A Pew Research Center survey this week found that 70 percent of Americans believe the media wants Senator Obama to win. That's up from half of Americans who thought the media wanted Senator Kerry to win in 2004.
It's all true, of course. In these days of newspaper and news magazine circulation collapse and falling audience numbers for the big three network news programs, the mainstream media may see this election as their last opportunity to influence the outcome of a presidential election. It remains to be seen whether the American voter will cooperate in this co-opting of Democracy or will rise up and overcome it.
Meanwhile, there appears to be one last professional journalist in America. It's not Katie Couric, bazillion dollar CBS anchor who let Joe Biden get away with saying that FDR, who was not president at the time, appeared on television, which was not yet in use, to reassure the American public after the stock market crash of 1929. It's a woman named Barbara West of Orlando's WFTV.
Barbara West had an interview with Joe Biden, and what she did is what any professional journalist would do, but no one does anymore when it's a Democrat, and that is to ask him some hard questions. Here is the interview if you want to watch it. (Wait! Today the video stream is unavailable on WFTV. Are they buckling under? Well, too bad. It's available on YouTube here.) You really should watch it, if only for the novelty of seeing a Democrat candidate get a grilling that today is reserved only for Republican candidates. Or to see the wonder and surprise and shock on Biden's face as he realizes he's being tumbled out of the usual feather bed provided by the media and his ass hits the hard floor of a real journalist's questions.
Then Joe Biden is indignant, spitting at one point, "I don't know who's writing your questions!"
How telling is that? Joe knows the mainstream media is largely composed of liberals who are writing softball, reverential questions for the Democrat candidates. That even if they ever brought up some unpleasant truth (like Bill Ayers, Jeremiah Wright, Barack's socialist plans for the U.S. or even Biden's big whoppers at the debate), they would do it in an "I'm sorry I have to ask this," wink-wink, "I know this question is ridiculous, so let me pitch it to you soft in the middle of the strike zone, so you'll have an easy time knocking it over the fence" manner.
Joe is shocked that a journalist -- wait, there's a journalist loose here, people! -- would actually drill a breaking fastball at him.
It's funny for a few minutes, and then you realize how sad it is that it is such a rarity these days.
Among the many thing that hangs in the balance on November 4 (freedom from crippling taxation, the nationalization of our 401(K) retirement funds, the loss of health care coverage for mothers who will not abort imperfect fetuses, a Supreme Court running roughshod over the Constitution and states' rights, free speech) is the future of the press.
If Barack Obama wins, the media may be poised to become nothing more than the propaganda arm of the Democratic party and the MoveOn.org crowd. Does that sound crazy? Well, what else would they do? Suddenly develop some cajones?
If John McCain wins, the media may be forced to come to a full stop and reconsider whether it wants to continue to marginalize itself by cheerleading one party, or whether it needs to go back to the professional values that called for it to be an impartial watchdog for the republic, not a watchdog for the Democratic party.
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Other stories today of interest:
IBD looks at Palin and the elitists.
The Weather Underground and reeducation camps.
More on nationalizing your retirement savings.
Fred Barnes on Sarah Palin. (And don't miss the last paragraph!)
It's a sad day when the national media following the Obama campaign ask mediocre questions which do not match up to the excellent questions asked by Rick Warren, Joe the Plumber, and Barbara West of Orlando.
Posted by: gcotharn | Monday, October 27, 2008 at 07:22 PM