Marc Ambinder writes that "Until very recently, there was no truer truth in the universe than the fact of media bias in favor of Barack Obama." Ben Smith sometimes responds to frequent accusations of pro-Hillary bias by his commenters by pointing out that he is in a demographic that tends to favor Obama. Saturday Night Live, owned by the same people as MSNBC, go to great length to tell us that that the media hearts Obama.
But there is something fishy here.
If the media were so in the tank for Obama, why would they keep telling us they are in the tank for Obama? Is this extraordinary self-reflection and awareness on their parts or is it extraordinary pro-Hillary cynicism?
I do not think the media's bias against Obama is anything new...there has been a sustained pattern of double standards throughout this campaign.
Here is a list of examples of substantial media bias against Barack Obama:
- Calling Hillary inevitable all through 2007, giving Obama a tougher mountain to climb. The pundit class was writing off Obama before the voting even started.
- Declaring many debates in 2007 a Hillary win even when polls and focus groups frequently suggested otherwise.
- In summer 2007 as Obama worked Iowa with town hall after town hall, the media complained that Obama was not living up to the expectations of his 2004 convention speech. That he was "leaving audiences flat" or being too dull and professorial. But later in the campaign when Obama starts giving big speeches, suddenly the concern is that Obama lacks substance and that he is all talk and speeches. The media refuses to cover his substance and then complains that he does not show enough of it.
- Calling Obama "not black enough" before Iowa, then suddenly branding him as "the black candidate" after he went and won white votes in Iowa and the clintons needed to ghettoize him.
- Before SC, Obama was considered responsible for the words of every black person in America...so that when Brazille and Clyburn who are not affiliated with the campaign criticized Bill Clinton over his comments, the media played that as coming from the Obama campaign. However, Hillary was considered not really responsible for the words of surrogates like Bob Johnson who were standing right on the stage with her. And the media ignored the "not black enough" slur in his remarks by comparing Obama to Sidney Pottier and instead focused exclusively on Obama as drug user.
- A far higher level of scrutiny for Obama's Rezko to Hillary's Hsu. And the Guistra, Burkle, Clinton Library Donors stories have gotten very little play. If Obama had gotten $10 million from the Saudi's for a library it would be a huge story.
- Far more coverage of "the snub" at the state of the union than a far more obvious snub by Hillary on Obama on the senate floor when Obama declared for president or Hillary's refusal to congratulate Obama after many victories
- Declaring Super Tuesday a win for Hillary when Obama got more delegates.
- Declaring March 4th a bigger victory than it was in terms of delegates. Saying Hillary won Texas.
- Diminishing Obama's victories as less consequential than Hillary's by saying they are caucuses or unimportant states or have too many black voters.
- Diminishing Obama's victories by overemphasizing Obama's black votes, but not emphasizing Hillary's similar dependence on female votes. The implicit assumption is that Hillary will get Obama's voters but Obama will not get Hillary's voters when, if anything, the opposite is true.
- Assassinating Obama over associates like Wright, but putting a near-embargo on stories about questionable religious advisors of Hillary or McCain.
- Rarely playing the very newsworthy tape of Hillary's Senate Speech authorizing the Iraq war. In general, the media have helped Hillary blur the distinctions on this issue and then marveled about how it is not much of an issue.
- Giving far more echo chamber to dirt about Obama (i.e. drugs), but hushing up similar stories about innuendo of the Clintons, John Edwards, and John McCain. When the John McCain lobbyist story broke, the media protected their darling and made the whole story about the Times' malfeasance instead of the very real and legit issues of hypocrisy on lobbyists.
- Giving very little play to the fact that the Rush effect is responsible for a lot of Hillary's performance in recent primaries.
- Treating Hillary as mathematically viable when she is not. They did not do this with Huckabee, but they are keeping Hillary on life support. If Obama had lost as much, they would have stuck a fork in him and declared him done.
- When Obama says we should negotiate with enemies, the pundits call it a gaffe even though it is reasonable foreign policy. When John McCain mixes up Iraq and Iran, it is a super quiet story in which McCain is given the benefit of the doubt he has earned by holding such great BBQ's for the press.
- Saturday Might Live is engaged in a sustained and systematic attempt to ghettoize Obama and to paint him as a Bushian idiot and to portray Hillary as the victim of media bias when none of these things are even remotely true.
- Even when "attacking" HIllary, inevitably these are attacks that any moron can tell will help Hillary whip up female turnout. Yeah, it may seem the media is "attacking" Hillary over Bill's Sex life, over cleavage, over her tears...but every single time this happens, Hillary benefits with a female surge. Don't you think after 10 years of this the media might know that making a sexist attack on Hillary is tantamount to giving her an electoral gift?
- More play to Obama's praise of Reagan than Hillary's praise of Reagan
- More play to Obama advisor NAFTA comments to Canada than similar comments by Hillary advisors
- More play to Samantha Powers' comment on Obama being pragmatic on Iraq than similar things said by Hillary advisors.
- Giving Bill Clinton, as surrogate, far more air time than many candidates or surrogates for that matter
- Frequently saying Obama did not have his hand on his heart during the Pledge (Didi Myers did this uncorrected on CNN last night), when it was the national anthem and everybody who has ever been to a ball game knows that most people don't do that. In general, the media have pushed this unpatriotic meme to the point of absurdity with Obama with the flag pin and Michelle bashing.
- Finally, despite all of this, they keep telling and convincing the public that they are really really really in the tank for Barack Obama. This is the biggest lie of this campaign. If the media were really in the tank for Obama, they would not be saying they were. Where is the self-reflection over their love affair with John McCain? There isn’t any...because when you are in the tank for a candidate, rule number 1 is not to talk about how you are in their tank.
Even when Obama's coverage is more positive than Hillary's it can still be biased against him. If Obama earns an A, the media give him a B -. If Hillary earns a D, the media give her a C+. No matter what McCain does, he gets an A++++.
But the media goes and says, "Gee, we gave Obama a B- and we gave Hillary a C+, let's now wring our hands about how awful we are to Hillary." But grading on a curve, or false equivalency, or "even-steven-itis" is profoundly biased against a candidate like Obama who has been beating tremendous odds and run a nearly flawless campaign. Even if Obama sometimes gets better coverage than Hillary does, his coverage is consistently more negative than his actual performance and Hillary and McCain's are consistently more positive than their actual performances.
I think the media know this. I think the media see Obama as a threat for a variety of reasons, but mainly because the prospect of a unifying president is anathema to the business models of the mainstream corporate media who need hyperpartisan, scandal laden, circus politics of which the Clintons are the master ringleaders in order to generate ratings.
We the progressive reality-based community need to fight back. We will not win solely by bitching and letter writing to the media. We need to make the corporate executives know damn well that our perspectives, which are strong in that coveted 18-45 advertising demographic, will not consume the media nor products advertised on such media if they are going to unfairly try to bring down Barack Obama. We have the grassroots power to scare the shit out of these older corporate types. We will need to make clear that if they take down Barack Obama based on bullshit, they will hasten the demise of the mainstream media by losing a generation of consumers...our generation.