The Wages of Sloppy Journalism
Earlier today, The New York Times “reported” that “Mr. Podesta has been mapping out the transition so systematically that he has already written a draft Inaugural Address for Mr. Obama, which he published this summer in a book called The Power of Progress.”
Podesta published a book this summer, The Power of Progress, that was written with John Halpin. The book contains, as a literary conceit, a hypothetical inaugural address for a progressive president. The book was in the works for over a year, and the “inaugural address” section was submitted to the publisher in March before Obama was the nominee and when, indeed, Podesta was supporting Hillary Clinton’s campaign.
Nevertheless, CBS News reports:
Taking aim squarely at what McCain’s campaign feels is the presumptiveness of Barack Obama, McCain was referring to a report in the New York Times that says John Podesta has already drafted an inaugural address for Obama.
“There’s ten days left in this election, maybe Barack Obama will even have his first State of he Union address ready before you head to the polls,” McCain continued. “I guess I’m a little old fashioned about these things. I’d prefer to let the voters weigh in before presuming the outcome.”
The Obama campaign says the charge is “completely false,” and points out that the address McCain is referring to appears in a book Podesta wrote before Obama was the nominee.
It’s true, as CBS News is reporting, that the Obama campaign says the charge is completely false. However, it’s also true that the charge is in fact completely false. If when candidates launched false attacks, news organizations reported the falseness of the attacks in a straightforward manner, then they might not be so eager to launch them.
48 Responses to “The Wages of Sloppy Journalism”
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October 25th, 2008 at 7:45 pm
If Obama pointed out that John McCain is a bald-faced liar like George Bush, then McCain might stop it as well.
At least have some surrogate attack McCain on live TV. Say that his lying is a disgrace to the Naval Academy and any sense of “Honor” recognized by the military.
If McCain throws a hissy fit, then note that men of honor know how to settle these disputes outback — and ask McCain if he is a coward as well.
October 25th, 2008 at 7:55 pm
Come on, be rational here. This flaccid attack is no threat to Barack Obama. Instead, this story makes it sounds as though John Podesta is his closest advisor and that is good for you.
October 25th, 2008 at 8:07 pm
by “sloppy journalism” do you mean phrases like ‘which was written John Halpin’?
October 25th, 2008 at 8:22 pm
Poor liberals. The left wing can’t win a media cycle if a McCain volunteer is caught writing on her face backwards.
Seriously though I’m starting to think a reliable predictor of presidential elections is that the candidate with the smaller convention bounce wins.
Why? Because a big convention bounce means that when Americans saw your speech, they say “he’s not as bad as I thought.”
But why’d they think you were so bad in the first place? Aaaah. Because the other side had a more effective noise-making apparatus. Which will resume at a higher pitch the day after the convention.
From Houses-gate through Lies-gate and Sleaze-gate, all the way to Crowd-gate and Wardrobe-gate, MSNBC/Huffington Post/Daily Kos/Stewart/Colbert/Politico have been kicking Fox/Drudge/Limbaugh’s asses from the start to the finish of this campaign.
October 25th, 2008 at 8:25 pm
“If when candidates launched false attacks, news organizations reported the falseness of the attacks in a straightforward manner”
And on what planet do these hypothetical news organizations exist? Surely not ours. We have to go into an election with the media we have, not the media we would want. Get used to it.
October 25th, 2008 at 8:48 pm
Politico does not belong to the MSNBC/HuffPo/Kos/Stewart/Colbert axis of liberaldom.
If anything, it has a conservative bias. It’s not an intense bias, but a bias nonetheless.
October 25th, 2008 at 9:09 pm
Ah, but the CBS reporter did tell you that the original story was false, he just did so without using the actual word “false”, opting instead for objective-journalism-ese. The key phrase is “The Obama campaign…points out…” Just as saying that the British goverment learned about uranium is to assent to what the Brits “learned”, “points out” is a phrase that endorses the claim. And the object of “points out”, in this case, is a statement (that Podesta’s book is too old) that establishes that the original charge is false.
The convention is so ingrained that I bet the reporter thinks he made it perfectly clear. You just have to know how to read the paper, as they say. (I;m not endorsing the system, just describing it.)
October 25th, 2008 at 9:11 pm
Hold on a sec…”points out” has a very different meaning from “claimed” or “says”. Obama camp says Podesta wrote it before Obama was the nominee and CBS News agrees. That’s what “points out” means.
That seems OK to me.
October 25th, 2008 at 9:40 pm
But since the entire piece is devoted to reporting this silly thing that McCain said, it should really start “McCain falsely said…” or “McCain said something about an inaugural address, but it was based on a false report from the New York Times.” Given the falsehood of what McCain said there’s really no point to the piece.
October 25th, 2008 at 9:54 pm
As if John Podesta were half the writer that Obama is. Um.. he’s not the Republican candidate. He doesn’t use ghost writers. Geeze, doesn’t anyone remember that he’s just fancy words?
October 25th, 2008 at 9:58 pm
I hear the moon is lovely this time of year.
October 25th, 2008 at 10:01 pm
“Seriously though I’m starting to think a reliable predictor of presidential elections is that the candidate with the smaller convention bounce wins.”
Kerry had almost no bounce.
October 25th, 2008 at 10:29 pm
Quick, everyone check Drudge! This is the red headline:
SHOCK: MATTY DISCOVERS MEDIA ENGAGES IN SLOPPY JOURNALISM
It’s incredibly funny to see MattY complaining about the MSM getting things wrong when he’s helped them spread their smears and then refused to post corrections on at least two different occasions.
October 25th, 2008 at 10:40 pm
This is obviously the season for whistling past graveyards, sometimes even employing polyphony — cf. generic and Arnold Evans, supra.
October 25th, 2008 at 10:40 pm
So are the Times and/or CBS going to issue a retraction? Because the stories are still up as of right now… or cant Podesta issue a statement or something? I mean given that its completely wrong (and I’ve heard McCain repeat it several times today *rolls* eyes) isn’t there something that can be done?
Ay yi yi!
Oh and I agree with whoever said Political has a slightly conservative bent! I think the Page (Time) and Stumper (Newsweek) do too but it’s pretty mild. Now the folks on the Corner… yowza, talk about crazy! They’re deep in conspiracy season over there… they’re going on rants like about how Obama is the manchurian candidate! They completely discredit themselves by mixing in conspiracy theory crap with occasionally good analysis. What are they like when it’s not election season?
October 25th, 2008 at 10:51 pm
It’s also just nuts on the face of it … I mean even Obama’s most vehement detractor would have to concede that Obama is a tremendously powerful writer and orator*, and that he has delivered some of the most successful speeches in modern political history, some written entirely by himself and some written in collaboration with a close personal assistant. The idea that Obama would farm out the job of drafting his inaugural address to someone who, however stellar, is not even a close friend of his, and do so months before the election just doesn’t pass the giggle test.
* This is of course untrue – Obama has detractors unwilling to concede even this. As John Cole has noted, we are nowhere near reaching Peak Wingnut, and so whenever you think you’ve grasped the extent of the Crazy you always discover sweeping vistas of Crazy waiting to be tapped. Thus, the loonies of the NRO have of course proposed that William Ayers wrote Obama’s first book.
October 26th, 2008 at 12:26 am
Warren Terra -
I’m amazed by the crazies… like baffled! At first I used to get upset… but I dunno, now I just find the whole thing kind of funny.
Anyone else know what to make of it? I’ve heard the absolute craziest things lately. Yesterday, I heard a woman saying Obama was a fascist socialist muslim who practices marxism… is that even possible?
October 26th, 2008 at 1:35 am
Kerry had almost no bounce.
Thanks. It looks like I’m canceling that theory.
Didn’t Politico break Wardrobe-gate? I guess you don’t have to be part of the left axis to publish it if you find it, but Drudge or Limbaugh would have sat on it.
October 26th, 2008 at 2:25 am
I don’t see Politico as conservative ala Limbaugh/Fox/Drudge as much as they are aggressively Establishment Washington Press Corps, which, of course, is too sympathetic to right-wing talking points. You know JMart BBQ’ing with McCain, and all that insider/access fellatio.
I’m amazed by the crazies… like baffled! At first I used to get upset… but I dunno, now I just find the whole thing kind of funny.
Anyone else know what to make of it? I’ve heard the absolute craziest things lately. Yesterday, I heard a woman saying Obama was a fascist socialist muslim who practices marxism… is that even possible?
One of the nice things about this election is that you’ll be able to map the stupid people precinct by precinct.
October 26th, 2008 at 6:10 am
I… don’t even see why this charge would be so scandalous if it were true.
I mean, I would expect that Obama would have both a concession speech and an acceptance speech drafted by now. Same for McCain. Inaugural address? Okay. Maybe it would be a bit early for that, but I don’t see what would be bad about it.
I mean, I know that John Podesta’s hypothetical inaugural isn’t the one Obama would give. I also can accept that neither Obama nor McCain yet have inaugural speeches drafted. If they did, though (or just one of them did), so what? It’s not as if being inaugurated is some great surprise if you’re the nominee of one of the two major parties, like, say, winning the Publisher’s Clearinghouse Sweepstakes. Why not write an inaugural address before you’re elected (or defeated, as the case may be)?
October 26th, 2008 at 9:00 am
Julian, if you can understand why the McCain campaign used the image of Obama’s presidentialish seal in a bunch of web videos, and why McCain himself felt the need to bring it up at a debate three months after its one and only appearance, you can understand this.
That’s “if,” mind you. I don’t understand it, though I believe the wingnut line on this sort of thing is that it shows Obama being “presumptuous” (IOW, uppity).
October 26th, 2008 at 9:12 am
Don’t worry everyone.
The press will reawaken and find its ability to tell fact from fiction once a liberal president is in office. We are looking at a tough press for the next 8 years.
October 26th, 2008 at 9:14 am
Ya’ll know that the “presumptuous” tag started right after the NYT ran the Obama Op-ed before the national convention, and labeled him the “presumptive Democratic candidate”, don’t ‘cha?
October 26th, 2008 at 2:44 pm
What is worse is having McCain’s communications director push an Obviously false mutilation story to the press(this is where Drudge got his tip) before he knows what the facts are and most of the press falls for it.
October 30th, 2008 at 10:31 pm
I loved McCain’s accusation, considering this:
http://voices.washingtonpost.com/thefix/2008/09/mccain_wins_debate.html?nav=rss_blog
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