Glorifying Obama

One Of The Greatest Journalistic Failures In American History

http://www.wvwnews.net/story.php?id=3661

http://www.wvwnews.net/story.php?id=2854

By Herb Denenberg, The Bulletin

The mainstream media have just committed one of the most disgraceful acts of journalistic malfeasance and nonfeasance in the history of America. By glorifying, deifying and canonizing Sen. Barack Obama and failing to examine his record, the mainstream media helped assure his nomination. Some experts say it is already in the bag, even if http://www.wvwnews.net/story.php?id=3670 Clinton completes her astounding comeback by winning Pennsylvania on April 22.

The second act in that journalistic disgrace is that after the outcome of the nomination process was almost over, suddenly the mainstream media came to its senses and started half-heartedly covering the whole Obama story, which if told, in my view, would make it apparent that he is unfit for the presidency.

Newsweek magazine, one of the worst offenders, is the publication that did a cover story on the senator and then on his wife, in which the two were painted as paragons of perfection, apparently without flaws. The first of the cover stories on the senator moved Charles Krauthammer to observe that Newsweek had used up all its adjectives of praise and glory and will have nothing left for the Second Coming. Stories like that led to the Center for Media and Public Affairs finding that from mid-December through mid-February, Sen. Obama had coverage that was positive 84 percent of the time (while Hillary Clinton had positive coverage 53 percent of the time).That same Newsweek, part of that paragon of biased and dishonest journalism family of the Washington Post organization, ran a story on its Web site that had this lead: “Life imitating art or just a coincidence? A study of campaign coverage found the media took a sharper look at Barack Obama the week after ‘Saturday Night Live’ spoofed journalists enthralled by his candidacy.”

There are two remarkable things about that Newsweek item. First, it is an implied admission that the mainstream media were asleep at the switch during this campaign and gave Sen. Obama a free pass. Second, it suggested what others have agreed to – that the mainstream media finally started looking a bit beneath the Obama surface after “Saturday Night Live” mocked the media for coddling and favoring Sen. Obama over Sen. Clinton.

http://www.thebulletin.us/site/index.cfm?newsid=19369226&BRD=2737&PAG=461&dept_id=576361&rfi=8

2008-03-07