Blue Crab Boulevard

Professional De Attachment

The Politico notes just how badly the media is in danger this year of losing professional credibility. Reporters have become, in many cases, sycophants of Barack Obama - more so even than they have in previous years with other politicians. John Harris and Jim Vanderhei describe reporters having to go through detox after a brief assignment of covering Barack Obama on the campaign trail.

Last fall, when NBC’s Tim Russert hazed Clinton with a bunch of similar questions—a mix of fair and impertinent—he got lots of gripes from Clinton supporters.

But there was nothing like the piling on from journalists rushing to validate the Obama criticisms and denouncing ABC’s performance as journalistically unsound.

The response was itself a warning about a huge challenge for reporters in the 2008 cycle: Preserving professional detachment in a race that will likely feature two nominees, Obama and John McCain, who so far have been beneficiaries of media cheerleading.

This is not to say that ABC’s performance was flawless. There were some weird questions (“Do you think Reverend Wright loves America as much as you do?”). There were some questionable production decisions (the camera cutaways to Chelsea Clinton, the stacking of so many process questions in the first 45 minutes.)

But there was nothing to justify Tom Shales’s hyperbolic review (“shoddy, despicable performances” by Gibson and Stephanopoulos) in the Washington Post or Greg Mitchell’s in Editor & Publisher (“perhaps the most embarrassing performance by the media in a major presidential debate in years.”) Others, like Time’s Michael Grunwald, likewise weighed in against ABC.

In fact, the balance of political questions (15) to policy questions (13) was more substantive than other debates this year that prompted no deluge of protests. The difference is that this time there were more hard questions for Obama than for Clinton.

Moreover, those questions about Jeremiah Wright, about Obama’s association with 1960s radical William Ayers, about apparent contradictions between his past and present views on proven wedge issues like gun control, were entirely in-bounds. If anything they were overdue for a front-runner and likely nominee.

If Obama was covered like Clinton is, one feels certain the media focus would not have been on the questions, but on a candidate performance that at times seemed tinny, impatient, and uncertain.

The difference seems clear: Many journalists are not merely observers but participants in the Obama phenomenon.

(Harris only here: 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 de-tox, to cure their swooning over Obama’s political skill. Even VandeHei seemed to have been bitten by the bug after the Iowa caucus.)

(VandeHei only here: There is no doubt reporters are smitten with Obama's speeches and promises to change politics. I find his speeches, when he's on, pretty electric myself. It certainly helps his cause that reporters also seem very tired of the Clintons and their paint-by-polls approach to governing.)

Thus far, the media has managed to report on Obama's gaffes, but has not kept up the drumbeat of negative stories that would normally hound a candidate - especially a Republican one. I suspect most people can see the way the media is treating Obama with kid gloves - and the media will pay a price in the long run for that. Harris and Vanderhei do not seem to think the media is the main cause of the rise of Obama, but I suspect it has a lot to do with it. Reporters are playing softball with Obama while playing a death match with Clinton.

While the attachment of many in the media for Obama may be more pronounced this year than in the past, I honestly don't think it is much different than it has been in past years for others. Bill Clinton would have been hounded from office by the press if he had been a Republican. The difference now is that people do have alternatives to the old media and the bias is even easier to see. Harris and Vanderhei are quite right to be worried by this. So should all Americans, regardless of political affiliation. While Obama supporters may think this is just great right now, they should be thinking about the inevitable backlash that is bound to happen.

Politics | Gaius Saturday, 19 April , 2008

By Andrew X, Saturday, 19 April , 2008 @ 8:57 am

I love history, because of the way the same things just keep re-appearing. I also love ‘Doonesbury’, conservative though I am. It reads much better in book form than daily, and it’s just a great chronicle overall. So I own every single one.
So I go to the shelf and take the Doonesbury book ‘What is it, Tink, is Pan in Trouble?’, and on it’s last two pages there is a six day series of comics. Bear with me, here are three of them, dateline 1991-92….
—–
RICK REDFERN (WaPo Reporter) -: "Hey, boss, it’s Rick, I got a message you called."
EDITOR : "Redfern, what the hell gives with this piece you filed last night?"
REDFERN: "The Clinton story, what’s wrong with it?"
EDITOR: "What’s WRONG with it?? "The campaign now purrs like a Porsche 911 Turbo…." "Clinton has the kind of traction that makes his election next fall a dead cinch." " Kissed by the Gods, the candidate seems destined for greatness." "Get ready, Mt. Rushmore." ???
REDFERN (shocked) :  " * I * wrote that??"
EDITOR: "Dammit Rick, you’re the third reporter I’ve lost to Clinton this month!"
—-   continuing   —
Ace TV Reporter Roland Headley talking to Rick and radio personality Mark Slackmeyer:
ROLAND: "Hey men! Take in Slick Willy’s speech this morning?
MARK: "No, how was he?"
ROLAND: "The usual. All things to all men, women and children, regardless of race, faith , or party affiliation. I’m thinking of doing a TOUGH take on him tonight." "I mean, I don’t care HOW good he is, or HOW well he speaks, or HOW much he inspires people….. or …… or…… um….."      "Oh, hell, let’s just go work for him"
MARK: "We already are."
RICK: "Maybe we should unionize."
— one more —
Rick and a fellow reporter -
RICK: "Man, I’m fading. Want to go grab some coffee, Howard?"
HOWARD: "Coffee?"
RICK: "Yeah, coffee. As in… a break from work."
HOWARD: "It’s Clinton, isn’t it?" "He’s bringing the races together. It’s not about Willie Horton, or ‘welfare queens’, or ‘quotas’. He’s bridging the divisions, healing the wounds…"
RICK: (sigh) "Another good reporter, missing in action".
HOWARD: "He’s going to break our hearts, isn’t he?"
—————————-
Circa 1991-92
So the only thing I would add are two time honored quotes.
One is "The more things change, the more they stay the same".
The other comes from a standard issue 15-year old girl.
"But MO-OOOOMMMMM! I LOVE him!! And you DON’T understand what it is to be in LOVE !!!!!" (…. because its never happened before, apparently.)
By Mwalimu Daudi, Saturday, 19 April , 2008 @ 9:23 am

The media is in danger this year of losing professional credibility.

This year? I would argue that they have not been credible since Cronkite lied about the Tet offensive in Vietnam. There have been a few peeps of protest from a tiny handful of journalists worried about the growing taste of Walter and the MSM for bloodthirsty leftist propaganda, but very few. Too many journalists revel in the Vietnam myth they helped to create.

Gaius, I think that there is one huge difference between the way the MSM used to cover the Clintons, and how they are now covering He Whose Middle Name Must Not Be Mentioned. With the Clintons it was largely duty (Democrats defend Democrats no matter what) that made them publicly fawn over Hilly the Hun and Slick Willy. Perhaps early on there was the same glow that reporters get with the Messiah, but it quickly faded when the Clinton’s sordid past bubbled to the surface. Remember that the MSM was little more than the pooper-scoopers for Clinton Inc. for almost two decades - and it cost them dearly in terms of credibility.

But with the Messiah, right now at least there is genuine worship and adoration. And unlike the case with the First Black President the MSM sees the wonderful possibilities (for them) of running a truly slimy Black Panther-style racist campaign in defense of Democrats. With William Jefferson Clinton it took a Texas-sized amount of suspension of disbelief to buy the notion that he was the "victim" of racism. There is a cult of personality around Obama and his sycophants in the media that is downright sinister.
By martian, Saturday, 19 April , 2008 @ 11:59 am

I agree with Mwalimu about the "cult of personality" around Obama and his syncophants but I see it as even more extensive. The Obamessiah’s entire campaign is built on nothing more than his exalted personality. The whole thing is one big personality cult. Think about it. What else does he have to run on? He has no major accomplishments either as an Illinois legislator or a US Senator. He has no experience or training in economics, foreign relations or military strategy. He knows absolutely nothing about intelligence gathering. He has no record of bi-partisanship Ihis biggest claim being that he can unite America). In short, he may be the least qualified candidate to run for the Oval Office in a century or more. He has nothing but his personality to run on. And that turns out to be the Hildebeast’s greatest problem - she has no personality with which to combat the cult indoctrination.
By McGehee, Saturday, 19 April , 2008 @ 2:48 pm

I’m with Mwalimu — "in danger" implies it hasn’t already happened, which assumption is clearly at odds with observed reality.
By Mwalimu Daudi, Saturday, 19 April , 2008 @ 10:42 pm

I think that there is a major problem with my first comment. It suggests that the MSM lost all credibility with most people in one shot with Cronkite’s lying way back in the 1960s.

Actually, there has been a steady drip-drip-drip of lost credibility since then as people discover that reality has failed to live up to the MSM-created fantasy. Southeast Asia turned into a genocidal hellhole after the Democrat-controlled Congress cut off aid to the South Vietnamese government. The US economy buckled under Carter’s mismanagement in the 1970s. Reagan won the Cold War without provoking a nuclear war, much to the shock of the anti-nuclear warriors of the 1980s. The 1990s saw the unchecked growth of al Qaeda while Slick Willie concerned himself with interns. The Iraq War has failed to live up to its "quagmire" billing. Even the Messiah cannot seem to stand securely on His pedestal with one foot planted firmly in His mouth.