Pedestrian stuff not worth reading. As in all articles full of McCain’s “personal relationship” with journalists, it concentrates on the wrong end of the journalism spectrum. Reporters, news gatherers, TV news personalities don’t decide the nature of the stories, which stories will be covered, which stories will make it to print or air, or who gets the free pass. Those decisions are made by corporate executives far higher than mere news rooms. And with centralized media ownership, such things are easily managed.

Mediocre stuff. That the press has given McCain a free pass over the years is old news, as is the story about how much he's supposedly changed. What this story fails to ask is why so many neo-con, right-wing and "centrist" candidates get free passes from the press, while people like Ron Paul, Dean and Edwards are grilled or simply ignored. Why wasn't there a single question about illegal surveillance or the unitary executive in all the endless presidential debates? Why hasn't Obama been probed more on his positions. The problem isn't just about McCain.

An opinion piece, this provides a review of the of media's tendency these days to adopt a warm and fuzzy view of political candidates unless forced to focus - or unless popular opinion dictates otherwise. It is instructive to both the journalist and the journalism consumer, suggesting we all need to try to see beyond the image of the candidates and seek to understand what they really stand for.

this is an article which we can hope will be both read and heeded by mainstream journalists. the writer gives good examples of why sen. mccain's political history in particular needs to be updated in the media in light of those examples as the contradictions between then and now become need to become apparent in press coverage. the writer also discusses in a more limited way, the relationship of the press to the other two candidates (as this was apparently written before sen. clinton conceded)

The article talks of the new old mccain and the old mccain, and deals with the question of whether the right white big corporate press can report the real mccain or are trapped into the old press image of mccain. The title suggests the author himself has trouble regarding his own topic, by using the misleading word "maverick" in his title.

While the article was interesting, it wasn't really revealing or amazingly informative.

It is what journalism should be about. By shining a light on the relationship of McCain to the press we can see there is an inherit favoritism.