Media Coverage and the Election

First, a caveat: The Nation has its agendas, admittedly. But especially given the sensationalist, alarmist-driven publications today, The Nation offers a refreshing antidote to the talking heads from, for example, The NY Times, once considered the premier outlet of well-researched, comprehensive, objective, and yes, even liberal-leaning, news. No longer. It has capitulated--has since the turn of the century--to the sensationalist tactics one associates with Fox and Rupert Murdoch's other brands.

To wit: Eric Alterman of The Nation, in the September 22, 2008 issue, observes that the narrow mind-set of the pundits

"finds no significance in the sight of a middle-class white woman from North Carolina standing before 80,000 people and countless millions on TV and the Internet proclaiming her allegiance to a biracial man for the presidency just five decades after he might have been lynched for looking at her funny.

Instead of focusing on the astonishing power of the historical moment--evidenced in thousands of ways during this extraordinary convention--the media obsessed about dramas o their own making. Tiny, clownlike clusters of Hillary hardliners--people with the political judgment of Naderite nudniks and even less intellectual coherence--got more coverage than the nearly 80 percent of Democrats who told pollsters they support their nominee. (Obama's support form his party is higher than was Gore's or John Kerry's at the same point in their candidacies, but you'd never know that from the coverage.)"

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