Reply #9: MUST READ McCain scandal gets NO MEDIA!

[L. Coyote]

Apr 25, 2008 - http://mediamatters.org/items/200804250009?f=h_column
"Media Matters"; by Jamison Foser

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On Tuesday, The New York Times ran what should have served as a reminder to other media outlets that stipulating to McCain's purity is not journalism, it is cheerleading. The Times revealed that McCain helped Donald Diamond, one of his biggest fundraisers, purchase a stretch of California coastal land from the Pentagon -- a purchase that netted Diamond a $20 million profit. Diamond explained: "I think that is what Congress people are supposed to do for constituents. ... When you have a big, significant businessman like myself, why wouldn't you want to help move things along? What else would they do? They waste so much time with legislation."

Rather than jumping on the Times report, as they have with stories about Clinton and Obama donors, the rest of the media politely averted their eyes. A Nexis search finds only a handful of news reports about McCain and Diamond since the Times story ran: a UPI article, an article in The Monterey County Herald, and a few blog posts.

.......

But nowhere was the media's assistance of McCain (intentional or otherwise) more apparent than during MSNBC's coverage of two new right-wing advertisements attacking Barack Obama.

This week, the North Carolina Republican Party unveiled an ad attacking Obama. Despite the fact that the ad is not yet running on television, television news outlets quickly began giving the state party free national airtime by playing the ad over and over. Which, of course, is precisely what the North Carolina Republican Party wanted -- you don't release an ad that is not yet running if you don't want television news to play it over and over again.

That isn't particularly unusual ...........