The most depressing article about election coverage I've ever read.

[jpgray]

What is it? An innocuous little piece that helps explain 2000, 2004, and moreover why things aren't in utter landslide territory this year. I've often wondered: How could a solid, knowledgeable, staid guy like Gore be painted as an emotional effete, and a compulsive liar besides? How could a recovering alcoholic Yalie who bought a ranch in '99 and feared horses be painted as the regular-guy cowboy everyone wanted to have a beer with?

I think we now have a partial answer: it's the apparent belief of prominent campaign reporters that covering a campaign should be in all ways like attending a political fantasy camp. They crave a personal relationship with the candidate. They long for "unguarded moments," wherein the true character of the candidate is revealed through some unscripted "off-message" bit of amiable banter. They want a guy who gives them personal gifts, tells off-color jokes they can titter about nervously like kids in church (without reporting them), and who generally takes time out to be interested in -them-, to be their pal. The question "which candidate would you like to have a beer with?" in and of itself doesn't really influence many voters. However, the traveling press corps seems to base its coverage on another question: "Would this candidate like to have a beer with me?" That sort of bias can influence an entire electorate.

The power of this bias, in complete conflict with journalistic responsibility, has been all too obvious in the case of McCain--he provided the fantasy, and reaped the rewards, in 2000. His coverage was overwhelmingly milk-safe and positive. Despite running robo calls himself, despite baldly lying about himself, his policies and his opponent, despite reneging on much-ballyhooed promises to run a positive campaign, McCain remained a saint to the media. His studied and shrewd courtship of his press corps was a huge factor in this--if all the ground-level reports are breathlessly positive, troubling gaffes or misstatements may never see the light of day.

The obvious contrast to this was Gore. While rumblings of unjustified pundit disapproval were in full swing a full two years before election day, Gore was fatally sunk by a hostile traveling press corps. Misstatements were invented, core personality flaws were discerned from the most ephemeral trifles, and the general tone of coverage was always one of thinly-disguised contempt. Why? It may be because, by all reports, Gore didn't "hang out" much with the press corps, joshing and back-slapping, but instead stuck mostly to his script and actual campaigning.

What spawned this spew of endless words from me? Maeve Reston's horrifying LA Times article, concerning her travels with McCain this season.

http://www.latimes.com/news/politics/la-na-maeve28-2008oct28,0,7533361,full.story

First, note her apoplexy after asking a "tricky" question resulted in a minor McCain gaffe:

The questions meandered across more than a dozen topics, but I asked if he agreed with his advisor Carly Fiorina's recent statement that it was unfair for some health insurance companies to cover Viagra but not birth control -- because McCain generally opposed those kinds of mandates.

Liberals and late-night comedians would later revel in McCain's on-camera discomfort -- the widening of his eyes, the awkward silence while he clutched his jaw and formulated an answer. But I had come to respect McCain's frankness and his willingness to admit he didn't always have an answer. Watching the question morph into an embarrassing "gotcha moment" for cable television, my stomach churned and my cheeks grew hot.

Why, exactly, does she feel stricken by shame? We only have to read on. It gets weird:

By July, I had covered McCain for almost seven months. I could recite many lines of his stump speech by heart, dreamed about his events at night and spent so much time scrolling through campaign e-mails on my BlackBerry that my fiance joked to our friends about the other man in my life.

Is this dedication to the job or a schoolgirl crush? The weirdness continues:

Over those months, McCain had artfully created a sense of intimacy with the reporters who traveled with him. He barbecued for us at his Arizona cabin, and opened up about matters as personal as his faith and his son's girlfriends. On one of my first days covering McCain, another reporter protectively warned me that it was important to be judicious with the material I used from McCain's bus rides to keep the conversations in context.

Translation: don't spoil our fantasy camp by actually reporting newsworthy McCain statements. The personal revelations and barbecues, the -intimacy- with us transcends our ostensible purpose for being there in the first place--reporting noteworthy facts about the candidate and his campaign. Reston gushes at length that McCain took time to ask her personal questions; about her upcoming marriage, etc. But after the Viagra incident, it all went downhill:

On a recent Sunday during a brief stop at a Virginia phone bank, I got unusually close to McCain in the line of people waiting to shake his hand.

Tape recorder out and within a foot of him, I asked if he could talk about his new economic plan, which he was to unveil that week. The man who once asked me about my wedding date returned my gaze with a stare, shook the hand of the strangers to the right and left of me and continued out the door.

Oh, the tragic snub! This poor reporter once had something, something infinitely valuable--a shrewd pretense of friendship from Senator John S McCain! But now all was lost due to that detestable business of actually being a journalist! I don't think what happened here can be overemphasized: this lady actually valued her perceived personal relationship with the candidate as being far more important than judiciously covering his campaign. The accompanying piece on Obama notes that our guy sticks mostly to campaigning and doesn't choose to "go rogue" all that much once the recording devices are out. Given the events of 2000, can anyone blame a Democrat for this?

There have been several great blog posts on this article, and they're far better than my lame venting. I particularly like Terry Welch's comment that McCain's press corps is acting like the guy who believes strippers are totally into him; you know, for real dude.

Glenn Greenwald
Terry Welch
Bob Somerby

[jpgray]

1. Just one kick.

:)

[Window]

2. K/R, bookmarked.

:kick:

[crispini]

3. Kick for the commentary.

Excellent stuff.

[onefreespiritedchick]

4. K& R

Excellent post. Both enlighting and depressing.

[Wednesdays]

5. What happened to Gore isn't confined to the political arena, it's everywhere

Since the "Reagan Revolution" came about, honest, hard-working people have been given the shaft while people "with the right connections" and the "right personalities" have been walking away scot-free after screwing others right and left. The recent exec golden parachutes and Enron are high-profile examples, but that sort of thing has been happening in smaller ways at the "office politics" level. The attitude has poisoned our society.

[Jennicut]

6. What was done to Gore was horrific and will live on in infamy as one of the worst

most unfair covered campaigns ever. John Kerry was hurt by the swiftboating as well but there was such contempt for Gore, disdain for the man. I never understood it until I realized that Bush made them feel special with his stupid special nicknames for them and his frat boy ex-party guy attitude with them. Bush was an ex-alcoholic, drug user, and womanizer. Gore was none of these things and a dedicated family man deeply in love with his wife and by all accounts a very intelligent, hardworking man. It was disgusting the way the press treated him. I read an article during the primaries that talks about this. Some of those press people apologized to the Gores and Tipper was like, "its a little late now". Thankfully they have not treated Obama with total disdain, only on occasion talking about his "messianc" qualities. Maybe they learned their lesson on attacking someone they barely know. These candidates are not your friends, they are there to audition for two of the biggest jobs in the world of president and VP.

[JI7]

8. they are unfair to Obama

although it's more similar to the way they were with Kerry and not telling the truth about swift boating (in Obama's case it's things like Wright, Ayers etc). but Obama has been able to deal with this by having enough resources to get his own messages out with ads and especially use of the internet.

with Gore there was a lot of personal contempt. and i heard from someone that the people reporting on Gore would laugh among themselves at Gore for stupid things . kind of like school kids whispering to each other and laughing and picking on some kid.

you say some of those press people apologized to Gore ? yes, it is too late now but why did they apologize ? because now he is considered more "cool".

these media whores disgust me.

does anyone remember Meghan McCain talking about how the guys from politico brought Cindy McCain some flowers . and some whore on CNN or some other station going on about the BBQ at McCain's home and how we can get a recipe online. this fool was talking like it was the bbq of some good friend.

[ErinBerin84]

12. yes

I emailed Jonathan Martin from Politico some tip last week, and added a teasing line about doing the ribs with McCain at the BBQ and added a "Kidding, Kidding", and a smiley face, and Jonathan Martin (or whoever looks at his email) sent me back a semi nasty sounding email about how journalists can still savor a BBQ and be able to cover someone objectively....just the tone of it was so snarky sounding...like, a little testy, buddy?

Does anyone remember who wrote the article this year that talked about how the Straight Talk Express was like revisiting "college" for journalists? It wasn't Tucker Carlson, but I remember he separately wrote or said that the Straight Talk Express always provided free booze to the journalists.

[PaulaFarrell]

7. The piece on Obama is just as enlightening

the reporter is upset that Obama doesn't really seem interested in his medical problems:

"I told him our family has had medical issues with the sun. He quietly took that in. I wasn't expecting any empathy -- and didn't need any -- but I felt surprised nonetheless that he evinced little or no interest. It seemed like a chance to make a human connection, if he wanted one."

[JI7]

9. what a shitty ass article

towards he end he mentions how Obama supporters say we have his record in office, and other things that show where he stands.

but this fool thinks Obama needs to do some stupid shit like give him a nickname or clear brush to really know if Obama is ready.

that article SUCKED.

[jpgray]

15. Very much so. Unfortunately my post was long enough already

:P The best part of it is the contrast of the candidates' response to reported "gaffes." McCain's was real, caused by a substantive question. Obama's was nothing of the sort:

One boy approached him and held out his fist. Obama drew back. "If I start that . . ." he said. From where I stood, it looked like he was refusing a request for a fist bump -- a gesture that had gotten a lot of attention after Obama fist-bumped his wife at a campaign event the month before. A Fox News host had even suggested that it was a "terrorist fist jab." If Obama was rolling out a no-fist-bump policy, that seemed worth mentioning.

The pool report quickly got around.

Maureen Dowd of the New York Times cited the episode in her column. Obama complained to an aide that it hadn't happened that way. He was right. A videotape of the conversation would later show the boy was merely asking Obama to autograph his hand.

Obama doesn't single out the guy for snubbing, shunning or anything else. He in fact maintains the same cordial distance already extant. The whining from Nicholas about this "distance" makes me absurdly proud of our candidate. :)

[Peace Patriot]

10. I don't know what else we should expect when 5 rightwing billionaire CEOs control all

'news' and 'opinion' in the country (with the exception of internet). These war profiteering corporate 'news' monopolies CREATE whore reporters. They reward toadyism and the licking of rightwing candidate butt, and punish real journalism. We have a prime example of the latter in Dan Rather, who, despite dirty tricks against his story on Bush's AWOL from the Texas National Guard, had enough strong evidence to go with the story, and was willing to put his considerable reputation on the line for it, and got bushwhacked by CBS execs, who said--quoted in Rather's lawsuit against them--that it was "in their interest" that Bush being re-elected, and killed his story.

And the other part of this tale--which Dan Rather-in-exile at HD.net has also told, in his documentary, "The Trouble With Touchscreens"--is that, not only do our Corporate Rulers control our political narrative, and create whore reporters and whore pundits to tell it, they also now control the voting machines, and can thereby pre-write the political narratives for a pre-ordained result.

What can a journalist, who actually wants to behave like one, do in this circumstance, except become a whore or quit?

Personally, I think there is another factor--a very unconscious one--in whore reporters whoring up to would-be emperors, and that is The Bomb. We now have presidents who can destroy all life on earth, with the push of a button. I don't think we're even close to comprehending--or even making conscious--the impact on our democracy of this single fact. Presidents are God. And that is one helluva far cry from what our Founders intended them to be--mere citizens, like everybody else, temporarily holding the position of executive, to fulfill the laws passed by Congress.

Our "codpiece president," Bush Jr., has taken this Bomb thing to absurd lengths. It would be comical if there weren't a million dead bodies rotting in the deserts of Iraq because of it. The "Decider." The Writer Of His Own Laws. The "Shock and Awe" Bomber of Baghdad. The Torturer of Thousands. The Brain-Damaged Puppet of Global Corporate Predators and War Profiteers, who can't put two coherent sentences together without a prompter. The Degenerate Spawn of an Oil Monarchy crowned by the Supreme Court, and re-elected by Diebold & brethren.

The 'President' of the United States.

It is disgusting. But that is what The Bomb and Diebold & brethren hath wrought. Whore TV 'news.' Whore radio 'talk.' Whore columnists in the newspapers. Whore written headlines. Whorish interviews. And whore editors editing out the truth, if it dares to rear its battered head. And a mock democracy, spun of the illusions of billionaires.

[Laelth]

14. Too true. Interesting analysis of the effect of "the bomb."

The United States is a LIBERAL Country.

:dem:

-Laelth

[crossroads]

11. k&r

[Laelth]

13. Thanks for bringing this to my attention, and righteous rant!

Bookmarked.

The United States is a LIBERAL Country.

:dem:

-Laelth