The MSM and Obama
According to the Project for Excellence in Journalism, the attention that the TV networks are giving Sen. Barack Obama this week is par for the course. Amazingly, CBS chief anchor Katie Couric, ABC's Charles Gibson and NBC's Brian Williams have each flown oversees to interview Obama this week. For once, the networks decided not to compete with one another: their interviews are on successive days.
Moreover, as Andrea Mitchell reports, we're seeing PR footage from Iraq and Afghanistan being presented on TV as though it were press pool footage. "We've not seen a presidential candidate do this in my recollection ever before."
Add this to the recent dust-up over the New York Times refusing to run a McCain op-ed after giving Obama a slot, and one could be forgiven for mumbling about the "liberal media."
Study Data
Each week, the Project for Excellence in Journalism evaluates more than 300 political stories in newspapers, magazines and television. For the past six weeks -- from June 9 and July 13 -- Obama was a significant part (25-50 percent) of 77 percent of these stories. Sen. John McCain, on the the hand, was significant in less than half: only 48 percent.
But on Hardball Monday, Andrea Mitchell criticized the TV coverage of Obama's trip to Iraq:
Let me just say something about the message management. He didn't have reporters with him, he didn't have a press pool, he didn't do a press conference while he was on the ground in either Afghanistan or Iraq. What you're seeing is not reporters brought in. You're seeing selected pictures taken by the military, questions by the military, and what some would call fake interviews because they're not interviews from a journalist. So, there's a real press issue here. Politically, it's smart as can be. But we've not seen a presidential candidate do this in my recollection ever before.
Andrea Mitchell is the chief foreign affairs correspondent for NBC News, a position she has held since November 1994. Want to take odds on whether her closing line will make the other networks -- or mainstream press?
Update:
Patrick Ruffuni brings us this related (and perfect) YouTube clip from the McCain campaign. (tip) I remain appalled at both the public utterances and the failure to regard the sentiment as problematic. Is this the 1890s all over again?
