Is The Press Actually HURTING Obama?

Logical Lady Carol Platt Liebau raised this very question in her Townhall.com column today. I cut to the closing paragraphs.

Certainly, conventional wisdom assumes that when conditions are presented as almost uniformly negative, voters are more likely to take a gamble on the candidate who best personifies “change.” But is it in fact possible that this year, by creating a crisis atmosphere, the press is actually hurting Obama, rather than helping him?

After all, it’s a delicate task to stoke the desire for “change” by amplifying voters’ concerns, without frightening the same voters so much that they decide to stick with a tried-and-true leader. In 1992, the economy was in a trough, but overall, things were good; in particular, no foreign threat lurked in the forefront of voters’ minds. It was an acceptable risk to roll the dice on a relatively untried Arkansas governor, who was largely able to pass the Commander-in-Chief test simply by playing down foreign policy issues. This year, that technique simply won’t work, as Obama himself implicitly acknowledged by taking a foreign tour last week.

In 2008, Americans know soldiers are confronting terrorists abroad and – if they take at face value the often-overheated coverage of economic and environmental news – it seems that their well-being is profoundly threatened at home, as well. At such times, qualities like leadership, experience, character and principle are at a premium. And perhaps that’s why the Obama campaign has reason to be nervous about the results of an NBC/Wall Street Journal poll conducted just last week.

Sure, it found that people preferred Obama over McCain when it came to "improving America's standing in the world," "being compassionate," "offering hope" and "being likable, easygoing." But on qualities like “being knowledgeable, experienced” and “being Commander-in-Chief,” McCain beat Obama decisively. And by a 20-point margin, Americans consider Obama the “riskier choice” for President.

There’s no doubt that Americans are willing to take risks like electing Barack Obama – but only when it’s prudent to do so. If America is in crisis, as press coverage these days so often suggests, will voters really decide that it’s the time to gamble on an inexperienced President, who will inevitably require on-the-job training? How ironic would it be if – in its zeal to fan the flames of “change” for its golden candidate – the press is actually making his job more difficult?

Emphasis mine. In an atmosphere where almost 50% of the electorate say that the media is biased toward Senator Obama - where even media insiders are admitting that the coverage "smelled of a coronation" and ask why journalists are giving one candidate "twice the coverage" of another and warn of a "backlash" against the media that is certainly a valid question to ask. The blatant bias that has been shown, especially during Senator Obama's trip to Europe and the Middle East, has certainly gotten people talking - and that can not be a bad thing.

For even further discussion, read this op-ed from the LA Times.

Should a federal shield law be limited to "professionals," or ought it reflect a broader view of journalism in the Internet Age? Consider some tough cases.

Josh Wolf, a self-described independent journalist and filmmaker, spent 226 days in jail for refusing to hand over a video recording of a June 2005 riot to federal prosecutors, who sought it for their investigation of damage to a San Francisco city police car. Should Wolf and others like him be protected by any federal shield law?

How about Mayhill Fowler, in her own words "an over-educated 60-year-old woman with politics in her blood," who has followed Barack Obama across the country? It was Fowler who recorded Obama's remarks about "bitter" citizens who "cling to guns or religion" and then posted it on the Huffington Post's Off the Bus blog, sending a charge through the Democratic primaries. Should her audiotapes and notes be available to prosecutors or parties to some civil suit?

There may be defensible reasons for limiting a federal shield law to those "regularly" engaged in journalism and to those who do it for "substantial" financial gain -- terms that are (purposefully) vague and would have to be interpreted and defined by the courts. After all, anyone can create a blog, and Congress surely doesn't want to make available a journalists' privilege to anyone with a laptop and an Internet connection. But the reality is that people working outside traditional news organizations -- including some bloggers and citizen journalists -- have become a force in breaking news and analyzing it.

As campaigns reach out more and more to blogs and bloggers, this is a discussion that needs to be had. There is really no reason why bloggers and the media can't work together to make each other better. The technologies that allow people like Mayhill Flower and Josh Wolf to get into venues that the traditional media can not access give the traditional media the content they need to feed the 24/7 news beast. If the press (and my fellow bloggers) was smart, they will figure out a way where we can both work together in a manner to make sure that the voters are more educated on the issues in order to make this country even better than it is today.