On Dangerous Ground: Media Tougher On Palin Than Obama, America Now Sees Journalists As Political Operatives
It should be an ethics requirement that any journalist “reporting” on political matters reveal their party affiliation and at least some portion of their voting history.
CBS News:
(CBS) Political Players is a continuing conversation with the leaders, consultants and activists who shape American politics. This week, CBS News’ Brian Goldsmith talked with Mark Penn, a top strategist to both Clintons, about the state of the Obama campaign, and the appeal of Sarah Palin.
CBSNews.com: Your former colleague Howard Wolfson argued that you all unintentionally paved the way for Palin by exposing some of the unfair media coverage that Hillary Clinton received. And, therefore, a lot of the media may now be treating Sarah Palin with kid gloves. Do you agree with that?
Mark Penn: Well, no, I think the people themselves saw unfair media coverage of Senator Clinton. I think if you go back, the polls reflected very clearly what “Saturday Night Live” crystallized in one of their mock debates about what was happening with the press.
I think here the media is on very dangerous ground. I think that when you see them going through every single expense report that Governor Palin ever filed, if they don’t do that for all four of the candidates, they’re on very dangerous ground. I think the media so far has been the biggest loser in this race. And they continue to have growing credibility problems.
And I think that that’s a real problem growing out of this election. The media now, all of the media — not just Fox News, that was perceived as highly partisan — but all of the media is now being viewed as partisan in one way or another. And that is an unfortunate development.
CBSNews.com: So you think the media is being uniquely tough on Palin now?
Mark Penn: Well, I think that the media is doing the kinds of stories on Palin that they’re not doing on the other candidates. And that’s going to subject them to people concluding that they’re giving her a tougher time. Now, the media defense would be, “Yeah, we looked at these other candidates who have been in public life at an earlier time.”
What happened here very clearly is that the controversy over Palin led to 37 million Americans tuning into a vice-presidential speech, something that is unprecedented, because they wanted to see for themselves. This is an election in which the voters are going to decide for themselves. The media has lost credibility with them.
CBSNews.com: Joe Biden said this week that Hillary Clinton might have been a better pick than he was. Do you think that’s true?
Mark Penn: Ask Joe Biden.
CBSNews.com: Well, that’s what he says. What do you think?
Mark Penn: I’m going to leave that one where it is.
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Ethics in ‘journalism’.
September 13th, 2008 at 6:14 pmPricks don’t want to be ‘journalists’.
They wanna be STARS.
Political Operatives??
Whores, useful idiots, smarmy bastards, paid assassins…
…you get the picture
September 13th, 2008 at 6:19 pmAll journalists with a degree have taken ethics class’s, but we all know the ethics of left leaning academia at this juncture.
September 13th, 2008 at 6:28 pmWe do not have journalist in this country. We have editorialist.
September 13th, 2008 at 6:31 pmHmm…. the many spellings of Pravda.
September 13th, 2008 at 7:04 pmHow about journalists mentioning their affiliations with foreign entities and international NGO’s.
September 13th, 2008 at 7:11 pmMy wife pointed out a few years ago while comparing what she had read in Baton Rouge’s “Morning Advocate” and New Orleans “Times Picayune”. She had long ago noticed that the NOLA paper would never print the complete description of a criminal suspect because some locals would call it “racist” and marveled that in Baton Rouge a full physical description was always printed. She began comparing AP articles about Iraq, Afghanistan, et al. What she found was that the NOLA rag never ever used the words Muslim, Middle Easterner, Arab or Islam when the BR rag did. Insead the NOLA paper replaced these with the term “Asian”. Now WTF is that supposed to mean?
No wonder the TP wins more awards than the MA. It follows party line of the radical “diverse” PC left.
I just love the MSM jumping on Palin. It turns more and more off to Obambi and the DNC. The public knows that the primaries were rigged in his favor. The superdelegates selected him, not the voters in spite of all the hoopla by the MSM.
September 13th, 2008 at 7:12 pmSomehow Democrats have absolutely absorbed and integrated the Socialist / Marxist ideology and have convinced most of the population that they are still just part of the New Deal. Anti-Capitalism is running rampant from both sides of the Political spectrum.
September 13th, 2008 at 7:14 pmlol…
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sVeFVtcdSYY
September 13th, 2008 at 7:34 pmEthics for the media, ha. Dan Rather has ethics, fat chance. Keithie or Geraldildo or Anderson give it a break. Who would watch dog the ETHICS REVIEWERS, no the best thing going is the blogs and independent internet providers. Everything from the MSM is bullshit, all and everyone has a slant. SOLUTION, petition your congressperson to fully support freedom of the press for if it is left up to the democrats the idea of equal and impartial is another way of saying, LIMITED AND MARXIST. Truth is subject to the whims of those in power. Power corrupts, absolute power starts with seizing the means to disperse knowledge, we have already lost the air waves and education to the lefties let us not give away the internet to the bastards of whores known as the MSM
September 13th, 2008 at 7:41 pmRegarding Palin’s grilling by Charles Gibson on ABC, the interviewer got it wrong. There are four so-called Bush Doctrines, each one succeeding the other, and Charles referred to one no longer in common use today.
Writer and TV pundit Charles Krauthammer coined the term, “Bush Doctrine.” He explains the gross ignorance of Charles Gibson who sought to try to discredit Palin, but ended up looking like a jackass himself.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/09/12/AR2008091202457_pf.html
September 13th, 2008 at 11:28 pmI just had to add this quote about Sarah Palin by Christopher Hitchens: “The Democrats were up against Xena the Warrior Princess and came across, in response, as pale-lipped Puritans who actually, at the end of the day, don’t really like women all that much.”
September 14th, 2008 at 12:17 amDemocrats have a puzzle with a code name “Palin Problem”. They have to solve it, and to do it effectively, because the prize is the White House.
September 14th, 2008 at 3:05 amSarah is everywhere these days. No matter, if there are negative responses, rumors and resentments; or praises, support and encouragements. She filled media, and not only in America. Palinmania is spreading all over the world - everybody has their opinion on the new political celebrity of US.
The Palin avalanche is winning against Obama inundation. How should Democrats defeat her? Would it be better just keep their line of campaign and ignore populist idol of Republicans? Or should they put out their claws, oppose her and show her the real politics? http://www.votetheday.com/polls/to-defeat-palin-260/ - give advice to Democrats, if you think there still is an effective advice for them…