Horse's Mouth On Brief Hiatus
(March 6, 2008 -- 10:41 AM EDT // link // )
Note to faithful readers: This blog is taking a very short break while we resolve a number of technical and other issues associated with its makeover, which is being hashed out and is imminent.
We may do occasional posts here as circumstances warrant, but for the (very) short term it's basically shuttered.
Many thanks for your patience, and we'll be back in business before you know it...
Most Media Observers Side With Hillary Campaign Claim That Press Has Been Harder On Her
(March 4, 2008 -- 12:15 PM EDT // link // )
Because so many press observers have now weighed in on the Hillary camp's accusation that the press has been much tougher on her than on Obama, I thought it would be useful to tally up who stands where on the question.
It turns out that opinion is running heavily in favor of Hillary on this. Without further ado:
In the press-has-been-unfair-to-Hillary camp...
Howard KurtzIn the press-isn't unfair-and-the-Hillary-camp-are-a-bunch-of-whiners camp:The Center for Media and Public Affairs
Mark Halperin (via Nexis)
Walter Shorenstein (though in fairness he's a Hillary supporter)
Maureen DowdNote to readers: This is a partial list, a work in progress. If I missed a name, please don't take it as proof of a grand conspiracy to advance a position you disagree with. I'll update this list as more names come in.
Just a couple quick notes on this. As I noted here yesterday, in many ways the question of whether the press is "tougher" on one candidate or the other is beside the point. Rather, the question we should be asking is whether the press is fair to both candidates -- indeed, to all of them. But the Hillary campaign framed the question this way for its own obvious reasons (they want the press to start bashing Obama). So this is how the debate has unfolded.
What's more, in the above tally, some people obviously have more nuanced positions than either "agree with Hillary" or "disagree with Hillary." But for the purpose of getting a sense of which way opinion is breaking on this question, I took the liberty of slotting people into either category as best I could.
Finally, as the above shows, it's worth noting that whichever side you take here, the Clinton camp's repeated accusations have had the salutary effect of generating a pretty vigorous debate on the question, flawed as it is. It remains to be seen, of course, whether the debate will anything more than get media figures to start "getting tough" on Obama in a manner that's as trivial and inane as much of the media bashing of Hillary has been.
At any rate, it's pretty clear that opinion is breaking heavily in the direction of the Hillary campaign on this.
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It's Not About "Toughness." It's About "Fairness."
(March 3, 2008 -- 3:49 PM EDT // link // )
Both Glenn Greenwald and Digby today weighed in on the question of whether the media's been harsher on Hillary than on Obama -- and they both answered with a resounding Yes.
But both of them also add a crucial dimension to the discussion that's been absent thus far: The key point that media "toughness" is a vapid, almost meaningless term that doesn't get at the core problem here.
Greenwald, for his part, says that he agrees that Hillary "has borne the far greater brunt of media hatred and hostility over the last year." He adds that when media figures "start talking about how they have to subject Obama to `scrutiny,' too, they don't mean that they're going to re-evaluate the trashy, vapid coverage they applied to Clinton and start examining his record, his positions, his views, etc." Instead, he predicts, they'll do the same to Obama that they did to Hillary.
Meanwhile, Digby, in an email to Greenwald, writes: "It's a fact that Clinton has received much harsher treatment than Obama." She suggests that media people will reach exactly the wrong conclusion about their own failings: "Instead of reevaluating their bias against Clinton and examining their sexism in general, they are now going to rectify matters by going after Obama on a bunch of irrelevant, superficial stuff to `make up' for their transgressions."
Exactly right. The key question here isn't, or shouldn't be, whether the press has been "equally tough" on both candidates. Rather, the question is whether the press has been equally fair to them. The question is whether both candidates have been treated with similar measures of professionalism, judiciousness, even sanity.
And the simple truth is that they haven't. Though I agree with Matthew Yglesias' argument that the picture isn't completely clear cut, and I agree with Greg Mitchell's case that the media could suddenly shift gears and write a Hillary-comeback narrative, in a very broad sense the press and punditry's treatment of Hillary has often been unfair on a very fundamental level, sometimes pathologically so. No other candidate has had to endure the amount of media smut that's been hurled her way. No matter who you support, the quality of the coverage of Hillary is not a state of affairs anyone should be happy about.
And this brings me to a point I've been meaning to make here. Those who insist that Hillary deserves fair treatment from the media have been subjected to a tremendous amount of abuse by a tiny and unrepresentative minority of Obama supporters who see such a demand as nothing but Hillary shilling, or "Shillary," as they like to put it.
But as Greenwald and Digby both note, it's not hard to imagine that should Obama become the nominee, he may find himself subjected to the same sort of media treatment, if not quite in degree, that Obama supporters defended when it was directed at Hillary. If and when Obama supporters start griping about this, as they should, then the complaints directed at those insisting on fair treatment of Hillary will in retrospect look shortsighted indeed.
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Halperin Gets It Right On Frank Rich/Maureen Dowd Anti-Hillary Jihad
(March 2, 2008 -- 11:51 AM EDT // link // )
Time magazine's Mark Halperin today hits on a point this blog has been obsessing over a bit lately: The fact that the week-in-week-out anti-Clinton jihad being waged in tandem by the Terrible Two of the Times Op ed page, Maureen Dowd and Frank Rich, has become mind-numbingly tedious and predictable.
As Halperin puts it, in a droll reference to their columns today...
Another Sunday, Another Round Of Anti-Clinton Shots From Rich And DowdYeah, seriously. Here's another way to put it:
zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz
Halperin rightly notes that the Times Terrible Two took "their usual jabs at the New York Senator."
You really have to wonder what Times editors think about this. It can't make them happy to see someone like Halperin, the ultimate Beltway media insider, lampooning the predictability that now reigns on their illustrious Op ed page. Aren't they a bit concerned about this?
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