Matthews offers walk-and-chew-gum explanation for why media don't adequately cover McCain
Summary: On MSNBC, Chris Matthews, Tim Russert, Dan Abrams, and Rachel Maddow discussed how the media, in Matthews' words, "completely ignore {Sen.} John McCain's problems."
But in purporting to explain "the way the media works," Matthews suggested that it is not possible for the media to cover both the Democratic primary and McCain adequately, asserting: "{A}s long as we focus on the fight between Hillary and Barack, and perhaps more recently just on Barack's problems, it blocks the sun -- the media, the public's attention -- from the problems that are obviously incipient and coming to be at some point with McCain." ...Liz Cox Barrett, who noted MSNBC's coverage in a May 7 post at the Columbia Journalism Review's daily blog, described Matthews' explanation of "how the media works" as "Can't Walk and Chew Gum." Indeed, it was Matthews, who in a recent hour-long interview with McCain, failed to challenge McCain on several issues, including statements regarding Iraq policy, other foreign policy issues, campaign finance, and spending projects, despite purporting to ask "tough" questions, but did manage to ask the following question of McCain, which Matthews characterized as a "tough one": "Is Barack Obama an elitist?"
Additionally, while Matthews and Russert, NBC's Washington bureau chief, noted what they described as McCain's "problems," "weaknesses," and "mistake{s}," and suggested that the media have not given McCain what Russert referred to as "the same kind of scrutiny" as his Democratic rivals,
Russert also suggested that the media could not cover both McCain and the Democrats, asserting: "But all of that in time. I mean, it is only May. This has been going on for some time but it's gonna be a long, long campaign. And when Senator McCain is back in the media's light, he'll receive the same kind of scrutiny.":eyes: Purporting to translate Russert's comments,
Barrett wrote: "We'll stop ignoring McCain's mistakes when we start focusing on McCain's mistakes!" {italics in original}. As Media Matters for America noted, on the May 5 edition of ABC Radio Networks' Imus in the Morning, Russert ignored his own role in the media's disparate coverage of Rev. John Hagee, whose endorsement McCain sought and obtained, versus its coverage of Rev. Jeremiah Wright in the context of the Obama campaign: "I don't think -- the Hagee thing, McCain has not been questioned in great scrutiny by that -- scrutinized about that, or a lot of things. I mean, he's been -- really been given this grace period to go around the country, unify his party, raise some money, put a campaign together, and he's benefited from enormously. There's no doubt about it."
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http://mediamatters.org/items/200805080008?f=h_latest
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