April 11, 2008

  • I was watching the Lou Dobbs program on CNN today (Dobbs was not hosting) and was shocked by the lack of objectivity and clear anti-Obama bias in the reporting. They were spending an inordinate amount of time on remarks that Senator Obama had made at a CA fundraiser concerning the obstacles his campaign faced in small-town America. When you read the full context of Obama's remarks, they are revealed to be relatively benign. Some of the words were perhaps not the best chosen, but the context indicates that there was no ill intent. I suppose if you read the remarks in an unreasonably sensitive, defensive, or partisan way, and parse every word in order to interpret them in a particularly negative way, it is possible to read them as pejorative against small town America. However, I think it is not being objective as a news program to have a title graphic that refers to this as Obama's "slam" against small-town America. Furthermore, here is a quote of Dobbs' poll question:

    "Do you believe that Senator Barack Obama's comments reveal his elitist attitude toward every hardworking American?"

    Just the way that question is written indicates a bias against Obama. It's practically a push-poll. Specifically, using the adjectives "his" and "every" suggest that the writer believes the answer should be yes, and suggest that to the reader. A more objective question would have replaced "his" with "an" and eliminated "every" while making "American" plural.

    It's amazing how our revenue-seeking news media has managed to sensationalize the reporting on this. In his own remarks, Obama clearly notes that he is only talking about "some" not all. Furthermore, his remarks are not even really pejorative. In fact what he is saying is that people's skepticism and resistance towards his campaign is understandable. Somehow this has gotten warped into a slam against small-town America, and some members of our short attention span, dim-witted media is buying the story, probably because it is the most juicy, regardless of whether it is actually true.

    You can read the remarks here.