CNN’s John King Excoriates His Colleagues on Biased, Whining and Out-of-Touch Election Coverage
By Anita Finlay ("Ani") on October 27, 2008 at 9:30 PM in Barack Obama, CNN, John McCain, New York Times
John King, CNN’s chief political correspondent, said CNN’s obsession with Hillary caused them to ignore any vetting or ‘thorough investigation’ of Obama, among other things.
Gee, John, thanks for telling us what we’ve known since February. A day late and a dollar short, wouldn’t you say? We have been shouting from the highest hill about the horrible bias endured first by Senator Clinton and now by McCain/Palin and a week before the election, you decide to finally say something?
I am further offended that Mr. King seems to think that because so-called journalists were “obsessed with Hillary,” they could not multi-task and simultaneously vet Obama. And how were they obsessed with her exactly? He does not say. Perhaps because he does not want to say they these sexist arses were obsessed with destroying her candidacy any way they could. Fawning mindlessly over Senator Obama surely was a clear path to accomplishing that goal.
Two things must be operating here – one, King is trying to save some of his own credibility before the election actually plays out; and two, he knows how CNN’s ratings are tanking and is looking to do damage control. Despite the media’s contention that we are just as in love with Obama as they are – the reality of their falling Neilsen numbers tells a very different story.
CNN of course in not the only culprit here – and they are also not the only ones paying the price in terms of their bottom line. MSNBC’s ratings have likewise tanked, otherwise Matthews and Olbermann would not have been demoted from doing any election coverage.
The LA Times currently has damaging video linking Al Khalidi and Obama and they are refusing to release it. Coincidentally, the LA Times is also tanking and laying off workers. They have also been trumpeting Senator Obama since the beginning.
The NYTimes revenue plunged a whopping 50%, ad revenue collapsed by double digits, and NYT’s debt has just been rated “below investment grade” — or what is known in the investment business as “junk” — by the Standard & Poor’s bond-rating agency. Guess we no longer consider them the paper of record.
Looks like everybody’s chickens are coming home to roost.
Jeff Poor of BMI reports on CNN’s King: ‘Whining’ Media ‘Out of Touch’ on Election Coverage:
You know media bias has reached epic proportions when journalists are criticizing their own colleagues for a lack of professionalism in covering Democratic presidential nominee Sen. Barack Obama and Republican vice presidential nominee Gov. Sarah Palin….In an interview with South Carolina ETV set to air on “The Big Picture” Oct. 30, CNN chief national correspondent John King criticized his colleagues’ coverage of not only Obama and Palin, but the overall election.
In King’s words:
“I think there’s some very legitimate criticism that we did not treat all of the candidates in the Democratic race, but particularly the top two or three equally, because of the Clinton obsession in the national media,” King told host Mark Quinn. “It is a very fair point. We need to learn that lesson.”
King also accused the media of not adapting to the digital age. According to the CNN correspondent, the electorate has the ability to decouple themselves from the mainstream media and seek out information on the candidates without them.
“Once you move on from there – I do think that some of the criticism is justified. I think some of the criticism not so justified in that we have to adapt to the world we live in,” King said. “And the technology explosion has given people, voters, individuals an amazing opportunity. They can learn everything they want to learn about these candidates without us.”
And we have learned plenty without the likes of you, John. We have also learned plenty that is accurate and provable without the likes of Wolf Blitzer, Campbell Brown or the other Obama sycophants out there. How nice of John to notice. The internet is now officially the fifth estate, since the fourth estate doesn’t see fit to do its job.
King also criticized the media’s “whining” about limited access to Palin. “NBC Nightly News” anchor Brian Williams complained to NBC “Today” host Matt Lauer on Oct. 23 for having to wait 55 days for a Palin interview.
“Part of that is, may be legitimate,” King said of complaints the media treated Palin unfairly. “Part of that is may be how the McCain campaign put her out there. We whine too much sometimes. If the McCain campaign doesn’t want to make Sarah Palin available for interviews – OK, just say they won’t make her available for interviews. We don’t have to jump up and down and scream and cry about that … It’s not our job to whine or complain.”
King said journalists failed to go beyond the Washington-New York corridor to cover the election, proclaiming they were “out of touch” with the majority of voters.
You bet they are out of touch. The media is functioning as an elite group, deigning to offer only the news they think we need to know – instead of reporting the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth so help them God. King points out that his colleagues and bosses at CNN (and arguably elsewhere) are, just as the elites in the Democratic Party, breathing a rarified air, paying no attention to the needs of the American people.
“There is – I say this all the time and many in my business disagree with me, but one of the things I love about what I do is I travel,” King said. “And there are a lot of people who sit – they’re wonderful people. They’re well-intentioned, don’t get me wrong, but they sit in New York or Washington and they don’t come to South Carolina or North Carolina or Ohio or any other swing state out here and actually talk to human beings or watch what it’s like to stand outside of a factory that just shut down with people.”
According to King, the problem with the media coverage was they were too influenced by their surroundings and that changed their world view.
“And so their attitudes are influenced by the fact that they live in Washington or New York and they don’t travel enough,” King said. “And the criticism is that makes them elitist. I would just say sometimes there are some people who are very influential in our business who are somewhat out of touch.”
King also finds time to criticize McCain saying he should make his candidacy more about the economy and not about the Obama character question. Gee, John, funny, I thought that’s what he was and is doing.
“They thought this would be an election about Barack Obama’s character,” King said. “Sure Barack Obama has the advantage. The Democrats have the advantage this year. They thought they could make it about ‘he’s new, he’s left of center, you don’t know this guy; you can’t trust this guy.’”
“But the economic concerns have magnified,” King said. “We always knew the economy would be the number one issue, but it is number one, two, three, four, five and six because of all the different pressures – Wall Street bailouts, loss of jobs, economic anxiety, health care pressures, the price of energy. McCain’s argument seems smaller to many people in a big election about the economy.”
This is nonsense. If McCain wanted to travel the path of Obama’s character and nefarious associations there is a helluva lot more that he could have attacked Obama on. He is choosing the high road and trying to talk about the issues. This is the one place where I find King to be disingenuous. On the one hand, he is criticizing his colleagues for being out of touch, which they are, and on the other hand, he is parroting the same ridiculous talking points that McCain is ‘struggling in the polls’ because he is not making the economy a big enough issue. Still sucking a little koolaid – eh, John? Obama over polls – you yourself have noticed that when doing election night coverage. Did you conveniently forget that fact for this interview? Joe the Plumber and the newly discovered Obama ‘socialist/redistributive change’ audio tapes from 2001 are surely a game changer, as is Sarah Palin.
John King’s statements are way late, but it’s a start; still enough time for the media to turn en masse this next week and tell the truth about a thoroughly unqualified, even dangerous candidate.
Yeah. Okay. Sure.
We’re waiting…
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