paper told [Ferrick] that was added at the insistence of Brian Tierney, a life-long Republican who also happens to be the newspaper’s publisher.”
Various reports have shown that it was not a matter of the media favoring Obama as it was Obama doing more newsworthy things in order to gain positive airtime. Obama draws in crowds of 200,000 in Berlin, masters the internet, changes the electoral map, and sets record after record in raising money, voter turn-out, etc. Meanwhile, McCain kicks journalists off his plane, sequesters Palin from the media, and fake-suspends his campaign while claiming the economy’s fundamentals were strong.
This was not a matter of media bias as much as it was a study of whose campaign was more newsworthy and whose was a train wreck. Drew’s article explained this issue in detail. “The fundamentals of the race favored Obama all along. The objective facts were that he had a far superior campaign organization, with more people on the ground and more money to spend on campaign workers and ads.”
With the media reporting on what was actually happening in both camps, the American people were enabled to see the stark differences between the two candidates. It was not a bias showing through, nor was it an exaggeration of events. Journalists reported what they saw. And what they saw was a calm, collected leader on one side, who was making dramatic changes in this election in areas such as raising money; and they also saw another candidate striving to find some way to get voters, whether it be campaign suspension, pandering to the “Joe-six-packs” of America, or shunning the media. The people were given the information, the information that Kurtz gave us a sampling of, and the people were then left to decide their candidate of choice. Some voted for McCain, some voted for third parties, but most voted for Barack Obama, and it wasn’t because the “liberal” media was in his corner. It was because American’s are not stupid. We learned our lesson last time.