Election 2008: Objective Journalism the Loser is by Michael Graham, a talk show host, but it could have been written by nearly anyone who has paid attention to the coverage of this campaign.
Did you see that amazing video obtained by the Los Angeles Times of Sen. Barack Obama toasting a prominent former PLO member at an Arab American Action Network meeting in 2003? The video in which Obama gives Yasser Arafat’s frontman a warm embrace, as Bill Ayers look on?
You haven’t seen it? Me, neither. The Los Angeles Times refuses to release it.
And so an incriminating video of Obama literally “palling around” with PLO supporters becomes one more nail in the coffin of “objective journalism.”
Would the L.A. Times have released the video of it had shown John McCain palling around with Al Qaeda terrorists? As Sarah Palin would say, you betcha!
The L.A. Times isn't the only news organization to have made a commitment to all the news that helps Obama.
Jay Newton-Small, a longtime AP reporter, points out in a column in the Washington Post that her old employer has begun practicing “accountability journalism,” which is a media euphemism for “picking the good guys and the bad guys.”
“Some of the most eyebrow-raising stories this presidential-election cycle have come from a surprising source: the stodgy old AP,” Newton-Small wrote.
The AP, once the gold standard of unbiased “hard news,” is now just another voice in the Spin Room.
Newton-Small asks:
“When the news organization entrusted with calling elections sets off down the slippery slope of news analysis, it’s hard not to wonder: Is the journalism world losing its North Star, the one source that could be relied upon to provide ‘Just the facts, ma’am’ ?”
In a world where it's more fun to play pundit than reporter, it's understandable why a reporter who thinks Obama would be a great president wants to ensure his victory.
It isn't a very well-kept secret that the way a story is written, where it is placed, what the headline says and what art is put by a story all can (and do) display bias of one sort or another. Like a candidate? Pick photos of him smiling and waving. Hate a candidate? Pick photos of him scowling or with goofy facial expressions.
And then, as Michael Malone, a veteran journalist, notes in the New York Times, there's all those words and how the choice can change the meaning. He used the word "said" as an example. Think about it: said, announced, bellowed, responded, alleged, declared, reported, suggested, accused. They all say "said," just in different ways.
Now, when I was in j-school back in the dinosaur era, my teachers told us to say "said" because it was as close to neutral as a word could get (we were also taught to say "died," which is a habit I still use in daily life). So, when the Associated Press, one of the last remaining news services, decides it is no longer going to use the neutral "said" but use other words to help the candidate they have decided America needs, that's alarming to all us bumpkins out in the wilderness who get our news from sources like AP.
I've heard people complain about the lack of objectivity in journalism for nearly 30 years. Originally, I blew it off as just a few cranks who didn't understand the news business. But that systematic bludgeoning of Republicans and uplifting of Democrats has become harder to ignore, and this election cycle has been just the latest--and worst--example of journalistic bias.
I don't go to blogs expecting straight news. I expect opinion from writers with whom I might or might not agree. But when I read a news story, I expect it to be objective. I don't expect it to withhold information that hurts the candidate the news organization has decided should be president. And I don't expect it to pile on to the candidate the organization has decided shouldn't be president.
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