The real political season has officially begun
Today, we received the first phone call and letter since Obama became the presumptive Democratic nominee complaining that our coverage has been "too Obama."
It is true, too.
On Sunday, we published a story on the front page about Obama challenging McCain in the "red states" including the news that Obama was coming to Raleigh first.
Today, we published a story on the front page about his Raleigh visit with a distinctive photo of Obama and Gov. Mike Easley giving each other an enthusiastic thumbs up. As Easley was an ardent Clinton supporter a month ago, it is an interesting photograph.
We will get to the point in the campaign in which we give each candidate a close approximation of equal time. We will do that on the issues. We will do that on fundraising, campaign styles, profiles and the like.
But we won't do it all the time. Political coverage isn't like grade school when everyone gets the same number of crayons. The news doesn't permit it to work that way.
When one candidate comes to Greensboro or Raleigh or Winston, his visit will get priority. When one candidate proposes a program that has a distinct impact on North Carolinians, we will cover that program and candidate closer.
It works the other way, too: When one candidate gets into trouble, he will get more press.
In this case, Obama had just clinched the nomination; Clinton had finally conceded; he was about to start a two-week campaign tour in North Carolina. He and the state were in the national news. It deserved to be on the front page both days. At the same time, McCain, who has been the Republican candidate for months, was in Washington and Virginia.
I hope that Obama holds true to his initial strategy to campaign in the traditionally Republican strongholds. The campaign automatically becomes much more interesting. Both candidates will visit -- neither can take a victory or defeat for granted -- and voters will have the opportunity to see each in person. Being able to make a personal connection with a national candidate is increasingly rare these days.
Anyway, over the course of the campaign, our coverage should even out to be fairly apportioned. But there are no guarantees: If Obama never makes it back to NC, but McCain comes three or four times, I fully expect to hear from Democrats complaining about unequal time.
Thursday update: For those who think the national media is in Obama's camp, from this month's Vanity Fair: "I love the guy," professed New York Times columnist David Brooks one Sunday on The Chris Matthews Show, that church service of chipmunk chatter. The lucky guy on the receiving end of Brooks's blown kiss was John McCain, the rare politician with the magical property to make otherwise finicky journalists go misty and let drop the chastity belt of objectivity. As MSNBC's Joe Scarborough wisecracked about the reporters on the campaign beat this season, "I think every last one of them would move to Massachusetts and marry John McCain if they could."
Comments (11)
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"...he will get more press."
Sigh. Grammatically accurate, too. Darn.
Posted on June 10, 2008 6:29 PM
I had to think about it for just a moment to make sure I didn't have to use the awkward, yet historically and politically significant "he/she" wording.
Posted on June 10, 2008 7:15 PM
Hope you live up to those nobel promises but belive it or not I suspect the N&R will wind up like 90% of the MSM...besotted with and in the tank for Obama. It has started to rear its head already with those examples you mentioned and with your fawning quotes from our Mayor a strong BO supporter.
Posted on June 11, 2008 1:51 AM
Fred, if you can get Sen. McCain to come to N.C....
Posted on June 11, 2008 8:27 AM
I think we need to look at the quantity of coverage of each campaign, but also the quality of coverage-- the placement in the paper (or on the news program); how flattering the coverage is; whether the images chosen are a positive or negative portrayal; and the fairness of any analysis offered.
Rich Lowry of the National Review has commented that much of the MSM is "in love" with Obama, and that is undoubtedly true.
Posted on June 11, 2008 9:27 AM
Thanks, Joe. I hope you don't tag us with what television does. I think a lot of the thinking about MSM's love affair with Obama will dissipate once the campaign between the two men gets going. Obama has gotten a lot of news attention because he's been out there a lot, trying to win the nomination. Once the comparison of his candidacy with McCain begins in earnest, things will even out.
I hope.
Posted on June 11, 2008 10:01 AM
Noemie Emery in the 6/11/08 Weekly Standard
convincingly makes the case that the MSM is in the tank for Obama:
"When John Kennedy died, Joseph Alsop wrote that Washington was filled with "male widows," and that he too was one of them. Obama isn't president (yet), but he has more than his share of male concubines, who are starting to embarrass themselves (and their readers) with a slavish devotion that is only too evident. They are "at that stage in the ad where the announcer warns that, if leg tingles persist for more than six months, see your doctor," as Steyn advises. Chris Matthews, Newsweek, and now Mr. Halperin, should seek out their doctors, and fast."
John is your leg tingling ?
The Charisma Machine
Posted on June 12, 2008 10:16 PM
Now we have established, Fred, that different people view the press's actions in different ways. A conservative publication writes that the press is in the bag for a liberal, and a liberal publication writes that the press fawns over a conservative. I'm stunned, aren't you?
Posted on June 13, 2008 5:09 AM
John,
Please , your cognitive dissonance is showing.
David Brooks is the NY Times token conservative who writes a column for a liberal newspaper. You haven't established anything.
Liberal bias in the MSM fact. It is throughly documented in,
Coloring The News
and
Bernard Goldberg:Bias
The 3 major networks, plus CNN, are by their own admissions, credible critics and non-partisan studies, liberal leaning. The evidence that NBC is cheerleading for Obama and calling for the President's head on a pike is overwhelming.
Crazy Keith Olberman, huh ? He is a classic example of the diagnosis that ,
Liberlism is a mental disease
An then there is Chris Matthews expressing his love for Obama to Jay Leno who is nodding and clucking approvingly.
Matthews: " If you are in the room when he ( Obama) gives one of those speeches and you don't cry then you are not an American. He and Michele are cool like Jack and Jackie Kennedy"
" The fact is I wouldn't be an HONEST REPORTER if I didn't tell you what the spirtual experience is like being at an Obama rally"
Well ,watch the video it your self,
Here
This is Matthews after the Wisconsin primary,
"The feeling most people get when they hear a Barack Obama speech, I mean, I get, I felt this thrill go up my leg. I mean, I don't have that too often"
Roll the tapes,
Mancrush
Look forward to your Sunday column.
Posted on June 13, 2008 9:04 PM
Fred, if you eliminate from your argument the editorial commentators who don't try to be objective -- Matthews and Olberman -- and you drop the "studies" that were done well before the topic at hand, which is McCain and Obama, you've got, let's see, your opinion.
All I'm suggesting is that there are other opinions about which candidate the press is in love with.
Posted on June 14, 2008 5:50 AM
John,
5:50 AM. Good grief did you sleep at the office ?
Look, a trend is already emerging in the MSM showing a bias that even Ray Charles could see. They were bashing Hillary and have now turned their not so subtle favoritism to Obama.
Yes, that is my opinion and I hope you prove me wrong in the months, weeks and days before the election.
I am remined every time I have this discussion with someone like yourself of what Bernad Goldberg said in his most recent book ..... Arrogance: Rescuing America From The Media Elite.
"There are some journalists out there, of course, who refuse to pretend that liberal bias is a myth, a canard concocted by right-wing ideologues..."
Posted on June 14, 2008 9:31 PM