Will this work?
Posted on 11/09/2008 5:51:05 AM PST by NCjim
To answer the question of my headline, no CBS isn't joking. CBS is actually pretending that the Old Media must be "won over" by a President Obama. It makes one wonder just how much more the press can be in love with The One? As multiple studies have shown, the Old Media has been far more in Obama’s corner than not yet now CBS wants to pretend they are skeptical of Obama? Now CBS wants to act as if they will be tough on him unless he appeases them? I know I said CBS was serious with this report, but it still seems like a joke of epic proportions.
Just catch this absurd CBS headline and subhead: How Obama Can Win Over The Media - MarketWatch Media Columnist Explains What Obama Must Do To Become America's "Communicator-In-Chief" [1]... I know, I know. When you've stopped laughing, you can continue on.
The very beginning of this farce is blind for its inability at introspection. CBS writer Jon Friedman starts his story at what he calls "an election-night party thrown by Time Warner." But it was not a mere party it was an Obama celebration. At the party, Friedman asks the managing editor of Time magazine what advice he has for Obama and editor Rick Stengel seriously says that Obama must have "a new era of transparency."
Obviously Stengel, Friedman, CBS and the bulk of the Old Media establishment didn't care a whit about "transparency," at least if Obama's campaign itself is any example. For instance, few of them cared much about the lack of transparency in Obama's donor base. Millions of dollars were likely donated to Obama's campaign illegally yet not a word was ever uttered by the largest number of Old Media establishments. The Old Media obviously wasn't interested in the transparency of Obama's past. The media didn't care much about looking into Rev. Wright until the Internet beat the bushes for the story and never did say a word about his communist mentor, Frank Marshall Davis. The media didn't bother to look into the "missing years" during Obama's college years, they didn't explore his ACORN connections and were disinterested in his votes to safeguard infanticide. All these things came out on the Internet and the New Media long before any slight interest in them was shown by the Old Media.
This is in marked contrast with how the media attempted to destroy -- and is still out to destroy -- Governor Sarah Palin. Whereas the media had nothing to say about Obama's past, it was salivating to look into Palin's. It went so far as to demand the medical records of her baby, for Heaven's sake!
Yet, now Time's Stengel wants to act all self-important as if Obama needs to be "transparent" in office to win him over? And if he doesn't, what then? Is the Old Media suddenly going to fall out of love? That would be hard to believe.
After this bit of clueless pontificating, CBS writer Stengel really unleashed a funny. Friedman claims he once met Obama at an October dinner party thrown by a magazine conference in Phoenix.
Obama clearly enjoyed meeting people and making small talk. But I thought I got a glimpse of a slightly churlish Obama, too, when I asked him, rather bluntly, if he was worried about peaking in popularity with the media any time soon.
He cocked his head and took in my question, looking displeased at being buttonholed in such a friendly setting.
"No," he declared, throwing cold water on my theory. He then explained that he was confident he could continue to do well.
And here is just one more example of how the media has covered for Barack Obama. Friedman uses "churlish" when for any other politician he'd have used the word "arrogant."
Friedman goes on to complain that Obama was "guarded" on the campaign trail and advises the new president to "lighten up a bit." Here one can't help but ask why the press has made so little of this fact? Any other candidate that haughtily kept the press at such arms length would have been distrusted, even obliterated, by that same press. But, not Obama. For him they looked the other way.
I go back to the back-of-the-plane stories where several media types were a bit put off by the fact that Obama never bothered himself much to walk into the area on his campaign plane where the media sat salivating for just a glimpse of their messiah. He rarely walked among them to lay on hands and when he did he was not personable or glib, but standoffish and full of simple campaign trail boilerplate. Several media types have reported that even after being on the trail with the candidate of "change" for a year or more they never did get to see him in a loose, unguarded moment. A few reporters have offhandedly noted that they just didn't know him after all this time but shrugged it off as a simple curiosity.
The result is that they've allowed Obama to get away with this arrogant and distant behavior. This snobbish man has been treated with awe instead of being treated with a journalist’s skeptical eye by nearly every journalist that covered him. The media would have allowed no one else but The One to get away with this sort of behavior without sharp rebuke.
The press has spent 8 years eviscerating George W. Bush for his lack of media glad-handing. The media similarly spent a month attacking Governor Sarah Palin for ignoring them on the campaign trail. Yet few in the press said a word about Obama's refusal to give them much for four years and for the last month of the campaign studiously ignored the fact that Joe Biden suddenly disappeared from public view.
And now Jon Friedman and CBS want to pretend that the Old Media must be "won over" by a President Obama? He's been leading them around like puppies for years, why would he expect they'd now all of a sudden want to hold him accountable for anything?
Far from issuing serious journalism, I think Jon Friedman is auditioning to get a spot on a sitcom writing staff with this one.
Pundits dampen Obama expectations
Rudd could teach Obama about expectations
Rob Douglas: It’s time to temper Obama expectations
Barack Obama must now overcome the weight of expectation
Obama bids to temper runaway expectations
Paul Thomas: A world of expectations teeters on slim shoulders
The list goes on and on.
I haven't watched MSM in YEARS nor bought a MSM newspaper, so when is this going to have an effect, a boycott of one, like the goofy "Army of One" motto (thank God now replaced), means nothing.
My news (and it turns out to be very accurate) is surfing good conservative "new media" sites, mainly FR which I contribue to, listening to Rush (who is TRULY RIGHT on point in his analysis), Hannity (who seems to be slammed but is sure damned tough with his defeat Hillary and Obama campaigns, pretty darned brave if you ask me) and a few others. Of course, I expect all these things to be shut down with this Internet Police movement and Fairness Doctrine.
We are going to have to think of some truly creative ways for disseminating information, even underground newsletters, slow but at least it's something. Shortwave, offshore broadcasting, Mexico broadcasting locations out of reach of Obama goons and too, Mexican officials are easy to pay off but now there are the cartels to deal with.
Bad times folks, ever fight isolated without benefit of support or morale? Pretty bad situation and not very effective.
Not quite: FOX - F@#$ Obama the Xanadu
Even prostitutes sometimes play hard to get.
They’re just trying to throw a fig leaf of objectivity over their biased propaganda leading up to the election.
I saw a funny explanation from msm on how the news was really a black candidate for president, they were only following the real news.
Really? What was Alan Keyes?
Lame CYA
Our task is to make sure everyone is aware every one of his short-comings and failures. My hope is that the same media that put him in office will hound him unmercifully and he will be unceremoniously dumped in a landslide in 2012. Until then, every day will be hell.
O geez, he had them at “hello.”
As well, Bambi is lost without his teleprompter. He's the King of flippant remarks. At his first presser he blows it, and has to apologize to Nancy Reagan. Not a good omen. He's arrogant and has a tendency to speak sarcastically off the cuff. I think this is a trait he will have problems controlling, especially when having to perform without a script. I think this is going to be a very entertaining four years. It will be interesting to see how Letterman, Leno, SNL, etc. treat his buffoonery.
After Fox promoted Cameron's trashing of Gov. Palin, I've shut them off. As for the others, I never watched them anyway. I'll get all the news I need on the internet.
I can see the incredulaty of this title but he does risk turning the MSM against him. O has promised such hyperbole about the future, of “progressive” programs, and extraordinary results. It will be injteresting to see how much O promised that he will, in fact, do. He also promised reaching across the aisle and bipartisonship. He obiviously can’t do progressive programs and bipartisanship simulataneously. As POTUS he may encounter the fickleness of the MSM who, above all things, want ratings.
I'm waiting for the point where Barack or Michelle smacks a TV network because the interviewer they proposed was not black enough. Affirmative action will lose its luster when applied to THEM.
Think about his years as "community organizer". The essence of what he had to do was dominate meeting discussions with a quick, cutting wit. The Alinsky Method of taking opponents and subjecting them to ridicule keeps showing through. It's such an ingrained habit, he finds it difficult to break.
“CBS News: Obama Must ‘Win Over the Media’”
I predict the amazing young man will do this in short order.
Scrappleface?
Will this work?
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.