A Maddening Interview with Evan Thomas
By LisaB on March 14, 2009 at 1:45 PM in Current Affairs
Reporters, particularly the pundit variety, want people to believe their assorted columns or publications are valuable because they offer “critical analysis” or “news you won’t find anywhere else.” Basically, they want you to believe you just can’t get better information or better thinking than from them.
Well, fine. But assertions like that do deserve an occasional look-see. What are the bona fides? What, exactly, do you get for your “news-magazine” dollar?
Well, if it’s Newsweek, maybe not as much as you’d like. During an hour long interview on NoQuarter Radio’s Sins of Omission with Paulie Abeles, Newsweek editor-at-large Evan Thomas seemed not to be very well informed on a few issues himself.
He did admit the media was biased in favor of Obama in 2008. But he characterized it as a more or less benign bias that did not contribute all that much to the eventual success of BO.
The following are some notes taken during the interview. This is not a transcription, so you may wish to listen to the interview to form your own opinion. I have included approximate times so you can find these points of interest.
7:35 – Thomas said Obama was not well-liked by reporters traveling with him. Obama had no time for them but was much more popular with editors back at headquarters not directly covering him. (I guess to know him is not to love him?)
14:10 – BO’s memoir was a bit “loose” and he got off easy because no one really challenged him on particulars. Obama did “improve” on his own story.
15:20 – When asked about Obama’s “stretching the truth” and the Maytag employees he claimed to help near Chicago, Thomas replied that BO’s lies are hard to measure and that issues with him and issues with Hillary Clinton were “apples and oranges.”
16:30 – Thomas thinks Obama had tough questions about Rev. Wright and handled that well.
18:20 – Obama was not credible in distancing himself from Wright, but what a great race speech!
21:24 – Says it was obvious BO wasn’t a racial hater – that’s why BO got out of some of the Wright / Pfleger / Meeks, etc connections.
21:20 – When asked about how the Kennedy endorsement came about, Thomas says Ted Kennedy backed Obama because Caroline Kennedy liked him.
26:45 – HRC didn’t have good judgment.
28:35 – Said both Clintons tried to scare voters and portray Obama as the “other.”
29:87 – Abeles talked about how BO fed into the “alien” portrayal himself by not offering documentation, still refuses access to docs about him, spent $1 million (so far) litigating access to these docs and then asked Thomas what possible reason BO has to do this? Thomas replied he didn’t know enough about this to address it.
32:20 – Abeles asked Thomas about the caucases question and how caucus goers in certain places felt the BO campaign gamed the system by busing in people to shout down the locals, Thomas said he didn’t know about it or have any information.
34:43 – The South Carolina “fairy tale” comment by Bill Clinton was decisive and Bill was a “malign force” to Hillary’s campaign.
26:50 – Abeles asked Thomas about an article in TNR called Race Man that suggested the BO campaign looked for ways to exploit any potential Clinton gaffe into a racial attack. Thomas did not know the article but said that was the way things played out.
38:55 – Abeles asked Thomas about BO’s campaign chief, David Axelrod, most famous for “astroturfing” (creating phony grass roots). Thomas said Axelrod got tired of his old, bad life and was looking for a “cleaner vessel and found it in Obama.” (I am not making this up.)
40:35 – A caller to the show said the media provided awful coverage and was terribly biased during the campaign. Thomas replied the press was pro-Obama, but he wasn’t shocked and didn’t think the bias decisive. BO would have won anyway.
42:41 – A caller questioned whether Thomas’ (and others) depiction of Hillary Clinton as a demagogue was backed up by any specific events. Caller suggested that someone’s “read” or interpretation of situations often becomes a “fact” in the media and the caller did not want anyone’s opinions but examples of comments, commercials or campaign literature from Clinton that would prove the point. Thomas could not give specifics. Caller said there were no commercials, mailings, etc and it was a descriptive line that then became the story.
Thomas said it was the “general tenor” of Clinton’s campaign that was the problem. She was playing on the fears of [low-information voters].
44:52 – Caller identifying as a producer on a documentary about the democratic primary said he was suprised Thomas did not have info on the caucus problems despite press notification from HRC campaign and asked why the media did not follow the story. Thomas says he didn’t know, doesn’t know enough and can’t answer.
46:20 – A caller noted that 16% of Clinton female voters did not vote for BO – was that because of anger about misogyny? Caller also said when women complained, they were marginalized. Thomas replied he didn’t know and couldn’t say. But Thomas allowed that the cable news cycle and internet makes things so quick there is often LESS digging than there ought to be. Maybe press dropped the ball.
Says the press was superficial and “caught up in the moment” and often didn’t dig into issues. Maybe Newsweek should have looked at this stuff. Thomas also said a lot of stuff wasn’t published during the campaign.
49:18 – A caller referenced an article called Good Will Hunting and asked about the size of BO’s operation in FL and the huge sums of $ in his campaign coffers. The article profiled donors and found many of them were illegal and that the BO campaign turned off the software to check donors. Did Newsweek ask where the $$ were coming from? Thomas replied that he didn’t think there was a lot of activity in that area and it is, by the way, hard to do. They could have done more, but he just didn’t know.
Thomas did say it Interested him that BO was interpreted as a positive campaigner and McCain a negative one when they were actually = in negative campaigning. BO just ran more positive stuff so it looked like he was more positive overall. This was a function of having more money.
53:48 – A caller said, that many women felt this was a bad campaign, that women were marginalized and felt beleaguered by the press. What are some lessons for female candidates in dealing with media? Thomas didn’t agree women have any real problems, that HRCs problem was her mistakes, not her gender and that Palin couldn’t handle interviews because she wasn’t well informed.
55:29 – Another question asked why do these women get clobbered when Joe Biden gets a pass for saying dumb things? Thomas said, it’s well known BIden can’t talk and he gets ribbed all the time for it.
56:25 – Caller says why didn’t Thomas didn’t get the sexism in the media? Thomas replied that HRC just wasn’t competent.
So, here are my ideas of the takeaway from this interview.
* Obama got more favorable press coverage, but it didn’t really matter because he would have won anyway.
* Neither Hillary Clinton nor Sarah Palin were competent.
* Sexism did not play a role in how those women were characterized by the press.
* Maybe the press should have dug a little more on Obama.
* Hillary’s stretching of the truth was MUCH worse than Obama’s.
* Caucus problems? What caucus problems?
* The “tone” of a campaign matters more than real events and documentation. Evidence to back this up is not necessary since we all understand tone. (If you don’t the media will explain it to you.)
* Editors rule and reporters drool, so the fawning coverage may better reflect the opinions of those once removed from BO rather than those who actually spend time with him.
* It’s completely fine to ignore bloggers. They aren’t real journalists and don’t know how to think about news anyway.
* Double ditto for the topics bloggers cover.
What was your takeaway?
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