media stooping to new lows

[mekender]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/co ... 44_pf.html

ST. PAUL, Minn., Sept. 2 -- Sen. John McCain's top campaign strategist accused the news media Tuesday of being "on a mission to destroy" Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin by displaying "a level of viciousness and scurrilousness" in pursuing questions about her personal life.

In an extraordinary and emotional interview, Steve Schmidt said his campaign feels "under siege" by wave after wave of news inquiries that have questioned whether Palin is really the mother of a 4-month-old baby, whether her amniotic fluid had been tested and whether she would submit to a DNA test to establish the child's parentage.

Arguing that the media queries are being fueled by "every rumor and smear" posted on left-wing Web sites, Schmidt said mainstream journalists are giving "closer scrutiny" to McCain's little-known running mate than to Democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama.

The McCain camp has been unusually aggressive in pushing back against the media, and it seems to hope to persuade journalists to back off in their scrutiny of Palin. Obama campaign officials have complained to news organizations that their man has been subjected to considerably more investigative reporting than McCain has, but they have done so in more low-key fashion.

By contrast, Schmidt spoke on the record in denouncing as "an absolute work of fiction" a New York Times account of the process by which the McCain campaign vetted Palin. He also charged that Newsweek columnist Howard Fineman was predicting that the governor might have to step down as McCain's vice presidential choice.

Fineman said that he has "never, ever said that," and that he has pointed out positive aspects of Palin's candidacy. "They decided a long time ago that they were going to work the refs," he said.

Elisabeth Bumiller, the lead author of the Times report, said she is "completely confident about the story." As for the campaign's criticism, she said: "This is what they do. It's part of their operation."

McCain also canceled a scheduled appearance on CNN's "Larry King Live" on Tuesday in retaliation for an interview a day earlier in which prime-time host Campbell Brown repeatedly pressed campaign spokesman Tucker Bounds to provide one example of a decision that Palin had made as commander of the Alaska National Guard.

"The interview was totally fair," Brown said. "I was trying to get an answer. I was persistent, but I was respectful. That's my job. Experience is a legitimate issue when John McCain raises it about Obama, and it's also legitimate for us to raise it about Palin."

Schmidt, a former spokesman for President Bush and California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, talked openly about his frustrations in an interview with The Washington Post. He said the McCain camp is in the middle of the worst media "feeding frenzy" he has ever seen.

The fact that unsubstantiated allegations appear on the Internet "is not a license for smearing" Palin, he said. "The campaign has been inundated by hundreds and hundreds of calls from some of the most respected reporters and news organizations. Many reporters have called the campaign and have apologized for asking the questions and said, 'Our editors are making us do this, and I am ashamed.' "

The intensity of media inquiries hit a new level after an anonymous blogger on the liberal Web site Daily Kos last weekend charged that McCain's running mate is actually the grandmother of Trig Palin, the 4-month-old baby born with Down syndrome, and that the real mother is her daughter, 17-year-old Bristol Palin. That led to mainstream media inquiries, which prompted the McCain camp to disclose in a statement Monday that Bristol is five months pregnant and plans to have the baby and marry the teenage father.

Markos Moulitsas, the site's founder, said he did not know the contributor's identity but thought that the admittedly "weird" pregnancy questions were a legitimate line of inquiry that he should not suppress.

Some journalists, Schmidt said, have demanded to see Trig's birth certificate, or have asked when Palin went into labor and whether her contractions increased or decreased as she traveled from Texas to an Alaskan hospital in her home town, Wasilla. Others, he said, have asked whether Palin's eldest son, Track, who serves in the Army and is deploying to Iraq, is a drug addict. "Categorically false," Schmidt said, adding: "This is crazy."

News organizations routinely ask questions about allegations in an attempt to determine their veracity, and Schmidt did not contend that they were publishing or broadcasting false information about Palin and her family. But he said the media is asking more questions about Palin's pregnant daughter than about Obama's real estate deal with fundraiser Tony Rezko, who recently was convicted on corruption charges. Obama has called that transaction a "boneheaded mistake."

Bloggers on the left and right increasingly drive media coverage by turning up the volume on questions until they are difficult to ignore. Sometimes they are right, as when they questioned what CBS's Dan Rather said were National Guard documents in a 2004 report on President Bush's military service that led to Rather's ouster as the network's anchor. And sometimes they are wrong. Last year, the New Republic retracted a soldier's dispatch on petty wartime cruelty in Iraq, and National Review Online acknowledged that two blog postings by a former Marine about military movements in Lebanon were misleading.

Major newspapers, magazines and networks no longer play their traditional gatekeeper role in the digital age, as was evident during the eight-month period when the National Enquirer was charging former senator John Edwards with fathering an out-of-wedlock baby. Most national news outlets did not report the allegations until last month, when Edwards acknowledged an affair with a former campaign aide but denied being her child's father.

Still, traditional media outlets can amplify and legitimize such reports, which may be why the McCain campaign is fighting so hard to keep the Palin allegations confined to the Internet. Denouncing the news media as biased also plays well with many Republican voters.

Palin has been unavailable to the media since she became McCain's surprise choice Friday, adding to the difficulties for news organizations pursuing stories about her life and career. Campaign manager Rick Davis said it would be unrealistic for her to grant interviews as she prepares for "the most important speech of her life," her acceptance address at the convention here. Schmidt said she will be made available for interviews after the convention, a similar timetable followed by Obama's running mate, Sen. Joseph R. Biden Jr. (Del.).

Perhaps the greatest concern to the McCain campaign is that the constant inquiries, amplified by cable television debates over whether a mother with a pregnant daughter and four other children can effectively function as vice president, will create a perception that her nomination is in trouble. "We are being bombarded by e-mails and phone calls from journalists asking when she will be dropping out of the race," Schmidt said.

[Aglifter]

A) It would be darn near impossible for a 17 year old to have a child w. Down's Syndrome...

B) If McCain does win, these reporters are REALLY going to regret it -- traditionally, reporters stayed, somewhat, in line, to avoid having access cut off by the winner...

[308Mike]

Did you read Kim's post regarding the media this morning? He was agreeing all the way through about Urkel and the media slobbering all over him, until it came to Urkel's coronation.

[dfwmtx]

This isn't exactly a new low, just a different variation on the same low the Media hit when they reported every single rumor coming out of New Orleans after Katrina hit (remember: cannibalism, dead babies everywhere, people shooting at rescue helicopters, etc). So I'm not surprised the Media is trying to report on every Palin-related rumor they hear; they're hoping they can sling so much mud that eventually something will stick.

[Jered]

And people in the media blame Palin because they're running these stories, apparently

And there's an elected Democrat legislator saying her family is fair game.

[308Mike]

The cartoons are coming out too:

[HTRN]

A) It would be darn near impossible for a 17 year old to have a child w. Down's Syndrome....

Not true - although age of the mother at the time of pregnancy does dramatically change the odds. Age 20-24 the odds are 1 in 1562, Age 35-39 is 1 in 214, and above 45 it's 1 in 19. Even though maternal age does change the numbers, 80% of women who give birth to a baby with Down's syndrome were under 35 at the time.

[mekender]

A) It would be darn near impossible for a 17 year old to have a child w. Down's Syndrome....

Not true - although age of the mother at the time of pregnancy does dramatically change the odds. Age 20-24 the odds are 1 in 1562, Age 35-39 is 1 in 214, and above 45 it's 1 in 19. Even though maternal age does change the numbers, 80% of women who give birth to a baby with Down's syndrome were under 35 at the time.

But, keep in mind that more than 80% of women that give birth are under 35. So that might have something to do with the odds as well.

[Spatially Adjusted]

If McCain does win, these reporters are REALLY going to regret it -- traditionally, reporters stayed, somewhat, in line, to avoid having access cut off by the winner...

They simply don't care because they don't believe McCain/Palin have a chance of winning so access isn't a concern for them. If the McCain/Palin ticket does lose, or if Palin takes herself off the ticket, the press will go through about five minutes of 'introspection' about how they really did act irresponsibly, then get back to business as usual.

That's why the MSM and Democrats need to be hammered hard every time they open their mouths and say something stupid and irresponsible, which is about every 20 minutes these days.

It's the crap we are seeing today that really makes me miss Tim Russert. He may have been a Democrat, but he was a damned fair Democrat and had the power to make everyone at NBC news division behave themselves. When Tim died the adult supervision left.

[mekender]

If McCain does win, these reporters are REALLY going to regret it -- traditionally, reporters stayed, somewhat, in line, to avoid having access cut off by the winner...

They simply don't care because they don't believe McCain/Palin have a chance of winning so access isn't a concern for them. If the McCain/Palin ticket does lose, or if Palin takes herself off the ticket, the press will go through about five minutes of 'introspection' about how they really did act irresponsibly, then get back to business as usual.

That's why the MSM and Democrats need to be hammered hard every time they open their mouths and say something stupid and irresponsible, which is about every 20 minutes these days.

It's the crap we are seeing today that really makes me miss Tim Russert. He may have been a Democrat, but he was a damned fair Democrat and had the power to make everyone at NBC news division behave themselves. When Tim died the adult supervision left.

I think youare right on the money with the Russert thing, but every 20 minutes? try 5.