Media Pack Mentality [UPDATE]
UPDATE: Via Michelle Malkin, it gets worse and worser.
It’s not like we haven’t been warned: G-d will not be mocked.
New Yorker writer Ryan Lizza, whose long, long article on Barack Obama’s early political days in Chicago’s ward politics (available here) was the reason for the magazine’s controversial cover by Barry Blitt depicting Obama as a Muslim, has been barred from traveling with Obama on his foreign field trip this week.
…
More than 200 media folks applied to fly in Europe with the freshman senator. But, alas, the Obama campaign said it simply was not able to find a seat for Lizza. (Overdue hat tip to Mike Allen at Politico.com)
And why should they? It’s not like the Obama camp doesn’t have plenty of fawning, obsequious ball-washers to fill up the seats.
When the media critic of the Washington Post, Howard Kurtz, notices the imbalance in media coverage, there’s a story there:
KATIE COURIC, CBS NEWS: Barack Obama…
BRIAN WILLIAMS, NBC NEWS: Barack Obama…
CHARLES GIBSON, ABC NEWS: Barack Obama…
HOWARD KURTZ, HOST (voice over): Obama’s excellent adventure. Katie, Charlie and Brian are all headed across the Atlantic as a frenzy builds over the Democratic candidate’s trip. Is this another love fest in the making? And why do the networks barely cover McCain’s international travel?
…
KURTZ: … [T]he Obama team persuaded Katie Couric, Charlie Gibson and Brian Williams to trek halfway around the world to cover this trip. What that means, of course, is that the “CBS Evening News,” “NBC Nightly News” and ABC’s “World News” will be broadcast from Europe and the Middle East this week, throwing an even brighter spotlight on Barack’s excellent adventure.
John McCain, meanwhile, was accompanied by zero anchors on his three foreign trips since wrapping up the Republican nomination in March. And that has the pundits debating whether the sheer volume of airtime and ink is tilting rather dramatically in Obama’s direction.
Wondering?? Wondering???
Fine. Keep it up. Bring it on.
As declining newspaper readership and fragmented television viewership have shown, Mr. and Mrs. America aren’t buying the media’s cover story. More often than not, I would assert, media pack mentality backfires and turns people off. But it’s never been this bad, this overwhelming, so much in unison. I honestly can’t say whether the chanting from nearly every news outlet will overcome voter skepticism or reinforce it.
But it’s a story, and if McCain is smart (which seems debatable sometimes), he will position himself as a David against the media Goliath. It will have the added benefit of being true.