As a citizen, I feel as if my head is spinning in a question of doubt and a flurry of emotion. The attacks on the media by the McCain/Palin campaign seem unreasonable and silly. The charge that the news has been sexist, and unfair, that "ABC News Hid Important Parts of Palin Interview" has been repeated enough to get me questioning myself: am I so biased that I cannot distinguish what I consider coverage, from attack? Or am I just oversaturated? The past two weeks have been not much more than a flurry of Palin coverage. I feel as if we are all up to our eyeballs in news about her. I do feel as if most of the articles have been critical of her rather than promotional of the positive effects she has had as mayor and governor. However, maybe my personal feelings have affected the articles that I choose to read and remember.
In an article tracking the coverage of one day of Biden vs. Palin, Bad Impression: Did the Media Take Swipes at Sarah Palin? by Fox News reporter John Lott, Jr., tracks the coverage of both candidates based on the terms by which they are identified.
For Biden, the top ten terms found were: experience (excluding "executive experience") (69 percent), abortion (21 percent), liberal (11 percent), safe (7 percent), long-winded (5 percent), moderate (5 percent), plagiarism (3 percent), gun-control (2 percent), executive experience (2 percent), and exaggerate or exaggerated (dealing with exaggerated claims he made about his college grades and
accomplishments that helped end his 1988 race) (1 percent).
For Palin, the top ten were: conservative (49 percent), abortion (44 percent), brother-in-law (picking up claims that she improperly tried to get her ex-brother-in-law fired) (17 percent), corruption and oil (17 percent), risky or risks or risk (16 percent), glass ceiling (13 percent), Quayle (10 percent), exciting (9 percent), inexperience or "lack experience" OR "limited experience" (8 percent), and bold (8 percent).
He concludes,
One day's media coverage hardly makes a whole
campaign, and it would be interesting to see if these patterns
continue, but first impressions do matter. Whatever the reasons,
initial media coverage of Sarah Palin was significantly less positive
than the coverage for Joe Biden.Personally, I don't agree with his conclusion, but the article does bring up a good point. Are reporters using more negative terminology to critique Palin? Are the media the ones who are driving the intense scrutiny of Palin while giving Biden a bit of a free pass? Or is the fact that Biden's history has been on the table for so many years mean that he is not as newsworthy as someone who is brand new?
My question is, why is Palin not available to refute or explain these stories? If Palin is not available to speak to the country, where should the public's information come from?
However, this spin tactic of attacking the media has worked even to defend her from public appearances. In her first press interview with Charlie Gibson last week, it has been reported that The McCain campaign dismissed any Palin missteps in the interviews as being the result of attempted sandbagging by the media.(Tom Shales, Washington Post) In a New York Times article about the interview,
What is it that the media can do to prove that they are treating Palin fairly. Both the O'reilly and Stephanopoulis interviews with Obama seemed much more hard hitting and critical than anything that came up in the Palin interview, "Palin Reviews Are In, and Gibson Got an ..."
Steinberg points out the views that pundits and bloggers have expressed: Gibson was respectful vs. Gibson was sneaky and unreasonable. Of course, what could Gibson have done to make critics happy other than not push Palin when his questions were not answered directly.
If attacking the media is a campaign tactic, is there really a way to combat this sense? In a way, it doesn't matter whether or not the bias is true because any criticism of Sarah Palin will be met with criticism of the media. The only way to end this battle would be to remove the news forum from the discussion. Pehaps we should bend to John Stewarts' suggestion that even the mention of her name is "sexist." It just all seems, well, not fair. However, this is the reality of how the race is being run. It is my hope that the voters see through it and hold out for real discussion of the issues when, hopefully, we will see Palin speak for herself without criticism of the media guide that could be accused of unfairly leading the conversation.
This spin about a biased media is unrelenting and at times infuriariating. It seems that such vehement accusations should be saved for times when attacks are truly warranted. However, at this time, its a tactic that seems it may be working. And, as much as I hate to say it, unfair as it is, attacking the media may be a method that - in a fight - will be proven to have been smart.
By johnlott
September 15, 2008 6:51 PM
"Whatever the reasons, initial media coverage of Sarah Palin was significantly less positive than the coverage for Joe Biden."
"I don't agree with his conclusion"
Could you explain why it is that you don't agree with the conclusion? Thank you.
By johnlott
September 15, 2008 6:51 PM
"Whatever the reasons, initial media coverage of Sarah Palin was significantly less positive than the coverage for Joe Biden."
"I don't agree with his conclusion"
Could you explain why it is that you don't agree with the conclusion? Thank you.
By Kim Daniels
September 21, 2008 10:11 AM
I don't agree with the conclusion because it makes assumptions about the nature of the words identified -- and those assumptions are not qualified.
For example, the word "conservative" (which was at times used to identify the bias of a person being quoted - that person being someone who was speaking about Palin) is not necessarily negative. In the Republican forum, for example, conservative is a good term; McCain was being criticized for being too moderate... had the word conservative appeared with his name, as it is now that Palin is his running mate, he would have been more appealing to the Republican base.
In addition, since the RNC, Palin has been in the national media for the first time in her life. The governor of Alaska is generally not national news - not in the way a vice presidential candidate is anyway. She was covered by traditional news sources in stories about events that were news worthy. The story about her brother-in-law for example is relevant because it has been in the news in Alaska for some time. The case also challenges the claims that the McCain camp has made about her challenging the good ol' boy establishment and rejecting cronyism/corruption. Reporting that story to the rest of the country when it has been an ongoing investigation in Alaska could hardly be considered negative. It is simply news.
On the flip side, Biden has been around for a long time. If anything has happened with him, it has been in the news. On a superficial level, the most I have heard about him is that he is a hot head, he is not a vote for change, and he has made racist comments. (this is post DNC)
And, again, many of the words identified could be construed as negative or positive, depending on your audience. Without context, it is very difficult to determine whether or not these people were portrayed positively or negatively.
It seems that one simply cannot come to a conclusion that the coverage of Palin was more negative than the coverage of Biden, based on that evidence.
Perhaps, now that there is so much more information about Palin available, that test could be somewhat accurate - if there were also a way to consider context.