Saturday, October 4, 2008

Full Disclosure or Needless Muckraking?

Image from www.blackvoices.com
Should Ifill have moderated the debate, or should the issue have been raised earlier? Image courtesy of www.blackvoices.com

Vice-presidential debate moderator Gwen Ifill has received criticism for her selection – but it’s largely not due to her performance. While there are scathing reviews of how she handled the debate, most are concerned with the fact that she is currently writing a book titled “The Breakthrough: Politics and Race in the Age of Obama.” Ifill notes that she hasn’t even written the chapter on Obama yet, but critics are unconvinced. Michelle Malkin breaks down her history of supporting Obama, and points to a specific clip of Ifill unenthusiastically reporting on Palin’s nomination acceptance speech to illustrate Ifill as partisan. Most troubling about this frenzy is its last-minute nature. Stories were posted Monday about Ifill’s book, and PBS ombudsman Michael Getler responds to claims from the past few days in a Thursday post. The book has been public knowledge for weeks now – is this just an example of the media’s need to find something wrong with every situation?

2 comments:

M. Dery said...

Why do you lay the burden of responsibility on the media's doorstep ("is this just an example of the media’s need to find something wrong with every situation?") when the sources you cite---Newsbusters, Michelle Malkin, World Net Daily---are all avowedly conservative sources? Why not discuss the right's history of using the charge of liberal media bias to "work the ref," badgering an MSM fearful of being perceived as less than objective into overcompensating rightward?

M. Dery said...

Solid reporting, though. Nice use of links to complexify your argument, sharpen the points of debate.