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06.25 Louella Learns the Limits of Medicare

06.23 The Simple Answer to America’s Health Care Crisis: Medicare for All

06.23 Tell ABC: Include Single-Payer in Healthcare Debate

06.23 Serving the Medical-Industrial Complex

06.22 Thinking about Recoveries

06.20 Obama's Health Care Waterloo

06.15 Obama, Like Clinton Before Him, is Blowing the Chance for Real Health Care Reform

06.11 Two Key Health-Care Numbers

06.10 Big Breakthroughs for Single Payer Health Care

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06.29 WP's Connolly Back, on Health Reform

06.17 Hypocrisy and Hope: Western Coverage, Iranian Courage

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06.30 Obama's Torture Hypocrisy

06.30 Court Circular: Annals of Imperial Continuity

06.29 Obama, They Want You to Fail

06.26 Who to Trust on a Truth Commission?

06.26 Tarnished Shields: The Morally Bankrupt 'Family Values' Republican Leadership

06.25 America's "Bases of Empire"

06.24 Twelve Angry White People: Jury Nullification in a Pennsylvania Coal Town

06.24 Touring Empire's Ruins

06.23 Employers are Undermining the Economic Stimulus Program

06.19 Criminalizing Dissent: Obama Pot Calls Iranian Kettle Black

06.17 Afghanistan's Operation Phoenix

06.16 Are You Ready for War with a Demonized Iran?

06.13 Where's the Anger as the Wheels Come Off Obama's and the Democrats' Recovery Program?

06.10 Waiving the Rules for Old Glory

06.10 Obama's Era of Openness Is Closed

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07.03 Reviewing Marjorie Cohn and Kathleen Gilberd's "Rules of Disengagement"

07.01 Iraq: A Bitter Strategic Failure

06.25 It's All Good, Again: 'Uptick' in the American-Made Tides of Violence in Iraq

06.22 Obama Opposes Plame-gate Release

06.21 Dexter's Legions: The "Good" Killers of the "Good" War

06.18 Extending the Tradition: Proudly Taking American Torture Into the Future

06.15 New UN Report Denounces America's Human Rights Record

06.14 Fear Rules

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07.01 Michael Hudson's "Super Imperialism:" The Economic Strategy of Imperial America

06.23 Obama's Financial Reform Proposal - A Stealth Scheme for Global Monetary Control

06.10 Cyberscares About Cyberwars Equal Cybermoney

International

07.01 Pirates of the Mediterranean

06.29 Color Revolutions, Old and New

06.25 Iran Divided & the 'October Suprise'

06.23 Astringent Corrective: AbuKhalil on Iran's Turmoil

06.22 Reviewing F. William Engdahl's "Full Spectrum Dominance: Totalitarian Democracy in the New World Order:" Part I

06.20 Are the Iranian Protests Another US Orchestrated “Color Revolution?”

06.20 Through a Glass Darkly: Sifting Myth and Fact on Iran

06.19 Iran's Election and US - Iranian Elections

06.16 The Ir-Af-Pak War: Obama Looses the Manhunters

06.12 Israeli War Crimes Against Children During Operation Cast Lead

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  America's Buddy-Buddy Campaign Press Corps
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MEDIA CRITICISM:

America’s Buddy-Buddy Campaign Press Corps

by Walter Brasch
26 October 2008
The goal of political campaigns is to keep reporters so busy, and so comforted, they won’t ask the critical questions or take the time to find the Invisible People and their very real problems.
It’s a little more than a week before the presidential election, and I’m worried about what happens afterwards. I’m not worried about the candidates, the people, or the country. I’m worried about the media.

First, I’m worried about the TV ad salespeople. For more than a year they haven’t had to do much other than sit back and open digital files from the politicians. Now, the salespeople will actually have to go to work to fill airtime.

I’m worried about the owners of TV stations. Since January, politicians have placed more than a billion dollars of advertising. Most of that has gone to TV ads, at least in Pennsylvania and the other swing states. Revenue is bound to be down, and the station owners may have to make drastic changes. We can’t expect them to cut back on their golf club memberships, the leased BMWs, or the daily maid service. It looks like they’ll have to lay off reporters. (Some may think that the words “TV” and “reporter” probably don’t even make sense in the same sentence, but that’s for another column.)

And, speaking of reporters, let’s look at all the reporters. Print and Broadcast. For as much as two years, they have been hanging onto political candidates, like leeches onto the butts of subtropical hunters. These reporters have had to stay in sleazy 3- and 4-star hotels, eat room service food, awaken early every day, pack their suitcases, and rush to a Press bus that would be their traveling home for 12 or 14 hours every day. On the bus they talked with each other—and some poorly-paid and generally inexperienced campaign press aide. Occasionally, the candidates and senior staff rode the buses and talked with the reporters.

At the speech site, the reporters were herded into a fairly good viewing position, and expected to do whatever it is that compliant reporters do. If they interviewed anyone other than campaign staff, it was usually someone in the audience, grabbing such great lines as “I really like Shmidhouse Jones for President” or “I don’t trust that guy he’s running against.”

Away from speeches, they munched on campaign-provided lunches and drinks, campaign-provided news releases and speech transcripts, and campaign-provided concierge service. If case they missed an important ad-lib, they just had to wait for the next stop, where they’d hear it again. Late at night, if they have any energy left—and while they have plugged in their Blackberries, iPods, cell phones, and laptops to draw new energy for a new day—the reporters and campaign staff had a couple of drinks, “just to unwind.”

The goal of political campaigns is to keep reporters so busy, and so comforted, they won’t ask the critical questions or take the time to find the Invisible People and their very real problems.

For a month after the election, reporters will file “What happened?” stories. After a month, they’ll get “home leave” to be reintroduced to their children, who may have thought Mommy or Daddy were sprites locked up in cell phones. Hopefully, the reporters will also reflect upon why they became reporters, and actually take the time to meet someone who doesn’t hang around politicians and reporters all day long.


Walter Brasch’s latest book is the second edition of Sinking the Ship of State: The Presidency of George W. Bush (October 2007), available through amazon.com, bn.com, and other bookstores. Dr. Brasch has covered several Presidential campaigns, usually away from the “press gaggle.” You may contact Brasch at brasch@bloomu.edu or through his website at: www.walterbrasch.com.



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This story was published on October 26, 2008.
 


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