Tuesday, February 24, 2009
Obama Vision
Ok, now I like Obama, I think he has great possibilities and is going to change the United States as we know it, but the associated press should be embarrassed by this http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5gunNep6KibJweMVtOUQCuU-UQJngD96HS9GG1 its nothing but a love fest of how cute our president is. It sickingly sweet, heres the question I ask though, is the press being so nice to Obama because of his abilities, his charisma, or because in a failing economy it helps morale to show that the man in charge isn't worried?
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4 comments:
Hi Ian. I'm a bit bemused that you never mentioned whether you though the "change" Obama will bring to the U.S. is positive... Is that a veiled jab at the "Change"-ers?
But anyway. On to more "press"-ing matters (ha ha ha) like the media and Obama. That AP piece is a bit ridiculous. Somebody's a fanboy (fangirl, actually). And they didn't prod around Obama's weaker points in the piece. Bad journalism. You know, newspapers have to cut costs somewhere. They're taking a cue from blogs (their major competition, after all) and cutting all the research, even-handedness, and integrity! It's a win-win!
Whether or not it's really fair to extrapolate this particular fluff piece to a general media trend, lets assume there is one, because it makes some of my next few arguments easier to make :)
I see two main reasons: 1) Obama makes it easy to like him, and 2) tone is more than style at this particular juncture.
1) This should be obvious. Obvious obvious obvious. OBVIOUS. I'm not going to go in to the details here because they should be so OBVIOUS.
2) Obama presents himself as (and I think really believes he is) a new kind of politician. As he referenced in the inaug. speech, he really thinks that the political grounds have shifted, and that government has to shift to keep up. So this is why tone is important. We're testing him now. We're testing if what he sees as the old (read: irrelevant) battles between red and blue are really weak enough to be defeated by what he thinks the new issues are. The point is that if Barack fails key tests on these ideas up front, it's like the Puxatawny Phil seeing his shadow. *Even if he turns out to be right* about the ground shifting, we'll have another "6 weeks" of delay before anyone will believe him. He's got to make something WORK before all the optimism and political capital he's got wears off.
He had a bit of damage control to run after having to ram the stimulus through w/o republican support. That's part of what this was about, as well as positioning him for the fights ahead.
Matt just to make it clear, my problem wasn't with how Obama is controlling his own press, he ran the best campaign in US politics, he has a great media team, and he's great at being likeable. I was more wondering why the media is responding to him in this way? I don't know how representative that is off the stuff that is happening in the US but from this side of the pond the news is more like celebrity news things about favorite foods and who they partied with but no substance. I understood that during the campaign, they wanted him to win, but now that he's won should the media be talking about "the issues" and naming what they are.
I side with Ian thus far. I don't recall a critical (God-forbid negative) article about Obama since his election. Now, I totally expected whoever was elected to have a lot of positive, bland, "puff" pieces written about them in even the more respectable news agencies because, I think, EVERYONE is very hopeful that Obama will bring the change he so promised.
I was not much for political news when I was in high school, so I do not know how this played out when W first entered office (though his election was marred by the re-count, etc., then quickly overshadowed by 9/11) so I don't know if this usually happens in the media. I expect that it does, but have no proof really.
I think a lot of people are holding their breath to see how this whole stimulus thing works out, and they're giving him time to get his feet wet. I'm sure that once he does make a mistake, the media will be all over it.
On a whole though, it sounds like there's an assumption that the news media is truth-seeking entity that is concerned only with good journalism and the good of the people and not the bottom-line. I would say that I am sure there are good journalists, but everyone has a paycheck to earn, and it's not always for the best journalism.
A good point, Ian. I personally don't often like to talk about media trends without any hard data because my media outlets are pretty few in number. But an outfit like the AP needs to provide articles that media organizations will pick up, as well as be good journalists. Clearly there's a profit motive here, and people at home and abroad all are still on the honeymoon. It might be hard to tell if we're really talking about the same thing though, given our different media geography.
Another two things (I'm all about the twos): Obama hasn't really done much yet, and the economics are challenging.
Obama hasn't done much yet. Really. Not all that much. Yeah, he spent about 800 billion, but, sign of the times, that wasn't really all that unexpected. A lot of what he's done has been in words and style and through his envoys. I've caught NPR talking about a few of his snafus, like a CIA dude talking about Argentina's economy in negative terms and Argentina demanding an apology, the trouble he's having with appointees who don't do their taxes, and exceptions and weaknesses to the "no lobbyist" rules. It happens some. But I think most of it has been little stuff. If you were a reporter, what would you be calling Obama out on right now?
The economics are challenging, for both the economists and those who cover it. Good Lord, just try to watch CNN make an economic crisis look interesting by adding lots of graphs and tense music, making it seem like a war, etc... And when learned experts (actual experts, not just pundits) disagree vehemently on the wisdom of a given economic fix, it's not exactly easy for Joe Econ Reporter to expose a scandal. The economy is a wall, and we're throwing spaghetti. Nobody cares, as long as what we're doing might fix the problem. Nobody, not even the reporters.
Basically, I agree with chase that they're giving him some time to see what he does before they bring in the big guns. But I think it's complicated by the fact that it is neither easy nor quick to judge the success or failure of various policies on something like the economy.
So really... Are we missing something in particular you think the media should've been making a big stink over that they didn't?
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