Unless you live under a rock people all over the country have felt the whirlwind that was the 2008 election. In past years I can remember flipping through stations to find the presidential debates on only the “boring” channels, such as CNN or MSNBC. However it seemed that every channel, including the channels known for their coverage over celebrities and their lives took an interest in this year’s election. It was fascinating that one could turn to Access Hollywood, Entertainment News, or any celebrity known program and find coverage of the election. The first story could be, for example, Paris loses her dog followed by a story about Michelle Obama. I think this was strategic and there were reasons why this coverage was so overwhelming.
When one thinks of politicians the image tends to be that of middle to old aged white male. Many young people have not gone out and voted in past elections. I think by the celebrity response and media coverage more young people got involved and on November 4th were out in abundance. This greatly helped the Obama campaign because he was portrayed as the “Messiah”. Something else that helped Obama greatly and was biased was the celebrities that publicly supported him. OPRAH! This woman had huge influence when it came to Obama. When I think back I really only remember a couple who supported McCain. In a society where technology is everywhere and most people know everything about a specific celebrity’s life, there is bound to be a great influence. Never the less, more than just those we see on television have great influence. What about what we read in papers, magazines, or internet articles? Can you believe everything you read even if it is from a reputable source?
“The primary purpose of journalism is to provide citizens with the information they need to be free and self governing”. (Kovach, 2001 p.17) This is a very interesting statement because it mentions nothing about truth. James Carey, a partner of Bill Kovach and Tom Rosenstiel says, “Perhaps in the end journalism simply means carrying on and amplifying the conversation of people themselves” To me this basically says take what really happened and make it interesting. Which makes sense because people want to hear the dirt and talk about the big stories. That in itself creates a bias for society. You never know if the fish was three inches long, or three feet long. Sarah Palin had so many things going on in her life and made so many ridiculous statements the journalists I would assume loved it. Who knows if what she said was taken out of context or blown out of proportion. This ties directly with what Howard Kurts is saying about Barrack Obama. He is saying he is a straight shooting guy who is simply being himself; he is not trying to pretend to be something he is not. Take it or leave it. He does not provide much to go on for journalists. In my opinion the majority of what they will have to right about is what he had for breakfast or how his daughters are behaving. This is great for are country to have a straight shooting president but not so great for journalists.
“Their jobs are especially tough when covering a campaign as despicable as McCain's has been: an important part of their brief is to try to see the race through the eyes of the McCain campaign and explain to the rest of us what that looks like”.This is Joe Klein’s take on journalists. “The problem with Gov. Palin is not that she lacks experience. It's that she quite plainly lacks intellectual curiosity. It is not snobbish to harbor grave doubts about somebody who seems uninterested in reading for pleasure or recreation and whose only interest in her local public library is sniffing round its shelves for books that ought to be removed for expressing impure ideas”. This posted by Christopher Hitchens. The reason I chose these quotes is to show that Howard Kurts is biased in his writing. In his specific post he does not attack Palin or the Mccain campaign, yet nearly all the posts linked to his do. What is he trying to say? Kurts speaks highly of Obama discretely yet attaches attacks not written by him bashing Palin and as Klean said the “Despicable” Mccain campaign. This just shows how biased journalism can be. The beauty of journalism is that you can have and express your opinion, yet it can be persuading and one does not always receive all the facts.
“Unhelpfully, when people talk about making the news engaging and relevant, the discussion becomes a dialect-engaging versus relevant. Should we emphasize news that is fun and fascinating, and plays on our sensations? Or should we stick to the new that is the most important?” (Kovach, 2001 p.148) It is understood that journalism should be engaging, yet when does trying to entice people change from fact to fiction and relevance is thrown out the window? In my opinion it is more important to be well informed than enticed and a good journalist should be able to provide both.
I get the impression from the book Elements of Journalism the authors feel that journalism has stayed pretty true to its original purpose since the beginning of the printing press three hundred years ago. However, even then they were printing images that were not true to persuade people a certain way. The big difference between then and now is that there are many organizations to prevent that from happening. Also we can get information in a matter of seconds when as then it could take a very long time. Overall I feel that journalists for the most part try to relay the truth and do it in a way that one can read and take something from it. I believe that people are entitled to feel a certain way and publish that. Depending on how good of a job they do will determine if they work, if people read them, and how much money they make. Journalists are responsible for their future, and I believe they realize that yet do have a passion to report the news to citizens. I believe they may try not to be biased, but it is hard especially with such competition.