The Huffington Post has a humor section called 23/6, and today they ran an opinion piece on the supposed slant of the media. Siting a Politico study that revealed that McCain receives 4x as many negative stories as Obama, the piece - Old man's media coverage negative cuz media covering negative old man - says this negative coverage is deserved. The argument? If things aren't going well, you're not going to pretend they're going well. While I can see their point, it would be interesting to see these statistics when things were going better for the McCain campaign.
Also relevant to our class is an article about how McCain hates bloggers (at least that's what the headline says...). There are some interesting points in the article, which is a Q&A with GQ correspondent Robert Draper, who has spent a lot of time with the McCain campaign and recently profiled it for the NY Times. The most relevant parts are below.
R.D.: Unlike some of the journalists for not only the daily papers but for networks, who have to constantly blog as well as file stories, I could be a little more leisurely, and beyond that, maintain a big-picture perspective. And frankly, the McCain campaign was much more responsive to that approach. They’ve come to be rather disdainful of the hyper-blogging that takes place on the press bus, and they think it has increased this mind-set of “gotcha” journalism, where every time John McCain would say something, instead of asking a follow-up question, people would go scurry off to their laptops and post to their blogs. And the McCain campaign believes that’s not what journalism ought to be. I’m not positing myself as some kind of superior journalist, it’s just that the format of long-form journalism allows me to be a little more leisurely, allows me to look at the longer view of things, and allows me two-and-a-half months on a single story.
WWD: It’s been said that because of access to so much unmediated campaign information — you can watch the speech on YouTube and so on — you no longer even have to be on the bus. How important was it to actually be there?
R.D.: In being there, you can develop relationships with people on the campaign. You can’t do that by sitting on your butt at home watching YouTube. If you’re out there watching them do their thing, then go out in the evening and have a beer with them and talk to them about what’s just transpired, then you set yourself up for what could be a series of interesting interviews.…[And] that sort of proximity isn’t earned overnight. I didn’t contact the McCain campaign and say, “I’m going to do this story and I demand intimate access.” You have to earn your trust with these people. And I did, over a lengthy period of time. It’s also true that I didn’t come with a thesis in mind.…That gave me credibility, and ultimately, access.
WWD: You mentioned that the McCain campaign thinks that blogging is inimical to journalism. Do you think it’s true what they said in your story, that reporters are “primarily young, snarky, blog-obsessed and liberal?”
R.D.: Oh, yes, I think it’s true, but I don’t think it’s a fatal impediment. Steve Schmidt and Mark Salter and others who would characterize the media these days in such a way have it about right, except that I also found that a lot of these younger journalists who were my companions aboard the Straight Talk Express were extremely diligent, incredibly hardworking, extremely intelligent and very much of a mind to give the McCain campaign a fair shake. I do think that they are impeded by the imperatives of the trade now…you’re in this eternal footrace, with so many competitors, to get something out that’s fresh and hot and get it out quickly. But Obama’s people have coped with it, and I think that McCain’s people have coped with it less well.
I know a lot of people covering the Obama campaign who are displeased with the level of access being given them, and they have concerns with what an Obama administration would look like in that regard. But they’re also not made out to be the enemy.…And there is a level of disdain that is palpable in the McCain campaign that does not exist in the Obama campaign, and I cannot believe that that is helpful to McCain’s efforts.
As we've been talking about, it does seem that McCain's campaign doesn't "get" this journalism in the same way that Obama's does. But the ending quote is interesting... does understanding the blogosphere mean that access to candidates is restricted and image is tightly controlled? Will this type of journalism ultimately result in well-polished candidates who we may not really get a chance to know? Finally - and this seems the most significant question to me - is "gotcha" journalism blocking us from seeing the bigger picture? Granted, it is incredible to be able to have immediate reactions and coverage. Yet, if bloggers are competing to get the story first, that doesn't leave much time for the thoughtful follow ups that could really be beneficial to any election. Hmm...
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