October 24th 2008
Media Bias #97
AP Shows No Style In Latest Palin Attack
How long is the list of stories the media will come up with to attack Sarah Palin? While doggedly refusing to investigate the Obama campaign – the media coverage of that campaign reminds me of 10 year old girls on a sleep-over having a pillow fight – they will stop at nothing to bring down Palin. The worst, and latest:
WASHINGTON (AP – the Anti-Palin newswire) – An acclaimed celebrity makeup artist for Republican vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin collected more money from John McCain’s campaign than his foreign policy adviser.
Amy Strozzi, who works on the reality show “So You Think You Can Dance” and has been Palin’s traveling stylist, was paid $22,800, according to campaign finance reports for the first two weeks in October. In contrast, McCain’s foreign policy adviser, Randy Scheunemann, was paid $12,500, the report showed.
While the media can’t seem to find the relevance of Obama’s Band of Merry Socialists, Racists and Terrorists to the campaign, they are certainly capable of finding the relevance of any nasty morsel they find on Palin to the McCain campaign. Let’s dispense with this idiocy in a hurry.
First, AP chose to make this the lead in a story of otherwise significant news about the candidate’s finances. There were several real news leads buried in the story – including the really new news that Obama is feeling cash strapped! – but that negative Obama news is buried under Palin’s make-up.
Second, there is no mention in the story of what Hillary spent on hair styling and make-up, or Michelle Obama, or anyone else for that matter. How much does CBS pay for Katie’s stylists, by the way? Either the McCain campaign is being far too careless about having information like this come out – you know, by honestly filing campaign expense forms and silly stuff like that – or the media isn’t taking time to look at the other campaigns.
Third, Palin’s a chick. People – women – look at her make-up and hair and judge her by it, saying catty stuff if it doesn’t meet their standards. AP should rewrite the story about how sexist America is in giving Obama and McCain a free pass on the work of their stylists while honing in negatively on Palin.
Finally, McCain just doesn’t need foreign policy help like Palin needs styling help (given the negative focus mentioned above). He knows the stuff, and his foreign policy guy can sit in his pajamas at a laptop and take care of business. The American demands on how women look, however, forces Amy Strozzi to travel with Palin, and that travel is the very obvious reason why Strozzi’s bill is higher than Scheunemann’s. Time is money in the consulting biz, folks.
AP and the other anti-Palin media are playing a risky game here. The Pew study of media coverage indicates that the full court negative press on Palin is backfiring and people now are fed up with the media and attracted to the candidate. Incredible Wife is so furious she wants a national boycott of them all, but we can’t quite figure out how that could be pulled off. But the anger is there, it’s palpable, and it gets more intense with each story like this.
But they also know they’re playing to a large, rabid anti-Palin audience that they resonate with. How large? Go to the T-shirt shop Cafe-Press’ “anti-Palin” pages. There are 30 anti-Palin T-shirts per page, and they go on for page after page after page.
Why isn’t the media writing about how America is a sexist nation instead of all the coverage they’re giving racism? Oh, that’s right. The racism stories help Obama.
Media Bias 2008 covers pro-Obama media bias. Items are listed from most recent to oldest; the numbering reflects this and is not a ranking. Send Media Bias 2008 examples via “comments”‘ below, or to email2laer [@] yahoo [dot] com.
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