Continued Thoughts on Media and Candidates

I’d like to follow up a bit on my post from the other day regarding the media and the Palin family and try and address some of the points raised in comments left by folks who are kind enough to read my blog.

I certainly agree that when someone takes on the challenge of running for public office, they and their entire family are going to be opened up to scrutiny – and that’s something that they should be prepared for and expect at the outset. The point I was trying to make in my post, however, was more a criticism of the media and their approach to this situation. I shouldn’t be surprised about it, and I’m not at all; by and large, today’s media is focused solely on ratings and the financial benefits reaped from their sponsors. However, I'm in many respects still an idealistic dreamer in lnoging for the days when they would focus on the candidates and the issues, not the candidates and their families. I haven’t one time heard any report about Governor Palin herself complaining about the coverage of her daughter’s pregnancy – all the complaints are coming from pundits and other media outlets, the same sorts of groups who complained about the coverage of Obama and Reverend Wright and the treatment of Hillary Clinton in the Democratic primaries.

Scrutiny of a candidate and his/her background is one thing; outright criticism and – in the case of the Daily Kos website, which out-and-out lied when stating that little five-month-old Trig Palin wasn’t even the son of the Governor, but rather of the daughter who is now pregnant – borderline slander is inexcusable. Gone are the days, apparently, where media coverage was driven by actual news and not by the ravings of folks who post on extreme, radical websites (left-wing and right-wing alike).

As a Parent, Not a Voter...

I’ve wanted to post something for a few days now regarding the selection by John McCain of Sarah Palin to be his running mate in the November election, but decided that I would wait so that I – like much of America, it seems – could learn more about her. To this point, what I’ve learned is very encouraging; she seems to have many of the core conservative positions that are important to me.

However, I can’t even get into really learning about her until I get past my anger at the way she’s been treated by (gasp!) the media. I’ve been around politics long enough to know that there’s a bias in media – some networks lean one way, some lean another. What infuriates me (but doesn’t necessarily surprise me, sadly) is the way the way that reporting on candidates has turned into advocating for candidates (or in the case of Palin, smearing them and their families). To his credit, Obama came out early on and said that children and families of candidates should be left out of the debate, and that if he were to find that anyone on his staff were contributing to this sort of activity he would fire that person. But does he believe that enough to call on others to stop these sorts of attacks?

Apparently not. I’m no great fan of Hillary Clinton, but Democrats and the media went after her hard during the primaries because she’s a woman. It wasn’t enough to attack her on differences of opinion on the war in Iraq or healthcare or any of a number of other issues; they had to turn it into a man-versus-woman showdown. Now, they’re doing the same thing again, but the media is doing much of the dirty work (and I haven’t seen any repeat calls from Obama to lay off). Perfect example: US magazine covers for Obama and Palin; the cover for Obama from a few weeks ago had a great photo of him with his wife and the title, “Why He Loves Her” – a very nice sentiment indeed. This week, the cover shows Governor Palin holding her newborn son Trig, with a caption reading, “Babies, Lies, and Scandal.” No obvious bias there!!

There are many folks who are saying that Palin’s daughter should be an issue in this campaign because as an anti-sex education, pro-abstinence advocate the Governor is seeing first-hand how this position is playing out in her own family. As a parent (and as a child who caused my parents more than their share of grief over the years, I’m sure), my goal is to make sure my children are taught the best of everything that A. and I know and trust that they will grow up making good choices in their lives. If for whatever reason they don’t, I don’t feel that would be a reflection on us – we can only give them the tools to use in their lives and hope and pray that they use them correctly. Had we done nothing to help them along and they get in trouble, then certainly we can be pointed to as parents who didn’t do a good enough job. As much as any parent would love to be able to hold their child’s hand throughout their entire life, it’s not possible; mistakes will be made, and we have to help them as much as possible when working through the consequences. But to point to someone like Governor Palin – a woman who kept her own newborn child despite knowing full well he would be battling severe birth defects, and whose daughter is keeping her own child with the full support and love of her family behind her – and say that this is a reflection on her views is ludicrous.

The rationale behind McCain’s selection of Palin is not for me to question; no one from his campaign called for my input, and I have to trust that whether for shrewd political reasons or simply to attract the support of a particular demographic his decision is a correct one. We can question the experience of the candidates, their readiness to be president, and their views on issues from now until election day and I’ll be fine with that. But for the mainstream media to do what they’re doing is below the belt and beneath what used to be the dignity of a very dignified profession. If they want to editorialize or attack, then they should get out of the newsroom and either run for office and become an analyst.