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How Media Elites Frame the Narrative To Help McCain |
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When it comes to media elites, David Broder is at the top of the list. He is frequently called the dean of Washington political journalists. He doesn’t necessarily live up to that reputation–for example, he once defended Richard Nixon from what he saw as unfair attacks, he arrogantly declared of Bill Clinton: “He came in here and he trashed the place…and it’s not his place,” and he kind of missed the boat when he suggested that Bush was seen as someone likely “to cure the poisonous partisanship of the capital city.” But Broder’s reputation is cemented in place–no misjudgment, no incorrect assessment can change that. Broder continues to sit atop the pantheon of pundits, and churns out bewildering columns like the one he wrote today.
Broder’s piece today, :”Reality v. the Mythmakers“, is supposed to be a sober debunking of conventional wisdom regarding media coverage of the presidential candidates. In reality, it’s something McCain’s own press shop would be proud of. Broder scoffs at the suggestion that McCain gets a free ride from the press, offering as “evidence” to the contrary the point that, for the first 3 months of 2008, negative stories about McCain outnumbered the positive by 14% “almost entirely because of the heavy emphasis on assertions that he was not a true or reliable conservative.”
Broder is either incredbly gullible or else he thinks his readers are. How is a story suggesting McCain is not a true or reliable conservative ”negative”? As Broder confusingly concedes later in his piece, McCain’s very strategy is to appeal to independents in order to “bolster his chances of winning in November.” So, according to Broder, stories that bolster McCain’s chances of winning in November are “negative”? This is bizarre stuff.
Broder never mentions that he is a dedicated McCain booster himself. He has written other pieces reinforcing McCain talking points and praising his every decision. He also ignores several members of the media who concede that they give McCain the benefit of the doubt or special treatment, including Chuck Todd, Tim Russert, Richard Wolffe, and others.  (A book called Free Ride: John McCain and the Media does a much more thorough job of detailing how Broder and others in the media reinforce positive myths about John McCain and accept his talking points as truth).  That’s why Rev. Wright is a household name while we rarely hear about McCain’s supporters, the Revs. Hagee and Parsley (even though McCain called the latter his “spiritual guide” before he was forced to repudiate Parsley’s endorsement).
Broder is a columnist, not a reporter, and there is nothing wrong with his having an opinion. However, it is deeply disingenuous for Broder to hide his opinion behind nonsensical “evidence” that doesn’t hold up to casual scrutiny. Toward the end of his column, Broder bemoans the likelihood that the media will dumb down the rest of the campaign. Broder fails to recognize that he is already doing his bit to make this prediction of his a reality.
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