Edwards Scolds The Media

Elizabeth Edwards that is...the wife of Fmr. Presidential Candidate John Edwards gives the media a well deserved tongue lashing for their coverage of the 2008 Presidential race:

Who is responsible for the veil of silence over Senator Biden? Or Senator Dodd? Or Gov. Tom Vilsack? Or Senator Sam Brownback on the Republican side?

The decision was probably made by the same people who decided that Fred Thompson was a serious candidate. Articles purporting to be news spent thousands upon thousands of words contemplating whether he would enter the race, to the point that before he even entered, he was running second in the national polls for the Republican nomination. Second place! And he had not done or said anything that would allow anyone to conclude he was a serious candidate. A major weekly news magazine put Mr. Thompson on its cover, asking — honestly! — whether the absence of a serious campaign and commitment to raising money or getting his policies out was itself a strategy.

There is much more where that came from... To be honest, I see both sides of the coin. On the one hand, its hard for the "news" media to cover policy when there is very little news involved. Obama and Clinton have had most of their policy proposals out for over a year, and I'm sure that if you culled the archives of CNN and MSNBC you can find instances where they received the coverage (I don't Fox did unless Obama had a plan to enslave the white race). But once you've covered it once...does it continue to be news?

Even National Public Radio, while the pinnacle for responsible journalism, covers "the game" more than policy because its hard to come up with an interesting news story on something that is essentially "stale". That is, I suppose, why debates are important because they allow the candidates to discuss their proposals and the media can then cover each candidate's response or reaction to the other. Its not perfect, but its something.

Personally, I kind of like the idea, leveled by Hillary, to have "Lincoln-Douglas" style debates. Of course, actual Lincoln-Douglas debates would be dreadfully boring as it would be an hour speech, followed by an hour response, followed by half hour summations, and quite frankly I don't know if I can sit through Hillary Clinton speaking for an hour straight.

I don't think they will likely be able to pull this off by North Carolina (oh wait...too many black people for it to count, Indiana), but perhaps if this thing drags on longer, the debates will be in the cards.

Update:

But then again, with stuff like this, you have to wonder if the founders had it right when they didn't allow the people to have a say:

Brenda Spreitzer, 42, told a NEWSWEEK reporter at a Clinton rally: "I think Barack's viewpoints and his past is too flamboyant. It's more radical than I want to go … I'm just not comfortable," she said, adding that she is concerned about Obama's practice of generally not wearing an American flag pin. (None of the candidates wear flag pins.) She has been researching Obama on the Internet and discovered that he wants to tear out the bowling alley in the White House (Obama has kiddingly said he wants to replace it with a basketball court). "That freaked me out because no matter if he bowls or not, it's a historic thing that should never be changed."

Yeah, if we get rid of the bowling alley, how else will we honor the life and service of Richard Nixon?