His bark is worse than his bite.
Just a year ago, Fox News Channel was considered a pariah in many Democratic circles. But it appears that the cable news network is no longer on the outs.
Fox may indeed be more unfair to Democrats than Republicans (and I believe this to be the case), but some would say that this simply makes up for the unfairness that Republicans have had to endure from CNN and MSNBC. It is unfortunate that those doing the squawking on this, do not oppose bias per se, but only bias against their views and their candidates.
At what point are we going to get past this myth that news reporting should be unbiased? At what point are we going to realize, in postmodern fashion, that neutrality is impossible? At what point are we going to insist that all news should be reported, not in an unbiased way, but in a fair way? It is indeed possible to be biased and fair at the same time.
I try hard to be “fair and balanced” when I look at these kinds of things, but I have to confess that, in this long election season, my patience is running out with the left-wing and right-wing political extremists, who in their self-righteousness, believe that their views should be taken more seriously than the views of everyone else.
Fox, like the American Enterprise Institute, the Heritage Foundation and the Washington Times, is a conservative counterestablishment institution designed to ape the functions of the real thing, doing double duty by firing up the troops with custom-crafted ideological spin, "analysis" and phony scholarship while confusing the rest of the world with nonsense disguised as news.
The question of Fox's malevolence is settled. What remains is a disagreement among liberals over an appropriate response. Some argue that liberals ought to refuse to participate at all because it is impossible to do so without playing by Fox's fixed rules. But by sitting it out, the counterargument goes, they are shutting themselves off from cable's largest audience, and inviting the accusation of fear and wimpiness.
As John Edwards explained when announcing his withdrawal from a Fox debate, "There's just no reason for Democrats to give Fox a platform to advance the right-wing agenda while pretending to be objective." He also noted that he had appeared on the network more than 30 times. Edwards is right. The proper response to a Fox attack disguised as a question is, "Well, Brit, I appeared on this biased show of yours to set your viewers straight about the BS you and your fellow right-wingers have been handing them. Now here's the truth..."
Can they debate without a moderator?
They've already debated 21 times, but Hillary Clinton wants one more crack at Barack Obama -- this time, though, without the modern encumberances of network anchors running the show.
We have all become used to candidates appearing at events where the audience is made up of ideologically sympathetic supporters. Most candidates for president know all too well how to get cheers of approval from their bases with well delivered poll-tested partisan talking points. However, it would be a different situation entirely if candidates had to consistently appear in front of people who are not inclined to be in agreement with them. Add to that, someone from the other party who will challenge their positions, then add to that someone from the media who knows how to cut through the rhetoric. Now, that is a much more substantial challenge and one likely to produce a much better quality of meaningful dialogue about how to meet the many challenges facing the country.
Such a level of meaningful exchange is critical to our democratic process. First and most importantly, it requires candidates to know what they stand for. A candidate must know more than talking points; he or she must know the substance of the material. They must be able to draw on historical parallels to support their arguments. They must know the audience and understand something about their worldview in order to relate to them. Candidates must be clear. They must provide real solutions to our challenges. But even all of that is not nearly enough. They must persuade.
Persuasion is what counts in a free society. If you cannot persuade, you cannot succeed in solving America's challenges because in the end, the American people must support your solutions or nothing can get done. It's time for a new model.
I understand the Obama campaign's decision to refuse more media-driven debates before the North Carolina primaries. The last one was an unenlightening debacle, and a distraction from the issues of the race.
But now the Clinton campaign is challenging Obama to unmediated, Lincoln-Douglas style debates. I'd certainly watch. And though it's easy to forget, Obama and Clinton actually look great when talking about real issues in a serious way. If both campaigns actually decided to run out the rest of the primaries in serious, respectful debates, I'd feel a lot more sanguine about the race's impact on the Democratic Party. I doubt there's anywhere near the level of trust between the two camps necessary to make this happen, but a wonk can dream.
Elizabeth Edwards, wife of former Democratic presidential candidate John Edwards, complained in the New York Times on Sunday that the press is emphasizing silly stories over substantive issues in the election.
Two storylines in the coverage of the 2008 presidential election are starting to wear thin. The first is the narcissistic display of self-doubt by the media over whether they are spending too much time covering the horse race in proportion to the issues.
Here’s the thing: If the public displayed an appetite for these things, the businesses would cater to it. Instead, readers demand more comic strips, horoscopes, recipes, movie listings, gardening tips, "human interest stories," "good news," and so forth.
At the same time, though, the incredibly tiny minority of us who are interested in public policy have more ability than ever in human history to get that information in as much detail as we want, as often as we want, and at a time that is convenient to us. That’s a pretty good trade-off.
John Edwards, Joe Biden, Chris Dodd, Mitt Romney, and the others lost, not because the press didn’t cover them properly but because the public looked them over and didn’t see them as "presidential." It’s probably true that most people couldn’t tell you much about the health plans of these guys. But, really, who cares? There was never much chance that these people would be president. Why waste your time reading their white papers?
The vigorous press that was deemed an essential part of democracy at our country’s inception is now consigned to smaller venues, to the Internet and, in the mainstream media, to occasional articles. I am not suggesting that every journalist for a mainstream media outlet is neglecting his or her duties to the public. And I know that serious newspapers and magazines run analytical articles, and public television broadcasts longer, more probing segments.
But I am saying that every analysis that is shortened, every corner that is cut, moves us further away from the truth until what is left is the Cliffs Notes of the news, or what I call strobe-light journalism, in which the outlines are accurate enough but we cannot really see the whole picture.
News is different from other programming on television or other content in print. It is essential to an informed electorate. And an informed electorate is essential to freedom itself. But as long as corporations to which news gathering is not the primary source of income or expertise get to decide what information about the candidates “sells,” we are not functioning as well as we could if we had the engaged, skeptical press we deserve.
ABC News anchorman Charles Gibson, center, is taking heat for the conduct of the Democratic debate in Philadelphia.
The day after Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama met onstage in Philadelphia, the chatter is not so much about what the candidates said but how they were treated by debate moderators Charles Gibson and George Stephanopoulos. Critics say ABC's anchors were unfair to Clinton and Obama, focusing more on campaign gaffes than actual issues.
The question of electability in the general election is the only one that matters anymore in the race for the Democratic nomination, and ABC’s moderators did a good job because they kept that in mind. Gibson and Stephanopolous asked questions about the candidates’ personal associations and the controversies surrounding some of their public positions (such as Obama’s decision to stop wearing a flag lapel pin). When the questions did focus on substantial matters, they concerned things like the right to bear arms, affirmative action, Iran’s pursuit of nuclear weapons, and the capital-gains tax.
Blogger Andrew Sullivan’s reaction was typical of many -- he called it “one of the worst media performances I can remember -- petty, shallow, process-obsessed, trivial where substantive, and utterly divorced from the actual issues that Americans want to talk about.” By those, he meant things like “the environment... interrogation [of terror suspects]... [and] healthcare.” But ABC’s debate was a success because it steered clear of issues like these, i.e. issues on which the candidates mostly agree. How many times have we heard Clinton and Obama argue endlessly over what amounts to a very minor difference in their health-care plans?
Has there ever been a debate moderator as puerile, as relentlessly focused on trivia, as dogged in his pursuit of the "gotcha" moment as George Stephanopoulos? I sincerely doubt it.
Aided and abetted by comoderator Charlie Gibson, the host of This Week chewed up nearly an hour of clock time probing, poking, and prodding the Democratic candidates on such nano-topics as "Bittergate," the tired Reverend Wright fracas, why they won't commit to a hypothetical joint ticket, and on and on -- long before the first substantive question, on Iraq. (Of course, it was asked by one Mandy Garber of Pittsburgh, not by either of the moderators.)
Not until 9:04 p.m. ET was there a question about the economy. Something is very wrong with the priorities of the U.S. television media.
