Handicapping the Race/Shaping the Debate

Nicole Bell at C&L raises a question I've been looking at, about the media shaping the primaries.

Dan Abrams asks if the media is creating a horse race that does not really exist by downplaying the lead of one candidate and playing up the rise of another just to create a media narrative. And again, irrespective to the actual candidates, there is some truth to what Abrams says (and Rachel Maddow’s point that Obama is gaining as well, if you look at the trajectory of the polling data), and we can see it in many other ways, such as the death knell of McCain’s campaign four months ago and the presumptive lead of Rudy Giuliani at the same time. Now that actual votes are being counted, who has the delegates and who has gotten out of the race? And let us not forget the media blackout on Edwards and how that impacted his ability to gain traction nor the pundit-declared victory for Obama in New Hampshire before a single vote was counted.

Another point that Bell touches on -- they've been wrong as often as they've been right.*

As for the substance of the reporting, be sure to follow the links to Tom Tomorrow's commentary.

* As Digby points out, this wrongess affects much more than horse races. They screw up -- or they out and out lie -- and then stick by it because, y'know what? They've got the soapbox, so fuck you. (I work for an alternative weekly here in Chicago [yes, the alternative weekly] and you know something? We have editors who fact-check every story -- that means, among other things, verifying quotes. How about that?) Brad has more detail on this story at Sadly, No!

As long as we're doing a little press-bashing this morning, take a look at Robert Farley's comments on how the press deals with blunders. This is a serious problem in the discourse in this country -- the press is no longer composed of journalists, but of corporate cogs who have common interests with those they should be challenging. The lies we get from politicians are dutifully repeated in the press until, in the Christianist way of thinking, they become true. They're still divorced from reality, but they're true. Just ask the pundits.