Media Loses Objectivity While Covering Primary Election
This is Getting Ridiculous
The newspapers and TV networks have lost all semblance of objectivity, and we haven't even gotten close to the general election yet.
The New York Times is supposed to be America's leading newspaper. I have no idea what the editors were thinking when they ran their front-page story about John McCain's alleged close relationship with a female Washington lobbyist.
The article tried to use the alleged relationship as an example of a sense of recklessness that could become a problem for McCain down the road. Of course, everyone focused on the alleged relationship itself.
Most troubling from a journalistic standpoint is that the article didn't name any sources to corroborate the allegations. If the Times was trying to hurt McCain, the tactic backfired, because the Times didn't offer real proof that McCain did anything wrong.
If McCain did have an affair with this woman, the Times should have kept digging until it found real proof. Then all the blame would have landed on McCain, and the Times wouldn't have taken a public beating for its shoddy reporting.
Another example of the media's election frenzy is the fact that many newspapers and TV networks have fallen head-over-heels in love with Barack Obama. The Akron Beacon Journal, my hometown paper, is a good example of this.
Michelle Obama, the candidates' wife, spoke recently at a campaign rally in Cleveland. Despite the fact that her speech drew only 500 people and took place 35 miles away, the Beacon Journal splashed her picture on the front page.
"Saturday Night Live" hit a home run on Feb. 23 when it portrayed the moderators of an Obama-Clinton debate as fawning sycophants for Obama. In the real debate in Cleveland on Feb. 26, Hillary Clinton picked up on the "SNL" skit, echoing that the media's most challenging question for Obama is "Can I get you a glass of water?"
The most egregious example of the media's propensity to play favorites came this morning, when I visited the Beacon Journal's website, ohio.com. A huge Barack Obama advertising banner jumped out at me, so all I saw was the Ohio.com banner and an invitation to vote for Obama - early!
Now, I know the newspaper industry has fallen on hard financial times. I know newspaper executives are trying everything they can to balance the bottom line. However, it is simply unacceptable for a newspaper's website to have a such a pop-up ad for any candidate on the front page. It simply destroys the credibility of the paper's election coverage.
I wouldn't be surprised if the Beacon Journal had endorsed Hillary Clinton and still accepted the money for such an intrusive ad for Obama.
I'm not saying I'm the greatest journalist ever, but I certainly try to be objective. I hope you can't tell which candidate I'm supporting from reading this article. The ideal of objectivity was drilled into my head in journalism school. I only graduated from college 16 years ago; but when I see the media acting like this, I feel like I went to college to learn to build typewriters or horse-drawn carriages.
Published by Jeff D Gorman
Jeff Gorman is a journalist for a local newspaper, editor for BleacherReport.com and a legal writer for CNP. When he isn't writing he's pursuing his sports broadcasting career. When you need a profession... View profile
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1 Comments
Post a CommentGreat article, Jeff. The media rarely is objective. Much of what we see, read, and hear has some sort of twist on it, even if it is unintential or subtle. But some of it gets way out of hand. The McCain story was tabloid trash. The Times sat on it for months and should have just farmed the story out instead of printing it themselves. And what about the Repuclican debate on CNN where only McCain and Romney were allowed to speak? The Obama sycophancy is nauseating, barely matched by the Hillary sycophancy. There's relatively little objectivism left. The media is guided by ratings, money, corporate politics, individual discretion, and whoever has the power to channel any of it. Now, with this Jeremiah Wright guilt by association thing, they might turn on Obama like they turned on Hillary in South Carolina. Whatever happened to "the facts, just the facts"? How come I as the reader, viewer, listener don't get to make up my own mind from an objective presentation anymore?