Media reformer Josh Silver's "Look at Media in 2009" (Huffington Post, 11/13/08) necessarily surveys the dire record of corporate news in '08:

The real problem is not the media favoring one candidate
over another, but rather its utter failure to practice critical journalism. Turn on your television or radio, and it's 24/7 horserace political coverage, partisan shouting matches and salacious crap. There is no effort to tell voters the difference between the candidates' rhetoric and reality, how their proclamations match their voting records, and what their policy proposals would actually do. While there were a few notable moments when news outlets actually did this during the campaign, they were few and far between.

"Now that the champagne has been put away," Silver cautions us to keep in mind that "the disastrous members of mainstream media remain firmly in place. Ignore the problem at your--and the nation's--peril."

For more review, check out the FAIR study published in our magazine Extra!: "TV's Low-Cal Campaign Coverage: How 385 Stories Can Tell You Next to Nothing About Whom to Vote For" (5-6/08) by Jon Whiten

This entry was posted on Friday, November 14th, 2008 at 10:12 pm and is filed under Election. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.