This is a great piece by journalist Michael Malone on mainstream media bias during the ’08 elections. One important section:
I’m not one of those people who think the media has been too hard on, say, Republican vice presidential nominee Gov. Sarah Palin, by rushing reportorial SWAT teams to her home state of Alaska to rifle through her garbage. This is the big leagues, and if she wants to suit up and take the field, then Gov. Palin better be ready to play.
The few instances where I think the press has gone too far — such as the Times reporter talking to prospective first lady Cindy McCain’s daughter’s MySpace friends — can easily be solved with a few newsroom smackdowns and temporary repostings to the Omaha bureau.
No, what I object to (and I think most other Americans do as well) is the lack of equivalent hardball coverage of the other side — or worse, actively serving as attack dogs for the presidential ticket of Sens. Barack Obama, D-Ill., and Joe Biden, D-Del.
If the current polls are correct, we are about to elect as president of the United States a man who is essentially a cipher, who has left almost no paper trail, seems to have few friends (that at least will talk) and has entire years missing out of his biography.
That isn’t Sen. Obama’s fault: His job is to put his best face forward. No, it is the traditional media’s fault, for it alone (unlike the alternative media) has had the resources to cover this story properly, and has systematically refused to do so.
This is a crucial point. It’s the press’ job to ask tough questions of candidates and to thoroughly investigate them. The MSM has been doing that with vigor to candidates like Palin (with not even a hint of sexism, naturally, despite that charge being leveled with regularity when when Hillary was still in the running). But play it both ways — vet Obama with equal gusto. When the press stuffs every bit of damning evidence about Obama that they can, or puts it on page 12A, they’re just serving as his little army of press officers.
