GOODY TWO SHOES: WaPo’s Admission Coverage Was Pro-Obama Is Too Little – And Way Too Late
Washington Post ombudsman Deborah Howell notes that “readers have been consistently critical of the lack of probing issues coverage and what they saw as a tilt toward Democrat Barack Obama. My surveys, which ended on Election Day, show that they are right on both counts.” She goes on to specify in what ways in an article that makes it clear an ombudsman’s job is not to stop a crime against journalism but to show up after the fact to draw the chalk outline around the corpse:
† The paper ran 1,295 horse-race stories and 594 issues stories since November 11, 2007, and [t]here were no broad stories on energy or science policy, and there were few on religion issues.
† The op-ed page ran 32 “laudatory” opinion pieces on Obama vs. 13 on John McCain.
† There were 58 negative stories about McCain vs. 13 about Obama.
† Obama deserved tougher scrutiny … especially of his undergraduate years, his start in
† When Gov. Sarah Palin was nominated for vice president, reporters were booking the next flight to
Her explanation for all this? “Reporters, photographers and editors found the candidacy of Obama, the first African American major-party nominee, more newsworthy and historic. Journalists love the new; McCain, 25 years older than Obama, was already well known and had more scars from his longer career in politics.” This is as pathetic an explanation of MSM bias as the one Reuters came up with: Obama was more popular than McCain in the polls so reporters liked him more.
Meanwhile, Slate media critic
The press corps works to hold the president accountable for what he does and extra hard to hold him accountable for what he does not do …
So even before Barack Obama swears to preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution on Jan. 20, the press corps - which has failed to make anything it has thrown at him stick (Wright, Rezko,* Ayers, voting "present," his FISA, the surge, guns, capital punishment, and campaign finance flip-flops)—will finally start extracting maximum punishment. …
Obama will abandon the habit of walking on water he picked up during the past two years because you can't build a moat around the White House the way you can a presidential campaign. … Few Cabinet secretaries, members of Congress, federal bureaucrats, federal grantees, soldiers and sailors, or others drawing a salary from the U.S. Treasury get the love or respect from the president that they think they're owed. They'll leak because it will be in their interest to leak, and the press will feast. When they leak, he'll do what every president has done. He'll flip out. …
The White House will counter by serving the standard ration of seduction and hostility to the press … It wants the public lapping up its "reports," not those of the press, and its credibility logically increases whenever the credibility of the conventional press falls.
Still, one thing will not change: Journalists will be no more interested in informing readers and viewers than they were before. The only difference is, instead of building up Obama at McCain’s expense, they will be building their careers up at Obama’s expense. Not that The Stiletto will lose any sleep over this. The media utterly failed in its responsibility to thoroughly vet Obama so Americans were not able to make an informed choice. But an election can’t be undone so this is rough justice of a sort.
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