Dan Abrams Calls the Press Out on Clinton
15 February 2008 11:50 am by Taylor Marsh
We’re way past sexism at this point.
Dan Abrams (Abrams email link) called Huffington Post’s Roy Sekoff out last night. It was a beautiful
thing.
“Roy, people like you love Barack Obama so much that you’re
incapable of doing objective analysis.” – Dan Abrams.
People will say the same thing about me. The only thing is that I don’t pretend
to be unbiased. I’m a partisan for Clinton. Unfortunately, Sekoff is representative
of what’s happening throughout the media. People masquerading as unbiased and
objective when the claim is laughable on its face.
No one is asking for media talking heads and cable channels to back Clinton.
We’re not asking for comparable Obama adoration coverage either, at least I’m not. But we are demanding and do expect that people in positions of power in the media at large do their job. Also, if they’re leaning towards a a candidate, which is understandable, say so.
The only one doing consistently fair reporting lately is Dan Abrams of MSNBC. It’s
also pretty bad when you find The Big Giant head at Fox “News” fairer
to Clinton than most other networks. What is this world coming to? Bill O’Reilly
and the word “fair” in the same sentence. That’s how bad the Clinton
coverage is these days. But Abrams, on his show last night, opened with a very
important segment, then later in the show went on to criticize Clinton for campaign
ads, etc., which is all fair game in reporting. Considering the drivel coming
out of traditional organizations, as well as the blogosphere, it’s important
to give credit where it’s due. Clinton has earned scrutiny and criticism lately, but the one sidedness of the coverage is impossible for any candidate to withstand. That’s a problem.
It’s interesting that my first back and forth with Abrams came at the end of
October when I called Russert out for his behavior during the Dartmouth debate. Russert’s overt sexism and the personal nature of many of his questions, when juxtaposed against him asking Obama about his Halloween costume, was nakedly biased.
However, the problem with Clinton’s overall coverage at this point isn’t that it’s only sexist anymore,
which was proven, inspiring media talking heads to move on to another tactic. Sure, we’ve got the recent Chelsea Clinton insanity, but the traditional media’s gone on to another level. The media coverage is not only biased, but unfair and titled more negatively towards
Clinton than Obama or any other candidate. As Abrams said last night, the collective
media is cheering for her to lose, thus creating a storyline that becomes a
self fulfilling prophecy if the public swallows it. Believe me, if Obama wins
the nomination, this adoration will stop dead in its tracks. There’s nothing
they like to do more than build people up, only to tear them down again, especially if it involves a Democrat.
