WSJ- Does the Media Fear Palin?

[Tchocky]

It's not specifically a financial paper, though. Certainly in origin, but not in practice.

Simply put, only one other paper reaches more people via print.

[SUBMAN1]

Originally Posted by Tchocky

It's not specifically a financial paper, though. Certainly in origin, but not in practice.

Simply put, only one other paper reaches more people via print.

Everything has blogs about other topics. This is one case. The primary focus is not on general news like "Mainstream Media". This is why the guy who wrote this article in the WSJ writes it like the way he did.

Get the picture?

-S

[SUBMAN1]

I think we need a definition of Mainstream Media in this thread!!! Someone find it.

-S

[Tchocky]

I like it - http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0908/13143.html

Fourth, we should stop making with all the questions already. She gave a really good speech. And why go beyond that? As we all know, speeches cannot be written by others and rehearsed for days. They are true windows to the soul.

Unless they are delivered by Barack Obama, that is. In which case, as Palin said Wednesday, speeches are just a “cloud of rhetoric.”

[Frame57]

I was a bit worried over the Palen pick, but I am impressed with what she has done in Alaska thus far and how she presents herself. The biased media is doing what ther always do in smear campains. Nothing really new here, but it is backfiring on them as we speak. I would like tosee the media hold the dems hypocricy to the fire in that Biden and the Clintonians have just 2 months ago clamored that Obama is not qualified to be president, but now in just 2 months time, he is? The hypocrisy of that party never ceases to amaze me.

[Platapus]

Originally Posted by Frame57

I would like tosee the media hold the dems hypocricy to the fire in that Biden and the Clintonians have just 2 months ago clamored that Obama is not qualified to be president, but now in just 2 months time, he is? The hypocrisy of that party never ceases to amaze me.

Lemme explain then

During the primaries Clinton and Biden were in COMPETITION with Obama. It was their job to build themselves up and to tear Obama down in order to win that competition.

Now the competition has changed.

The competition has changed to one between Obama and McCain. Now Clinton and Biden are in COOPERATION with Obama. Their job is to build him up and to tear down McCain.

Notice the pattern of building up people on "your side" and tearing down people on "their side". No hypocrisy no conspiracy. It is just how political competitions are run.

If you examine the Republican side you will also find people who were in competition with McCain during the primaries (one competition) and are now cooperating with McCain in the General Election (the other competition)

What is happening is not sinister nor uncommon when you have multi-level competitions. It happens in sports, politics, even busines.

If you are into sports, use All-star games as an analogy. On All-star teams you have players who just recently were in competition with each other, but are now in cooperation with each other.

[Frame57]

Believe me i do get it. Politics as usual. But it would be fun to have them answer this publicly. Then maybe more Americans would see the menagerie that our system has become.

[Sailor Steve]

Originally Posted by Frame57

I would like tosee the media hold the dems hypocricy to the fire in that Biden and the Clintonians have just 2 months ago clamored that Obama is not qualified to be president, but now in just 2 months time, he is? The hypocrisy of that party never ceases to amaze me.

Then you've conveniently forgotten Reagan/Bush, to start with. The Democrats hold no monopoly on that kind of politicking, and your picking on them alone to hold to that light shows a rather strong partisanship on your own part.

[Von Tonner]

Found this interesting.

The past week provides a useful case study of how the Republicans' assault on the media works.
Last Friday, John McCain announced that he had chosen Sarah Palin to be his running mate. The media had a few questions -- basically, who is she, and is she ready to be president? So the McCain campaign threw a tantrum, insisting the media were being unfair. As usual, the complaints were short on details and merit -- but the media still took the complaints seriously, treating them as one of the most important topics of the past few week.
Perhaps the best example of how phony the GOP's complaints were: the McCain campaign's cancellation of an appearance by McCain on Larry King Live because, they said, CNN anchor Campbell Brown had behaved improperly in interviewing campaign spokesperson Tucker Bounds the night before. They didn't really say what Brown had done wrong -- probably because all she had done was ask simple questions that Bounds couldn't answer. After Bounds said that as governor of Alaska, Palin leads the state's National Guard, Brown asked him for an example of a decision she had made in that capacity. He didn't answer. So she asked him again. That isn't inappropriate; that's exactly what she should have done -- that's journalism.
And that drove the McCain campaign crazy.
So, did all the complaints work?
Consider this: Wednesday night, Sarah Palin falsely claimed she had told Congress she did not want funding for the "bridge to nowhere." She didn't; that was a lie. Congress had said a year before Palin became governor that Alaska need not spend the federal funds on the bridge. And Palin had initially supported the bridge, not opposed it. And once she became governor, Palin kept the money. Palin's false claims Wednesday night were not new: She had said the same thing in previous campaign appearances since McCain picked her -- and several media outlets, including The New York Times, The Washington Post, and the Los Angeles Times had debunked the boast. But when Palin told the lie during her convention speech -- after days of McCain complaints that the media had been too hard on Palin -- those newspapers ignored the lie.
That wasn't the only false claim in Palin's speech that went un-debunked by the media. She falsely attacked Barack Obama's legislative record -- and media uncritically quoted the false claims. She lied about Obama's tax plans -- she said he "wants to raise" them, even though John McCain's own economic adviser has admitted that is false -- and, again, the media repeated her claim without debunking it.
Instead, much of the media gushed over her speech. If you watched MSNBC yesterday, you would have seen reporter after reporter talk about the McCain complaints that the media were too hard on Palin. And you would have seen reporter after reporter lavish praise on Palin's speech. But you wouldn't have seen them say much about the actual content of Palin's speech -- certainly not about whether she told the truth in it. At one point, Andrea Mitchell declared that "what came through" in Palin's address was "the authenticity."
Nonsense. "Authenticity" doesn't consist of doing a good job of delivering a speech -- not if the speech is riddled with falsehoods. But most of the media didn't tell you about the falsehoods, they just fell all over themselves praising the speech -- even praising the "authenticity" of someone who stood before the nation and repeated lies she had already been caught telling.
So, did the McCain attacks on the media work? They certainly didn't hurt.

And colleague Joe Klein -- who has, in the past, been awfully kind to McCain -- urged fellow reporters not to back down in the face of the barrage of criticism from the right:
There is a tendency in the media to kick ourselves, cringe and withdraw, when we are criticized. But I hope my colleagues stand strong in this case: it is important for the public to know that Palin raised taxes as governor, supported the Bridge to Nowhere before she opposed it, pursued pork-barrel projects as mayor, tried to ban books at the local library and thinks the war in Iraq is "a task from God." The attempts by the McCain campaign to bully us into not reporting such things are not only stupidly aggressive, but unprofessional in the extreme.
The next two months will constitute a test for reporters: If they fall for the idea that they're treating unfairly a candidate who has long referred to them as his "base," what won't they fall for? If they won't stand up to these attacks, what will they stand up to?

[Frame57]

Originally Posted by Sailor Steve

Then you've conveniently forgotten Reagan/Bush, to start with. The Democrats hold no monopoly on that kind of politicking, and your picking on them alone to hold to that light shows a rather strong partisanship on your own part.

Not sure what you are referencing with Regan/Bush??? Enlighten me Steven