The Last Election Thread

[Ben Kenobi]

How is this in any way restricting freedom of the press? The first amendment doesn't guarantee reporters the right to sit on a campaign's plane. That's a priveledge granted by any particular campaign.

True, but revoking said privilege because they criticise you completely destroys the whole point of freedom of speech. Yeah, they are gonna criticise you and make fun of you, it's a fact of life. Obama needs a thicker skin.

Nobody is restricting the right of these reporters to report the news as they (or, more precisely, their editors) see fit.

Surrounding yourself with sycophants isn't my idea of free speech or someone open to it's exercise.

You can employ whatever methods you want, no one will stop you. But if your point is to compare this situation to the black civil rights struggle, you can expect to rightly be called at least racially insensitve and stupid.

If I had used the phrase "sitting in the back of the bus" would you have said the same. This is an argument over form, not substance.

The Fairness Doctrine does not mean what you think it means. It says nothing about censoring views.

What it means is that conservatives have to pay twice, once for liberals and once for themselves. I don't see fairness applying the other way since we all know there are no true liberals out there.

Moreover, it's a doctine that, according to the SCOTUS, the FCC has every right to enforce, should they so choose. That right there tells you it's not unconstitutional, which means it ain't censorship.

Which is why democrats are seeking to renew it? If there was nothing partisan, why didn't Bush bring it back?

I don't know Ben, what message did McCain send when he booted Klein from his plane? If you're not upset over that, then your little outrage fit here is utter hypocrisy.

I'd not even heard about it. I don't believe McCain said it was because he disagreed with Klein.

The Obama campaign has said--and at least the DFW newspaper has agreed--that the decision wasn't based on their endorsements. In fact, if it were, why is it that the campaign has allowed FOX news to remain? If the message was "play ball or go home," wouldn't they be the first to go?

Ahh, now we get to the crux of it.

How exactly has Fox news been critical?

[Guynemer]

Originally posted by Ben Kenobi


How exactly has Fox news been critical?

[Lancer]

On MSNBC almost 80% of news stories related to McCain were negative. They are completely biased towards Obama. CNN etc weren't as bad but had the same bias. FOX had the most even favorable/unfavorable ratio of all the major stations.

[Guynemer]

http://www.politico.com/blogs/michaelcalderone/1008/Why_cant_Klein_get_a_seat.html?showall

Time columnist Joe Klein, who’s been a forceful critic of the McCain campaign (and already said he’s unwilling to accept a post-election apology), has found himself without a seat on the McCain or Palin planes the past four months.

In June, Klein was kept from boarding the McCain plane over what they said had been a security issue. More recently, when trying to fly on the Palin plane last week, Klein told Politico over e-mail that the campaign's response was he “couldn’t be accommodated at this time.”

“I’ve done nine presidential campaigns and this is the first time this has ever happened to me,” Klein said. “I was even allowed—I won’t say welcomed—on the Clinton plane in the summer of 1996 after I was revealed as the author of Primary Colors.”

“I rode with McCain during the primaries, but not since I asked him—at a June press conference—whether he really believed Ahmadinejad was the ‘leader’ of Iran, since he has no control over foreign policy or the nuclear program,” Klein continued. “That was when they suddenly told me that I hadn’t called in time to get secret service clearance. (I had called more than a day in advance.)"

But he’s not the first high-profile critic to get the cold shoulder.

New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd told the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette that she had been “banned” by the campaign for what they told her was “the foreseeable future.” Despite Dowd being kept off the planes, The Times continues to have reporters travel with the campaign.

Similarly, other Time magazine staffers, including Washington bureau chief Jay Carney, " reporter Michael Scherer, and Mark Halperin (The Page), have not had a problem with access.

Klein noted that a couple weeks ago he told McCain adviser Nicolle Wallace about planning to get on the McCain plane again, and by his account, “she seemed to think it would be fine.” (Wallace has not yet answered a request for comment).

One thing seems clear about not getting on the Palin plane: space wasn't an issue. According to a reporter traveling with the campaign, there had been a few empty seats last week.

“My understanding is that his request came in too late,” Palin spokesperson Tracey Schmitt said.

So either Klein is consistently too late putting in requests, or the campaign just doesn't really want him aboard.

UPDATE: Campaign spokesperson Michael Goldfarb responded that "we don't allow Daily Kos diarists on board either."

[Guynemer]

Originally posted by Lancer
On MSNBC almost 80% of news stories related to McCain were negative. They are completely biased towards Obama. CNN etc weren't as bad but had the same bias. FOX had the most even favorable/unfavorable ratio of all the major stations.

Source?

[Lancer]

Headline News

[Impaler[WrG]]

Their negative to that degree in the last month because McCain's campaign has been a flaming wreck. The media is just salivating to jump on any Obama gaff/hiccup but he refuses to produce one. The whole idea that media should produce 50% positive and 50% negative stories on each candidate irrespective of what they actually say and do is one of the biggest problems in our media.

[Guynemer]

Sorry, should have said "link" instead of "source," my fault.


EDIT: I should clarify that I don't doubt that MSNBC has been more critical of McCain; it is the most left-leaning of the cable news networks. And to some extent, the above post is true, or at least contains a kernel of truth. Artifical "balance" is not necessarily reflective of good journalism.

[Lancer]

I watched it on the tube, not the comp.

[KrazyHorse]

The coverage of McCain has been poor because McCain's behaviour has been poor. Pretty simple.

[Lancer]

Originally posted by KrazyHorse
Pretty simple.

[Zkribbler]

Originally posted by Lancer
.... FOX had the most even favorable/unfavorable ratio of all the major stations.

I just visited the Fox News website. I colored red those stories which are pro-MCain and/or anti-Obama and colored blue those stories which are anti-McCain and/or pro-Obama. Green stories don't directly deal with the candidates.

Featured Story: McCain Attacks Obama's Faith in America
Obama Seeks Knockout Blow in McCain's Home State
Election Officials Brace for Heavy Turnout
Obama Says He Didn't Know Aunt's Illegal Status
Dole Trails Behind Hagen in North Carolina Senate Race
Obama Ratchets UIp Rhetoric, Moves Into GOP Turf.

The Next Column to the right is blogs. It's questionable to cite to these because, almost always, blogs are biased. Here, that's true too.

Palin to Greta: I See Notihng but Good Things in Store on Nov. 4th.
McCain to Obama: My country has never had to prove anything to me.
Palin: Obama Tries to Exlploint the Fears and Worries of Senior Citizens
Kicked off the Obama Plane. Join Up with Joe.

[Guynemer]

Incidentally, regarding Ben's laughable claim regarding FoxNews:

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/07/us/politics/07fox.html?_r=2&sq=hannity&st=cse&adxnnl=1&oref=slogin&scp=1&adxnnlx=1225579793-zx91LzyyHIFGNR1/7/vumw

During a weekend of Republican attacks on Senator Barack Obama’s personal associations, Fox News Channel ran a program Sunday that made provocative assertions about similar connections, called “Obama & Friends: The History of Radicalism.”

Sean Hannity, the conservative radio and television host, was the host of the hourlong program, which raised, among other things, unsubstantiated accusations that Mr. Obama’s work as a community organizer in Chicago was “training for a radical overthrow of the government.”

The statement came from Andy Martin, a conservative writer and frequent political candidate who is credited as being among the first — if not the first — to assert in a chain e-mail message that Mr. Obama was secretly a Muslim.

Mr. Obama is a Christian; his campaign says he “is not, was not and has never been” a Muslim.

Peppering his statements with phrases like “in my opinion” and “my view is,” Mr. Martin said Mr. Obama’s political career had been engineered by Bill Ayers, a founder and former member of the radical Weather Underground and now an education professor in Chicago.

Various reports, including ones in The New York Times, have found no evidence that Mr. Obama and Mr. Ayers were particularly close, although they have had various points of contact. Mr. Ayers was host of an event for Mr. Obama early in his political career, they served together on a charitable board, and both worked on an educational project financed by the billionaire philanthropist Walter H. Annenberg.

The program was the latest step in the evolution of opinion journalism on cable news. It comes as one of Fox News’s rivals, MSNBC, becomes increasingly liberal, with hosts like Rachel Maddow and Keith Olbermann advocating against Senator John McCain. But Mr. Hannity’s program on Sunday was notable in presenting partisan accusations against Mr. Obama in a journalistic, documentary format in prime time.

Saying he believed that ties between Mr. Obama and Mr. Ayers were deeper, and reporting that Mr. Ayers had been an admirer of the Venezuelan president Hugo Chávez, who, in turn, is an acolyte of Fidel Castro, Mr. Martin said, “If you love the Cuban revolution and Castro, and if you love what’s happening in Venezuela with Hugo Chávez, you’ll love Barry Obama — Barack Obama, as he calls himself — in the White House.”

For good measure, Mr. Martin, who made a failed bid to run on the Republican line in the 2004 race for a Senate seat from Illinois that Mr. Obama won, added, “We are basically going in the throes of a social revolution which attempts to essentially freeze out anybody who is not part of this radical ideology.”

The special was shown on “Hannity’s America,” the Sunday night program in which Mr. Hannity does not have to share the screen with his weeknight liberal co-host on Fox News, Alan Colmes.

Mr. Hannity said that Mr. Obama did not respond to a request for comment. Still, the program presented no opposing viewpoint to the program’s thesis: that, in Mr. Hannity’s words, “Obama’s list of friends reads like a history of radicalism.”

Mr. Hannity’s executive producer, John Finley, said that the program was clearly opinion and that the audience — on average 1.5 million to 2 million — knew to take it as such. “ ‘Hannity’s America’ is an opinion show — it’s a show from Sean’s perspective, which is obviously conservative,” Mr. Finley said.

Speaking of Mr. Martin, he added, “It’s one man’s opinion, one of many that was expressed on the show.”

Mr. Martin said he was careful not to present his theories about Mr. Obama as proven fact.

“That is my opinion — expert opinion — if you will,” Mr. Martin said of his commentary on Mr. Hannity’s program. “I don’t pretend to be an exclusively fact-based reporter, though I try as hard as I can to get the facts.”

Mr. Martin came under strong attack from liberals on Monday. Many noted that the Republican Party of Florida decided against backing his bid for the State Senate in 1996 after receiving documents from his Congressional race 10 years earlier in Connecticut listing the purpose of one of his political committees as “to exterminate Jew power in America and to impeach the judges of the U.S. Court of Appeals in New York City.”

Mr. Martin had previously said the documents were forged, and again denied their authenticity on Monday. He also denied harboring anti-Semitic sentiment, saying “it’s peripheral, it draws you away from the issue.”

[Darius871]

Wasn't that segment just part of Hannity's usual Sunday program?

[Ben Kenobi]

Sean Hannity ! = FoxNews.