'The medium is the message'

Fact: Former President Bill Clinton is being marginalized, not by himself, not by the right wing, but by the media. Obama supporters are cheering, and the GOP is having the last laugh.

Fact: In a thousand subtle and not-so-subtle ways, the media have interjected race into the presidential campaign, very conventiently in the run-up to the South Carolina primary.

Fact: The media are skillful at “creating reality” and making big bucks from conflict.

Fact: As primary day dawned here in South Carolina, a special edition of MSNBC’s “Morning Joe,” broadcast live from Columbia and asserted 1) Bill Clinton introduced the “issue of race” into the Democratic campaign, 2) Bill Clinton is racist, and 3) any white South Carolinian voting for Hillary Clinton is racist.

You didn’t hear the broadcast? There is documentation across the Web of what went down.

This post is not about the South Carolina primary. This post is about media integrity or, more accuately, the lack thereof.

Finally, in Joe Scarborough’s unrelenting attack on the Clintons (which to his credit MSNBC’s David Shuster tried to tamp down), in the worst display of media bias I believe I’ve ever witnessed, the Congressional Quarterly’s Craig Crawford gained the microphone:

“You know, I have sat down here in Florida for the last month, and I have watched the coverage, and I really think the evidence-free bias against the Clintons in the media borders on mental illness.

“I mean, I think when Dr. Phil gets done with Britney, he ought to go to Washington and stage an intervention at the National Press Club. I mean, we've gotten into a situation where if you try to be fair to the Clintons, if you try to be objective, if you try to say, ‘Well, where's the evidence of racism in the Clinton campaign?’ you're accused of being a naïve shill for the Clintons.

“I mean, I think if somebody came out today and said that Bill Clinton -- if the town drunk in Columbia came out and said, ‘Bill Clinton last night was poisoning the drinking water in Obama precincts,’ the media would say, ‘Ah, there goes Clinton again. You can't trust him.’

“I really think it's a problem. You know what? You guys make him stronger with this bashing. This actually is what makes the Clintons stronger.”

That and their record on civil rights and human rights. That cannot be denied.

What is being made weaker is the democratic process. When cable news spins, distorts and lies to promote one candidate over another – because conflict sells and fattens its own coffers – it is the people who lose, not the candidates.

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Here’s what Mr. Crawford concluded on his blog, “Trail Mix” (LINK) Sunday:

How the Media Destroys Obama
By Craig Crawford January 27, 2008 1:00 PM

Talk about killing with kindness. Supporters of Barack Obama should be wary of the news media’s feverish gushing for the Democratic White House hopeful.

For starters, it was media romanticism – not Hillary Rodham Clinton’s hardball campaigning – that made Obama the “black candidate.” This happens, albeit unwittingly, every time a journalist waxes poetic about the historic step forward of seeing an African-American in a viable run for the presidency. (And yet, when Bill Clinton talks about Obama’s appeal to black voters, it is decried as "injecting race.")

Obama also runs the risk of a backlash against the media being seen as force feeding him to Democratic primary voters.

In South Carolina, the anti-Clinton media frenzy might have suppressed Obama’s white vote as much as any other possible cause – although many appeared to move toward John Edwards instead of Clinton. A similar backlash against media overkill probably contributed to Obama’s last-minute loss to Clinton in New Hampshire.

The Washington press club’s love affair with Obama allows many of a certain generation to indulge the fantasy of returning to their youth as starry-eyed believers in John F. Kennedy and Robert F. Kennedy. Hence, the voluble response to Caroline Kennedy’s endorsement in today’s New York Times (1/27/08) and the trembling expectations of a similar move by Sen. Ted Kennedy.

Still, Obama could be excused for welcoming media groupthink that has gone stark raving mad for his candidacy. But in the long run, he might be well advised to dismiss the hype and build a relationship with voters that remains independent of what fickle journalists say. –End-