Top Troubling Tropes of Campaign '08

FAIR | Oct. 23, 2008 (News Analysis)
The media-created narratives that derail election coverage

Not only do journalists organize the election story around the question--not terribly helpful to voters--of who's up and who's down, they largely base their evaluation of the race on shallow image-based narratives that the media construct themselves: Barack Obama is an "elitist" who might not "get the way we live" (Extra!, 7=8/08), while John McCain is a straight-talking "maverick" (Extra!, 5=6/08). Though these tropes are treated by establishment news ... Full Story »

Posted by Dwight Rousu

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Subjects: U.S., Politics, Media
Topics: Presidential Election 2008, Media and Politics, Ethics in Journalism, Fake News, Journalism, Mainstream Media
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Posted by: Posted by Dwight Rousu - Oct 23, 2008 - 12:22 AM PDT
Reviewed by: Dwight Rousu (review), Derek Hawkins (review), Luann Grey (review), Renae DeLucia (review), Joel Kulenkamp (review), Tim Poston (review), David Agnew (review)
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Edited by: Derek Hawkins - Oct 23, 2008 - 11:23 AM PDT

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Derek Hawkins
4.2
 by Derek Hawkins - Oct. 23, 2008

The vapidity of many of the themes the mainstream media have followed in this election is brought to light in this razor sharp news analysis. FAIR makes the case that John McCain's straight talk, Barack Obama's elitism and other narratives are of little substance and distract from coverage of the issues at stake in this election. Examples are abundant, though I wish FAIR would have linked to some of the news stories it cites. It takes McCain to task more than Obama, but I'd call the evidence and the writing even-handed. Highly, highly recommended.

Coverage of this election -- supposedly the most important one in my lifetime -- has been abysmal. And mainstream and independent news organizations have shown their true colors. Major TV news networks have happily forgone truth and fact in the name of balancing perspectives, as this piece points out. Our national newspapers of record have been mediocre at best, coupling valuable, well researched stories with inane punditry and talking points. Some of my preferred (The Nation) and ... More »

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David Agnew
4.7
 by David Agnew - Oct. 25, 2008

Compared to much of the journalism out there (as documented in the article), this is high-quality. I do wonder if it accurately represents the ratio of bias re: the candidates, as it indicates a general right-wing media bias - which I believe to be the case, 'tho this article doesn't present statistics to show that.

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Dwight Rousu
4.9
 by Dwight Rousu - Oct. 23, 2008

FAIR give an excellent tour of 10 autogenerated right wing media afactual memes that twist and distort many of the "mainstream" media news and talk shows.

This article captures many of the agonizing bits of BS that are woven into the big corporate mediaTV and talk shows. They make it painful to watch or listen when this goes uncorrected. While some of it is intentional disinformation, it often seems to be woven into the consciousness of the talking heads so deeply, that they do not even know they are biased.

Dwight posted this story.
See Full Review » (13 answers)
Joel Kulenkamp
4.0
 by Joel Kulenkamp - Oct. 23, 2008
See Full Review » (5 answers)
Luann Grey
1.6
 by Luann Grey - Oct. 23, 2008

No. It is terribly and blatantly one-sided.

See Full Review » (6 answers)
Tim Poston
NO RATING
by Tim Poston - Oct. 23, 2008

I did not click boxes on any of your questions ("Is it fair?", etc.), as there was little to indicate which end of the row was Yes Indeed and which end was Nohow, Contrariwise. Maybe the faint grey X is supposed to tell me?

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