We're Sorry!

Both Time Magazine and Newsweek have been criticized during the campaign for being biased towards Barack Obama. They routinely published cover stories of Barack with less-than-critical subject matters. However, after two cover stories about certain aspects of Obama were published, the campaign was less-than-pleased:

Last spring, when Newsweek ran a cover portraying Obama as the elitist “arugula” candidate, followed weeks later by a cover story in which editor Evan Thomas wrote Obama an open memo on dealing with race, the campaign suddenly stopped cooperating with the magazine’s quadrennial book project, which requires behind-the-scenes access. Thomas had to fly to Detroit and try to assuage Gibbs during a campaign flight before access was restored.

“I thought the Obama campaign was overreacting to those two covers,” Thomas says. “They thought we were overly concerned with race.”

Is it just me, or does it seem odd that journalists were coming to the campaign to apologize to them? Shouldn't it be the other way around? If the media are balanced and the watchdogs we assume them to be, it seems unbecoming for such a thing to happen. While the liberal media bias is often laughed at, it is no doubt present to some extent (it happened during times of the Bush administration as well). It will be interesting to see how the media's relationship with the Obama administration develops over the next year.

National Security vs. Public Disclosure

The New York Times reported today that the United States government has been conducting secret raids on Al-Qaeda operatives in countries all around the world without the knowledge of much of the government. Since 2004, the military has been involved in these operations.

How does this involve a question on journalism? How long has the Times known about this story? Many may wonder whether this knowledge will now prevent the effectiveness of such operations in the future. Which was more important in this case--the public disclosure, or national security. This story is obviously not as groundbreaking as the wiretapping case a few years ago, but it raises similar questions.

I personally believe that editors-in-chief of major newspapers need to be the best of the best and absolutely without political affinity for either party. If we can trust these gatekeepers to keep our best interests in stake (with the board of directors keeping a close check on them), then I think newspapers generally use the best judgment. What do you think?

Investigative Journalism at its Finest

My faith in fair, accurate, investigative has been restored somewhat, even on the eve of a national election. In one of my classes today, a Democrat friend was mockingly criticizing the GOP for searching out Obama's illegal immigrant aunt and his uncle, both living in poverty in Boston. Such is not the case, however.

The Times, a UK paper, spent six weeks searching for the lost family members. Their primary source? Obama's own book, Dreams from my Father. Through following passages in the book, public records, and interviews, the Times eventually found the family members, living in the United States, and published their results. Interestingly, the process used to find them is probably more interesting than that they were found.

Investigative journalism at its finest? You can't really accuse the Times of criticism, they like Obama.