I opened up yesterday's edition of the Post Register this afternoon and looked to see what was on the front page. After all, the paper ran the day following Governor Sarah Palin's acceptance speech at the Republican National Convention in Minnesota. Surely there would be something about the historical nature of the address, much like there was with Senator Obama's address to the DNC a couple weeks ago.
Instead, the big national story on the front page was an AP story titled "McCain camp plays the sexism card." Subheading: "It appears the strategy is to entice the female vote and bash on the media for questioning Sarah Palin's past."
I was stunned. The Associated Press is THE national news service for the country, and prides itself on being unbiased in its news coverage. Somewhere along the way they decided to abandon that principle. The headline reeks of bitterness and cynicism.
Honestly, the AP? You really ran a story like that instead of, oh, I don't know, reporting on what Palin said?
In the interest of being fair, I did a search on their site for a story titled "Obama camp plays the race card," but came up empty.
It's one thing to headline your story "Obama claims McCain camp of playing the sexist card," or "McCain camp accusses Obama camp of playing the race card," but it's entirely different to inject your own opinion into a news story like AP writer Ron Fournier obviously did here.
It's disgusting, and yet again I am embarrassed to be going into the field of professional journalism.
Oh, and in the case of the Post Register, I checked today's front page to see if there was anything about Palin's speech there.
Nope.
There was a nice story about an Idaho Falls attorney helping to evict a couple anti-war protesters at the convention, though, effectively giving said protesters the coverage they wanted.
Oh, and there was a great opinion column by Ellen Goodman, decrying Palin's lack of experience and criticizing the governor for being anti-abortion.
Good grief.
A quick note on experience: Neither Obama nor Palin have resumes typical of presidents of vice-presidents. For either side to scream about the other ticket is appallingly hypocritical.
I don't see why McCain made the pick, as it completely undermines any argument he can make against Senator Obama re: experience, while any time Obama brings up Palin's lack of qualification I cannot believe my ears.
Yay politics.
3 comments:
Another awesome thing by the AP this week: they produced two point-by-point arguments against the speeches, one each for Palin and McCain. These articles were run simply as, by The Associated Press. Not opinion articles, mind you, just straight-up "news" articles. Where were these rebuttals last week during the DNC? They weren't written. Don't get me wrong, I don't really like the victim mentality of some Republicans, but it really is undeniable that there is a left-leaning bias in the media.
The whole election process this time has left me with a sick taste in my mouth and a hurt in my side- hopefully that's not my ulcer coming back. I try not to think about it as much as possible, although Eric brings it up whenever he can because he knows it brings the rise out in people and conversations. I love how you and Amy are both so appalled though about biasism (is that even a word? I guess not because it's underlined red like it's spelled wrong.) You have too much faith in your journalism classes that talk about being unbiased, these are people here- some are better at it than others- but of course people will be biased- and write that way. And that was a very long run on sentence. Anyway, I'm glad you're still trying to be unbiased in your writing, we'll see how long that lasts. :)
I do like Palin. I'm definitely excited to see what she brings to the table. However, after watching that first speech, I honestly don't think there was a whole lot worth printing! It was kind of a family "hocky-mom" introduction. And-in a small way-I really do think McCain picked a YOUNG, ATTRACTIVE, FEMALE for a reason. I'd like to say it was truly her political stance which got her the spot, but I honestly can't say that with conviction. I think he's tryin' to rock the boat a bit.
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