Glenn Greenwald does a perceptive, acerbic analysis of what the media are up to. If you are one of the clan of national reporters, you won't like this one bit. Let's start with the media and John McCain.
At The New Republic's blog, Jason Zengerle confesses what is and has long been too obvious to require much proof -- the media is uncontrollably in love with John McCain. And Zengerle's reason why this is so is equally unsurprising: McCain gives them unfettered access, so they love him. Everything is about them, and whichever politician flatters and charms these adolescent, coddled narcissists is the recipient of their uncritical love ...
Ever noticed how everything that happens in a distant land is about America? Well, in much the same way campaigns are about the media. What's important is the media. What's essential is the media. What's pampered and cosseted is the media. What results -- once the candidate gets into the White House -- is the control the media and the executive branch share over the country. So reporters are no longer reporters. They have opinions. They issue predictions. They have become an essential part of information control that any leaders (or candidates) who are undemocratic by predilection and policy want so badly.
Why do "reporters" covering these campaigns consider it their province to guess about which candidates are going to win and lose, as opposed to, say, reporting on what they argue, what their claims are, the truth of their positions, etc. etc.?
Aside from the fact that these endless prediction games completely overwhelm any substantive discussions, their guesses -- which are really wishes -- are almost always dreadfully wrong and plainly designed to advance their concealed agenda for which candidates they like and dislike. Why is any of that something that reporters ought to be doing at all? Is there any distinction between what a "reporter" does and what a "pundit" does covering this campaign? There doesn't seem to be any.
Of course, if you're a candidate who's a democrat (as distinct from Democrat), you quickly run up against a stone wall constructed for the most part by media conglomerates, from the lowliest local reporter to the hotshots on the national primetime news. Or, more accurately, "news." If you don't play their game, you're ignored and abandoned.
So maybe that's why one resolutely democratic candidate is having a stinker of a time with the national media. Greenwald displays a chart showing -- yes -- the rise of Barack Obama and the slow demise of Hillary Clinton. But it also shows graphically a far more meteoric rise on the part of John Edwards. And yet, in what media have you seen acknowledgement of this phenomenon?
Edwards -- who, just one week ago, was 10 points behind Obama nationally among Democrats -- is now only two points behind him. Less than a month ago, he trailed Clinton by 29 points. Now it's 13 points. He is, by far, at his high point of support nationwide. Apparently, the more exposure Democratic voters get to Edwards and his campaign positions -- and that exposure has been at its high point during his surge -- the more they like him. By contrast, Obama is more or less at the same level of support nationally, even having decreased some since his Iowa win (for most of mid-Decemeber, he was at 27-28 points).
Yet to listen to media reports, Edwards doesn't even exist. His campaign is dead. He has no chance. They hate Edwards, hate his message, and thus rendered him invisible long ago, only now to declare him dead -- after he came in second place in the first caucus of the campaign.
It's hard to deny that the media are making up our minds for us. They are coaching us about which candidate should be making the greatest impression on us as poll respondents and primary voters.
...The traveling press corps endlessly imposes its own narrative on the election, thereby completely excluding from all coverage plainly credible candidates they dislike (such as Edwards) while breathlessly touting the prospects of the candidates of whom they are enamored. Their predictions (i.e., preferences and love affairs) so plainly drive their press coverage -- the candidates they love are lauded as likely winners while the ones they hate are ignored or depicted as collapsing -- which in turn influences the election in the direction they want, making their predictions become self-fulfilling prophecies.
Some of us have noticed that, in spite of her third place showing in Iowa, Hillary is getting far more press coverage than any other third place candidate would. It's understandable that the winner would get a lot of attention. It's understandable that the (surprise) loser would get some attention. But the close second? What was his name? Edwards?
Greenwald is right on target when he writes:
It's just all a completely inappropriate role for political reporters to play, yet it composes virtually the entirety of their election coverage. Go read Time or The New Republic or The Politico or The Washington Post and see if you can find any examples of straight factual reporting about the remaining candidates, their positions, anything substantive -- rather than endless, group-think gossip about tactics and winning/losing predictions. It basically doesn't exist (here's an interview Ana Marie Cox conducted with John McCain yesterday where she tried to press him on his comment that we should remain in Iraq for 100 years -- notable because it's so rare to find any questions of this type).
I realize none of this is a revelation. But it's still astonishing how extreme it is.
Let's not forget that it's John Edwards who has been so persistent and vocal in his criticism of the damaging partnership of executive and legislative branches of government with corporations. Gee, could that have something to do with his premature obituaries in the media? Isn't that all the more reason to embrace the man and make sure he is given a strong position in our political leadership?
Update: Ken Silverstein also writes at Harper's about the relationship of the media and the candidates -- and the current primary system. "...Another factor in Obama’s favor is (just as the Clinton campaign claims) that the media seems to be strongly in his corner. McCain gets great press too, far better than any of the other Republican contenders. In some accounts, his fourth place tie in Iowa was deemed to be as impressive as Mike Huckabee’s triumph. 'Tonight is a fantastic night for John McCain,' the Politico’s Mike Allen told Fox News. 'Except for Barack Obama, there’s almost no one you’d rather be tonight than John McCain.' "
