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Media Insists On The Horserace When We Want The Issues

by René | January 18, 2008 at 08:51 am | 376 views | add comment

Michele Norris wastes some of John Edwards's time. . . and ours

by Red Wind

Thu Jan 17, 2008 at 05:59:16 AM PST

As has now been acknowledged by practically everyone, John Edwards don’t get no respect. . . at least not when it comes to the establishment media. Not only is equal time for JRE pretty much an alien idea for media outlets, when Edwards does get airtime or column inches, reporters practically bend over backwards to avoid talking about his platform or proposals. To say that these reporters are too focused on covering the horserace is really an insult to sports reporting.

I have written in the past about the pettiness and whining that the New York Times tries to pawn off as equitable coverage; today, let’s examine what NPR calls campaign coverage.

* Red Wind's diary :: ::

*

National Public Radio has not been immune to Edwards-itis. They, like the rest of the establishment (and how sad is that NPR is now among “the rest of the establishment?”), have been hard-pressed to give the public as much news about Edwards as they have practically every other candidate. For instance, on the day after the Iowa caucuses, All Things Considered had reports from the campaigns of Clinton, Obama, McCain, Romney, and Huckabee—there was even a segment on a possible third-party run by Michael Bloomberg—but nothing from the campaign of the man that placed second in Iowa. In fact, they mentioned Edwards only twice—and when I say “mentioned” I mean “mentioned.” One mention was that a woman flipping pancakes was an Edwards supporter who wanted to talk about Clinton’s third place finish; the other was a two-second soundbite of Edwards saying that his campaign was like “Seabiscuit”—that quote was used as a segue to a piece about how the Huckabee campaign was like, um, yeah, Seabiscuit.

....while I was listening to the interview (the first time), I began to
shout at my radio: “Ask him a f@#%ing question about an issue!” But,
now that I have had half a day to cool off, let me put it in more
civilized terms:

Ask him an effin’ question about an issue!