How Media Reporting Shapes the Election, and Why We're Screwed

This week's big headline: Obama is A Flip Flopper. Remember that messaging from the 2004 campaign directed against John Kerry? The McCain campaign successfully elevated that attack message to mainstream media so it became this week the talking point of several talk shows.

• Obama: Flip Flopped on the FISA Telecom Act, because he was against it and voted for it.
• Obama: Flip Flopped on his kids being interviewed by the press. He was against it, he allowed it for one interview this week, and now he won't allow it anymore.
• Obama: Flip Flopped on Iraq. He said he would pull out the troops and now he wants to first talk to the Commanders in the field.

The McCain campaign invented the Flip Flopper point and the mainstream press followed it. Keith Olberman's show on Tuesday investigated Obama's alleged flip flops and debunked them. Chris Matthews spent his show simply talking around them. Nobody thought to investigate McCain's flip flops on almost every major issue.I'm troubled that most major media simply adopted the McCain talking points and attacked Obama for flip flopping. Instead, don't you think they should have questioned the charges before airing them? The press continue to shirk their investigative responsibilities and race to air with stories to score ratings. Often, it is the wackiest story, the story with edge, conflict and tension, the stories of unexpected and sudden tragedy (murder) and the stories of celebrity dirty laundry - like strains in the marriages of Madonna and A-Rod as if that was the important issue on my mind. Who cares! In the meantime, the US economy is suffering. Families are hurting. And why? Who is responsible? Why are the media not focused on helping the public uncover truth?


When the media stages conflict in order to create news or publicly adopts untruths intended to influence us, we're really screwed. The media should be engaging in investigative reporting, not staging conflict for ratings. Unfortunately, the latter is rampant.