Post | 11/11/2008 9:50 am
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ShareThe Media and the Presidency: How Insiders View the Election
Last night at New York City’s famed Rainbow Room atop 30 Rockefeller Plaza, Sir Harold Evans, editor at large of The Week magazine, led a panel of media’s most influential in dissecting both the presidential campaigns of Obama, McCain and Clinton, as well as the media’s role in the events leading up to last Tuesday’s historic win by Barack Obama. On the panel was wowOwow’s own Lesley Stahl of "60 Minutes," Dan Rather of HDNews, Joe Scarborough of MSNBC’s "Morning Joe," Jacob Weisberg of Slate.com and the Democratic operative Bob Shrum and Republican operative Ed Rollins.
According to this panel, the differences in the operational effectiveness of the two campaigns played importantly in the election’s outcome. The Obama campaign, it was agreed, was a model of professionalism: unity and cohesiveness among the leadership, consistent, on-point messaging, effective and imaginative use of the new media’s power to organize and raise funds, etc. The McCain campaign, in contrast, was characterized as lacking in cohesive messaging, a lack of unity at the top levels of the operation and a "circa 1995" utilization of new media (and not such great use of traditional media, either).
The panel also dissected the role of media bias in the election’s outcome. Both Dan Rather and Jacob Weisberg remarked on a kind of "secular" media bias, one that is not driven by ideology. In Dan Rather’s view, it was "journalism’s love of the new" that drove the media’s embrace of the Obama "story." Weisberg referred to a media bias for whatever story that sells papers (and presumably, drives online page views at Slate), as opposed to a philosophical bias on the part of the media.
Hillary Clinton and her failed run for the presidency was also dissected by the panel. Bob Shrum noted that the Clinton campaign (like the McCain effort) completely misread the country’s desire for change and, instead, ran as an establishment "ready on day one" candidate, a choice which ultimately undid her chances. Both Shrum and Weisberg noted that media bias actually helped Hillary, and kept her in the race long after it was obvious she had no chance of winning the number of needed delegates.
Lesley Stahl remarked, "As a woman, whether you liked her or not, her great campaign proved that a woman could be president. We were proud of her."
On Obama’s surge as the economic problems facing the country became more evident, Joe Scarborough’s take was, "When things get serious, people want serious people on the stage … after the economy hit, Palin was over." According to Rather, Obama has the power to persuade and inspire. "Restoring trust … the No. 1 priority, and he had it."
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37 Reader Comments (so far…) Sign In or Register to comment
As a woman, I am relieved that Hillary will not be our first female president.
And so…?? Did these media giants make any reassessments or explore any alternative jouranlistic standards to safe guard as they move forward into coverage of the Obama administration? Or did they just pat each other on the back? I’m confused. Did the media learn anything of value from this experience?
I’m with you, once again Ms.Dee
“Or did they just pat each other on the back?”
The media was overfilled with hype, opinion & spin. Did they “explore any alternative jouranlistic standards?”
IMO it is time for “CHANGE” in the media too.
It is obvious to most, that the media is economy driven, by owners & sponsors.
The meltdown of the economy is also a meltdown of media.
Freedom of the press SHOULD honor the TRUTH rather than the bottom line.
We can no longer trust the MSM to tell us the truth.
Lily
You hit the nail on the head, with a bang.
The problem with the media is they are a business and need to make money and we all know what happens when the dollar’s value is valued higher than the truth. Whatever the new ” spin’ that will suck people in and keep them watching is good. It is the public that determines much of what is broadcast.
However there are intelligent people in the media and they should be allowed to speak their piece and state their opinions. THey have been watching these people for a long time and are hopefully immersed in the politics for a while so can see the b.s. better than the average joe plumber. No?
Ms Dee
I am so with you on this. The most frightening aspect of the bias in the media is the realization that it will destroy the democratic process and ultimately destroy ALL credibility of media. We all know a large part of the media has turned into a “scoop” fest, yet those stories are the ones that get the most air time and blog discussion. The biased coverage of this years election is setting the stage for media destroying itself. It’s credibility is even more suspect, and journalists are not as respected as they used to be. So much trust has been lost.
Chris Mathews says that “as a journalist” he is going to make sure President Elect Obama has a successful first term. WHAT??!!! That is not journalism, that is a political aide. This also begs the question that lies under the surface; does Mathews now believe that PE Obama is not capable of doing the job? Isn’t that rather insulting? When are these nuts going to wake up and do their jobs? Give PE Obama the respect he deserves and quit trying to hold his hand. He doesn’t need it, and quit trying to gain a seat in the limo of PE Obama’s historical achievement as if it was because of them he is the President Elect. Do your jobs.
“On Obama’s surge as the economic problems facing the country became more evident, Joe Scarborough’s take was, “When things get serious, people want serious people on the stage … after the economy hit, Palin was over.” According to Rather, Obama has the power to persuade and inspire. “Restoring trust … the No. 1 priority, and he had it.””
In a nutshell.
That’s the way I read it too, DeBurca. What it all boils down to is that the Obama Camp did an excellent marketing job bringing out the best in Obama, while the McCain camp was unfocused and dysfunctional – many times coming across as mean spirited. Even today the McCain camp continues their mean spiritedness by throwing their own Sarah Palin under the bus.
In the end two good men ran for president. One good man won. Once the developing issues with our economy was in the headlines the majority of voters felt more comfortable with Obama’s steadiness and ability to inspire which to them outweighed any other obstacles.
Sounds like the biggest losers misread the public and especially the women as a decisive voting block. While we don’t always agree, we are a force to behold on many levels.
Wait a minute! Are we to understand that these journalists sat around using the media portrayal of this election as a sort of demographic study of what to feed the American people? Guess what! News-folks, we’ve figured out which products we like. Your advertisers are wasting their money trying to persuade us to buy just about anything, these days. Stop trying to sell us soap, just tell us the truth. ‘kay? That’d be refreshing. Especially if it were the truth about something relevant! Like Darfur, or Georgia, or Dubai. What’s really going on around the world. What lions is the President-elect really facing in this global arena? Crimi-netly! Stop running the easy story. Go to work!
Maybe this site ( wowowow) can help bring about the change. get some good stories about what is happening in the world and leave the silly fluffy ( palin’s wardrobe ) issues for other ‘news’ reporters.
It certainly has that potential. Lesley Stahl is first rate. She brought us a close-up of Justice Scalia for crying out loud. But a lot of news is nothing more than gossip from the blogoshphere.
Sometimes, I get so frustrated with Scarborough and his ‘spin’ on things—-I have actually stopped watching him! But this time, he hit the nail on the head. We want the truth! EVEN after it was clear that Hillary was not going to win—it was my belief that BECAUSE the media continued to ‘make it a story’, she continued with her campaign…and it got nastier. The conundrum is this: Does the media create the story? or do they report the story? or do they analyze the story with one hypotheses? or do they investigate the story to discover what the truth is? or is it all of the above? And when they DO discover the truth—-are they allowed to report it? without going to jail? or without fear of losing their job? or do they even care if it is the truth because their owners don’t care, if it goes against the ‘poliics’ of the owners?
HAD the financial reporters, for instance, stuck to reporting the TRUTH, this ocuntry MIGHT not be in the mess it is in. HAD the reporters that knew the truth behnd the invasion of Iraq, reported it—this country might not have ‘lost’ all that money, that money that got distributed, but cannot be accounted for…we might not be in Iraq today, and maybe, just maybe, we might had found bin-Ladin, and our country could have healed.
You want the truth? Remember what Jack Nicholson said. What if the truth is that your new president is a complete fake or as Lawrence Eagleburger said—a charleton? I hope those media “giants” above come back and read this—I cancelled Newsweek after 40-some years as a subscriber, since I was a teenager! And all because they fell on their knees for one candidate. It was sickening, honestly. Then they come out and the two editors talk about how they didn’t really know Sen Obama, he was creepily manipulative, all these doubts—or dare I say—truths? Yes, I know, tell me I am a dumb blond, to eat sh-t or whatever some of you charming ladies like to say, but these press people have a heckuva nerve foisting this candidate on us and then backtracking!
I hear you Star. And some news organizations have done the same with Sarah Palin. I think we can handle to truth. Report accurately who said and did what, when, where. After that, most of us have brains enough to analyze and interpret the “why” for ourselves. I might be interested in other people’s opinions about “why”. But what kind of rabid pitbull would make the RNC’s wardrobe budget headline scandal. It’s ridiculous.