Persons wishing to gain perspective on the attempts of the mainstream media to somehow tie Barack Obama to the corruption of Rod Blagojevich in spite of the fact that U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald has said there is NO evidence that Obama was involved in any wrongdoing, should read this article by Jamison Foser at Media Matters.
Here's the first two paragraphs:
"To anyone who lived through the media feeding frenzy of the 1990s, during which the nation's leading news organizations spent the better part of a decade destroying their own credibility by relentlessly hyping a series of non-scandals, the past few days, in which the media have tried to shoehorn Barack Obama into the Rod Blagojevich scandal, have been sickeningly familiar.
"Whenever reporters think -- or want you to think -- they've uncovered a presidential scandal, they waste little time in comparing it to previous controversies. Yesterday, CNN's Rick Sanchez tried desperately to get the phrase 'Blagogate' to stick -- the latest in a long and overwhelmingly annoying post-Watergate pattern of ham-handed efforts to hype a scandal by appending the suffix '-gate' to the end of a word."
Those of us who knew Sanchez when he tarnished the airwaves in south Florida expect no less than some seedy, sordid attempt to exploit a non-issue so as to better feather his nest at CNN. But he's just one pitiful example of what Mr. Jamison describes as the ongoing perfidy of news organizations that find it easier to create a scandal than to ferret out the truth.
Here's the link to Jamison's article.
3 comments:
I don't think Sanchez is as bad as you do, in fact, CNN is so horrible that Sanchez is among the better, less biased ones there! I hever heard his Florida reportage but I understand he's a Cuban refugee (as a child) and thus his coverage there would tend to be heavily biased to the right.
Otherwise, I agree with you. From every story I've read Fitzgerald has made it clear that President Obama is not a target of this inquiry. To be fair, his aide, Valerie Jarrett MIGHT BE as MIGHT Representative Jackson, Jr, who was an Obama campaign officer.
It also seems to me from what I read that Obama, Axelrod and Plouffe went out of their way to distance themselves from Blagojevich's entreaties to their collegues.
The press is resentful because they got it wrong again with McCain. Expect a special prosecutor and all the Clinton madness all over again.
Kelso's Nuts - I have to admit that a while back I heard Sanchez say something that made me think he'd improved. In South Florida he was a joke, had a drinking problem, and more.
He's always been, in my opinion, something of a lightweight, and thus has a tendency to do whatever - even, as in this case, it may be a bit "seedy" - to build his career.
You're certainly right about CNN!
As Jamison points out, Chicago is no more or less corrupt than other cities or areas in our country. It would be hard to be any kind of Democratic politico in Chicago - even a ward boss - and not have some "links" to Blagojevich, so I'd not be surprised if some Obama people may be a bit "tainted."
It is truly unfortunate that we have such a weak press - one bought and paid for by the corporate structures - and that makes it so much more difficult for democracy to flourish.
Thanks for writing!
Jacob
We witnessed eight years of investigations of Clinton on subjects that had already been investigated while he was a Governor. We should be used to idle accusations meant to embarrass rather than find facts. Now it is Obama’s turn to be accused of anything to grab a headline. Are we going to spend another four years of tying a president’s hands for political reasons? I hope not.
The media should look before it leaps.
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