As I started looking at different sources of media coverage after Friday's debate between Obama and McCain, I started thinking about the role of the media in determining what is "newsworthy." 
After watching the debate, I looked at some of the coverage today on the websites of various news organizations including Fox News, MSNBC, and The Washington Post. These articles have titles such as "No knockouts in debate: Economic jabs, then punches on world affairs" (The Washington Post) or "Temperature of debate? Lukewarm" (also from The Washington Post). These articles seemed fairly objective in presenting both positives and negatives from each candidate while also acknowledging that nothing especially amazing happened during the debate. This was also my impression after watching the debate. The debate was significant in that it was the first official debate between Obama and McCain in the 2008 run for President, but at the same time nothing new or out of the ordinary seemed to happen. Both McCain and Obama articulated aspects of their campaign or positions on events that the general public had already heard before.
[Full Debate Seen Below]
After watching the debate, I looked at some of the coverage today on the websites of various news organizations including Fox News, MSNBC, and The Washington Post. These articles have titles such as "No knockouts in debate: Economic jabs, then punches on world affairs" (The Washington Post) or "Temperature of debate? Lukewarm" (also from The Washington Post). These articles seemed fairly objective in presenting both positives and negatives from each candidate while also acknowledging that nothing especially amazing happened during the debate. This was also my impression after watching the debate. The debate was significant in that it was the first official debate between Obama and McCain in the 2008 run for President, but at the same time nothing new or out of the ordinary seemed to happen. Both McCain and Obama articulated aspects of their campaign or positions on events that the general public had already heard before.[Full Debate Seen Below]
When I started to look at some of the
videos on these same websites, this coverage differed in that it made
the debate more "newsworthy." Such an example is on MSNBC's Countdown
with Keith Olbermann interview with Rachel Maddox, which can be seen
below.
While the newspaper print articles mentioned above seemed more objective in describing what took place during the actual event, MSNBC's Maddox and Olbermann instead seemed to focus on the "juiciest soundbites" such as McCain's mistake in pronouncing Iranian President Ahmadinejad's name or Obama telling McCain "you were wrong" several times in a row.
In the video below, also from Keith Olbermann's Countdown, Howard Fineman. MSNBC Political Analyst, is interviewed "Live from the 'spin' tent" in which he discusses how the Republican campaign is attempting to "spin" Obama's words from the debate to support their own campaign.
According to the Fox News channel host Shepard Smith and guest Chris Wallace in the post-debate analysis video seen below, both Obama and McCain had good and bad moments during the debate. However, Shepard Smith ends the post-debate analysis by going into a discussing about how Obama seemed to call McCain "John" instead of Senator McCain during the first half of the debate. He went on to say, without explicitly saying it, that in "this part of the country" that is considered rude and was a mis-step on Obama's part.
Even moderator Jim Lehrer seemed to be interested in the topic of newsworthy during the debate. It states in this Associated Press article that "Moderator Jim Lehrer of PBS kept his questions simple to get the men talking. He even tried to push the candidates to address each other instead of the camera, a request that had some success as more heated foreign policy exchanges came." This Fox News article compared him to being in "teacher mode when trying to get the candidates to actually speak to one another, like getting kindergartners to play together rather than alongside each other. But these two weren't playing."
Whether the lackluster debate was a result of the recent status of America's economy or both candidates' attempt to play it safe in the first round, the media, especially the broadcast programs, did their best to make the debate newsworthy. Whether this attempt is a positive or negative trait, I'm not exactly sure.
While the newspaper print articles mentioned above seemed more objective in describing what took place during the actual event, MSNBC's Maddox and Olbermann instead seemed to focus on the "juiciest soundbites" such as McCain's mistake in pronouncing Iranian President Ahmadinejad's name or Obama telling McCain "you were wrong" several times in a row.
In the video below, also from Keith Olbermann's Countdown, Howard Fineman. MSNBC Political Analyst, is interviewed "Live from the 'spin' tent" in which he discusses how the Republican campaign is attempting to "spin" Obama's words from the debate to support their own campaign.
According to the Fox News channel host Shepard Smith and guest Chris Wallace in the post-debate analysis video seen below, both Obama and McCain had good and bad moments during the debate. However, Shepard Smith ends the post-debate analysis by going into a discussing about how Obama seemed to call McCain "John" instead of Senator McCain during the first half of the debate. He went on to say, without explicitly saying it, that in "this part of the country" that is considered rude and was a mis-step on Obama's part.
Even moderator Jim Lehrer seemed to be interested in the topic of newsworthy during the debate. It states in this Associated Press article that "Moderator Jim Lehrer of PBS kept his questions simple to get the men talking. He even tried to push the candidates to address each other instead of the camera, a request that had some success as more heated foreign policy exchanges came." This Fox News article compared him to being in "teacher mode when trying to get the candidates to actually speak to one another, like getting kindergartners to play together rather than alongside each other. But these two weren't playing."
Whether the lackluster debate was a result of the recent status of America's economy or both candidates' attempt to play it safe in the first round, the media, especially the broadcast programs, did their best to make the debate newsworthy. Whether this attempt is a positive or negative trait, I'm not exactly sure.
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