The Media's "Obama-Remorse"

(MarketWatch)  I'm starting to feel a little guilty about the media's treatment of President-elect Barack Obama -- and I may not be the only one.

Chalk it up to a phenomenon I'd like to call "Obama-remorse." You know how you feel buyer's remorse after you've spent a lot of dough on some big-ticket item, only to realize that you might have made a mistake? Well, it's going to happen to the president-elect as well.

Perhaps this sort of recognition prompted Washington Post media writer Howard Kurtz to do an incisive piece called "A Giddy Sense of Boosterism" on Nov. 17. As Kurtz noted, the media have tripped over themselves to celebrate and cash in on Obama's victory.

NBC News is preparing a DVD called "Yes, We Can: The Barack Obama Story." ABC and USA Today are racing to publish a book on the election. HBO is readying a documentary on the campaign, too.

As I see it, the media are having second thoughts about their performance over the past year.

First, they gave Sen. Hillary Clinton the cold shoulder and all but rolled out a red carpet for Obama during the Democratic primary season. Perhaps Amy Poehler's eerily spot-on send-up of Clinton on "Saturday Night Live" helped reduce the New York senator to a caricature, making it even easier for the reporters to consign her to a complementary role.

Once Clinton was dispatched, they lavished favorable attention on Obama, as his opponent, Republican Sen. John McCain, was forced to watch from the shadows.

Yes, I'm thrilled that he won the election, underscoring the American ideal that we live in a foreword-thinking democracy, where any man or woman can rise to the highest office in the land. And I'm proud that even Obama's staunchest foes -- particularly the man he defeated, John McCain -- seem to be willing to accept his victory and pledge to help him turn around the economy and cure the nation's other ills.

Adulation Express

But I also feel guilty because I know that the media's Adulation Express -- never to be confused with McCain's old Straight Talk Express -- is going to hit a few speed bumps before it inexorably grinds to a halt.

It's inevitable. Look at what happened to Sarah Palin, McCain's running mate.

When McCain first nominated her, she could do no wrong in the media's eyes. She was hailed for her aw-shucks demeanor, in contrast to the inveterate Beltway sharpies, and her unlikely ascent to such a big job (I suspect that Tina Fey's brilliant impersonation of Palin on "Saturday Night Live" owed as much to Palin's newness as it did to Fey's uncanny ability to look and sound like the governor of Alaska. Most SNL viewers had no frame of reference for Palin, other than her speech at the Republican National Convention, so Fey didn't have to worry about competing with a hardened image of Palin).

It's inevitable, too, that Obama will eventually have his turn under the microscope. When the media start picking apart some of his Cabinet choices or his pronouncements on the state of the economy or his declarations about Iraq, he may be surprised to find that the afterglow of his stunning victory turns sour so fast.

MEDIA WEB QUESTION OF THE WEEK: Have the media treated President-elect Barack Obama too kindly for the past year - and, if so, should that kind of treatment end now that he has won the election?

Join the online community of Media Web readers by posting comments directly to the MarketWatch.com site.


By Jon Friedman

[ilsadago]

"Buyer''s remorse". LMAO! After cramming him down our throats for nearly 2 years but not telling us a thing about him, I hope that the media''s penance is long and difficult. Oh, and did you see the other opinion piece that says we get to hear about ''Right Wing Conspiracy'' again for at least the next 4 years? We have the Clinton administration back - and Hillary (ugh) - so we can expect that all the same paranoid, ineffective, sloppy, and one-sided reporting will continue. God save us all.

[nojoy01]

''Surely people would agree that the public airwaves should be open to all. Allowing news and opinion from both right and left equal time makes good sense to share resources which belong to all.''

Posted by macusweil at 01:00 PM : Nov 29, 2008

Of course the ''public airways should be open to all'' And they are. All you have to do is do it the same way the conservatives did. Find something that people WANT to talk about, find somebody to BUY the airtime so they can advertise their products. Oh, wait, you are talking about mandating equal air time for opposing points of view. Well, NEWS FLASH. If a few million people wanted to get on the air & talk about their ''liberal'' points of view and/or try to have a debate then there would be advertisers lined up around the block to PAY for the necessary air time & literally thousands of radio stations willing to take part of the profits available. You do not get it, do you? The only reason all of those ''conservative'' talk shows are on the air is that there is money to be made buying & selling the air time. You want to mandate equal time, great, just do not use my tax dollars to do it. Come up with your own *** money.

[tmittelstaed]

Oh come off it, the media''s favorite thing in the world is to overestimate their own importance. And the losers in an election always blame the media for pushing their competitor.

[lleidwinger]

Obviously many respondents are afraid of change and fear something progressive and different. We need an inspirational leader who brings people together rather the divisive politics we''ve been exposed to for the past 8 yrs.

[jowand]

After promoting Obama every day for over a year, Tom Brokaw during a discussion with Charlie Rose says, we don''t know anything about this guy or what he''s going to do.

[michaelave]

The media really loves Obama. However, it will slowly cool its enthusiasm for him, because he is a superficial thinker. He tends to deal with symptons rather than root causes. Gradually, over time, this will become apparent in the outcome of his policies and decisions.

[rev_miesse]

-DESERVES YOU RIGHT VOTING FOR A SNAKE OIL SALES MAN.

Posted by HK4U at 09:40 AM : Nov 29, 2008

That would be "serves you right."

I''m not familiar with snake oil. I hope nobody takes this as a commercial plug but I use Quaker State synthetic 5W30. As far as I know Obama has nothing to do with it but there is a picture of Jeff Gordon on the bottle. I also use Purolator PureOne filters.
Change every 3000 miles or 3 months, whichever comes first. YMMV.

[jowand]

Surely people would agree that the public airwaves should be open to all. Allowing news and opinion from both right and left equal time makes good sense to share resources which belong to all.

Posted by macusweil at 01:00 PM : Nov 29, 2008

Go get your own radio show, go and put the years of hard work in first quit complaining.
CBS, NBC, ABC, CNN...etc.. are all 24/7/365 Liberal Coffee Shop Marxist spin machines, massaging the new and conversation to promote their Liberal political views. At least talk radio is honest enough to admit what they are doing, not like the lying Liberal hypocrites running the tv networks.

[macusweil]

"Doesn''''t CBS realize that this kind of pandering to dwindling Republicon tribe isn''''t what sells the news or wins elections anymore?"

Actually we should respect CBS because they post multiple points of view on their opinion page. It allows us to see both side of an issue and formulate our own decisions.

This is what is exactly missing with conservative and right wing religious talk radio. These programs for years have only allowed one side of the story to be heard. This subjected millions of Americans to a very one sided view of issues using public airwaves.

Mono-sided talk radio was also very successful because these often taint view points would inciting anger to create false sense of strong emotion leading folks to open their pocket books. The daily collection was made to advance "the cause" or somehow prevent the opponent from getting an upper hand.

Surely people would agree that the public airwaves should be open to all. Allowing news and opinion from both right and left equal time makes good sense to share resources which belong to all.

[charlesjr9]

If you feel the need for damage control, don''t. MCcain rana horrible campaign and it was obvious you reported it as you should have. all of you sore losers would rather the country fail than to bne standup Americans. I was afraid the US of A was going to flub the ball again. Happily they stood up and said no! You did good.