A One-Party State
By: Michelle Adams
In the current state of affairs, the results of the presidential elections are essentially a shoe-in for Senator Barack Obama. Unless some significant and unforeseen news is reported, either severely negative to Senator Obama or highly positive to Senator McCain, Senator Barack Obama will win the United States Presidential election with a comfortable margin to spare. The worsening economic conditions are, without fail, blamed on the current sitting president. There is, however, little the president can do to truly affect the economy. It is even less so with Congress dominated by the opposing party. Whether the general state of the country improves or declines, January 20, 2009 will bring about the new administration of Obama and the era of Obama will begin.
Several books about the election are already set to release coincidentally with Election Day or Inauguration on January 20, 2009. One author has already hedged her bets about the election and written a book entitled The Breakthrough: Politics and Race in the Age of Obama. It will be available in bookstores on Inauguration day. According to an editorial review on Amazon.com, this is a book strongly supporting Senator Obama. It includes coverage of “Obama’s stunning presidential campaign and [an] introducing of the emerging young African-American politician’s forging a bold new path to political power”. And who might the author of this political opinion book be? One would think it to be written by a liberal leaning political or historical analyst or possibly even a member of Senator Obama’s campaign team, but certainly not a member of the “unbiased”, well-known, and well-regarded news media. The author is none other than Gwen Ifill, senior correspondent of The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer and a respected reporter with years of experience with NBC News, The New York Times, and The Washington Post, among other well known news media.
Gwen Ifill has moderated presidential debates for many years and was most recently the moderator for the vice presidential debate between Senator Joe Biden and Governor Sarah Palin. Of all media positions that one would expect most importantly to be straightforward and completely unbiased, the role of moderator seems that it should be held to especially high standards. Granted, Ifill competently moderated the vice presidential debate and did an apparently effective job. However at the very least, Ifill’s book should cause a few raised eyebrows and raise a little discomfort at the very apparent bias she has in her own political views. Should Ifill be tolerated as a moderator in the future? Ifill’s significant role in the political reporting sphere with her liberal political views, as evidenced by the writing of The Breakthrough, is not exactly the impartial and balanced media perspective that many so naively believe the news media to be. It does not even fulfill the belief that many of the media at least aspire to be neutral in their reporting.
Ifill’s soon-to-be-released book should raise questions on the impartiality of media reporters. However, these questions of bias in the news media are nothing remotely close to new. Many shrug off this new instance of bias as just another part of the news media, but it should not be acceptable to have such blatant confirmation of the views of a reporter. Jim Lehrer, for example, has done a superior job over the years of keeping his own political views under wraps. News media figures obviously have their personal opinions on matters and political views. But would Democrats tolerate conservative figures such as Laura Ingraham or Sean Hannity — not to mention especially controversial Ann Coulter or Rush Limbaugh — as moderators for debates? These aforementioned political commentators know that they are biased and embrace their role as conservative analysts on radio and television shows. It’s difficult to recognize one’s own bias. The whole situation begs to ask the question, should reporters even bother with the pretense of nonpartisanship? Perhaps the answer is that there would be no difference, but the media is currently presenting us with the two contradictory images of a clearly biased reporter that still appears as upholding the ideal of reporting without bias. These two concepts are not synonymous and cannot be maintained together. Moderators must be impartial to allow for fair democratic debate.
