Dubious Debates: How media moderators lowered the level of Election ’08By (July/August 2008)
Selling the Colombia Trade Pact: Papers spin deal into a ‘no-brainer’
By (July/August 2008)
Carrying a Torch for Anti-China Protests: When an official enemy is targeted, media take notice
By (July/August 2008)
Obama the Snob?: Hanging the ‘elitist’ label on another Democratic candidateBy (July/August 2008)
Journalists Predict Scrutiny of McCain . . . Some DayBy (Update June 2008)
Network News Blackout on Pentagon Pundits
By (Update June 2008)
NYT Iraq War ‘Debate’ Excludes Critics: Paper’s panel features nine hawkish ‘experts’
By (Update June 2008)
Fareed Zakaria, Spokesperson for the Global Elite: Newsweek pundit presents pro-corporate views as the poor’s perspective
By (July/August 2008)
Pope Gets Pass on Church Abuse History: Media overlook Benedict’s record of downplaying the issue
By (July/August 2008)
Catherine Lutz on Iraq Military Bases: ‘The images don’t show up on TV news’
(July/August 2008)
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Obama the Snob?Hanging the ‘elitist’ label on another Democratic candidate
By
It’s safe to assume that Barack Obama knew he could expect certain lines of attack when he decided to run for president: whispers about his religious beliefs, for example, or questions regarding his patriotism. And sure enough, those issues came up almost as soon as the campaign started. But it’s difficult to imagine that Obama—whose one grandfather was a high-school dropout and the other a colonial servant—expected to fend off the accusation that he is “elitist.”
Corporate media coverage of political campaigns often rests on certain storylines, though, that don’t necessarily bear any relationship to reality—Al Gore the exaggerator vs. compassionate conservative George W. Bush in the 2000 election, to take one example (Extra!, 1–2/01). Somewhere along the way in 2008, pundits decided to rerun the storyline used for Democratic nominee John Kerry in 2004 (Extra!, 7–8/04), asking of Obama: Is he one of us?
About Extra!
Extra! is FAIR's hard-hitting bimonthly magazine of well-documented media criticism.Published since 1987, Extra! looks at the major issues in the news, questioning the conventional wisdom that narrows the range of issues, sources and perspectives. Articles examine biased reporting, censored news, media mergers, press/state cronyism, the power of corporate owners and advertisers, and the exclusion of progressive voices from the media.
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Managing editor: Julie Hollar (jhollar@fair.org)
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