Watchdog Blog

Archive for the '2008 Elections' Category

Myra MacPherson: Low Roads and What the Media Should be Asking

Finally, a mainstream columnist has hit hard at the heart of the smarmiest aspect of the Clinton campaign. On Saturday, Bob Herbert quoted Hillary in the New York Times:”There’s a pattern emerging here,” said Mrs. Clinton. Herbert remarked: “There is, indeed. There was a name for it when the Republicans were using that kind of [...]

Myra MacPherson: Is the Mainstream Media Too Lily-White?

In the hours before Indiana went slightly for Hillary Clinton and North Carolina went big for Barack Obama, John Harwood of the New York Times was also on MSNBC interviewing — guess who — another reporter for the New York Times, John Broder, who’s been traveling with the Clinton campaign. And if you missed them [...]

Myra MacPherson: The Wright Excuse

“Don’t be fooled by the numbers” e-mailed a lawyer friend who practices in a hamlet in the mountains of North Carolina. He was talking about Obama’s then-13-point edge in some polls. “Of course folks are going to tell an outsider that race is not a problem but it’s different when they actually vote.” This pre-Rev. [...]

Morton Mintz: Elizabeth Edwards Berates the Press; Barack Obama Goes on Fox News

On the same Sunday morning that a former Democratic presidential candidate’s spouse ripped into the press for failing the democracy that depends on it, a Democratic presidential candidate blew the opportunity to rip into a prime example of that failure. “For the last month, news media attention was focused on Pennsylvania and its Democratic primary,” [...]

Carolyn Lewis: At ABC, No Remorse: Only More of the Same

Considering that he was widely lambasted for his performance as a moderator at the most recent Democratic candidates debate, George Stephanopoulos might have expected to be taken to task at his Sunday talk show. Instead his three colleagues—George Will, Sam Donaldson and Cokie Roberts—closed the circle around him and let him off the hook. As [...]

Saul Friedman: Partisan Politics and TV Pundits

Where is Larry Spivak now that we need him? Alas, Lawrence E. Spivak, creator and founder of NBC’s “Meet the Press,” and its best panelist, died in 1994 at the age of 93. As The New York Times said, Spivak was one of the first broadcasters to use panels of reporters (imagine!) to interview national [...]

Saul Friedman: Anyone Remember Glass-Steagall?

Here is one difference between the generations of reporters. The older generation was (and is) skeptical of big business and trusted government more to provide protection from the cold blasts of laissez faire. The younger, Dow generation, while cynical of government and almost everything else, believed that stocks and property values will always go up. [...]

Carolyn Lewis: Woman to Woman: an Open Letter to Hillary Clinton

Dear Senator Clinton, I guess it’s natural for you to expect that women will support you out of loyalty to our gender and because we have long harbored the dream of seeing a woman president. If so, I assure you that you’re mistaken. Like other voters, we are inclined to choose a candidate we perceive [...]

Myra MacPherson: The Campaign on a Monday in the Paper of Record

While a rather ordinary day for campaign coverage, yesterday was a good one in which to examine the New York Times. Once one got over the whopper of a front page headline typo in some editions—“When Foreigners by (should be “buy”) the Factory”—there was an arresting lead story that shouted: “Top Clinton Aide Leaving His [...]

Carolyn Lewis: Bill Richardson and the Limits of Loyalty

Bill Clinton and some others seem to think that because he gave Bill Richardson a couple of jobs in his administration, the New Mexico governor now owes lifetime fealty to the Clintons. Clinton supporter James Carville labeled Richardson “Judas” when the governor announced his endorsement of Barack Obama. It’s as though, once attached in some [...]