Boy, if this doesn’t reinforce what I’ve been saying for weeks, nothing does. Brian Williams, who I do actually trust somewhat compared to his colleagues on CBS and ABC, had this to say:
WILLIAMS: I interviewed Lee Cowan, our reporter who covers Obama, while we were out yesterday and posted the interview on the web. Lee says it’s hard to stay objective covering this guy. Courageous for Lee to say, to be honest. The e-mail flood started out we caught you guys, we never did trust you. That kind of thing. I think it is a very interesting dynamic. I saw middle-aged women just throw their arms around Barack Obama, kiss him hard on the cheek and say, you know, I’m with you, good luck. And i think he feels it, too.
It’s so hard, you don’t even bother trying, right Lee?
I should note that today, Williams tried to backpedal a bit…
Lee was talking about the swirl of excitement that has hit the Obama campaign after Iowa — the crowds, the hoopla — all of it. Today we learned that rival political efforts were spinning this as some kind of “bias” on the part of either Lee, or me, or this News Division, and that’s just ridiculous. My response is as it always is in these situations: look at it again, listen to what’s being said, and judge us by the quality and fairness of our journalism.
Oh really? Is it ridiculous?
The media is clearly on the side of Barack Obama and anyone claiming the contrary deserves a smack in the face. Barack Obama gets favorable coverage at a much higher clip than any other candidate in the race (Don’t believe me? Read here) and NBC is no different than ABC or CBS.
CNN didn’t even call the primary in favor of Hillary Clinton last night until almost 20 minutes after the AP did. Had Barack Obama not conceded, we’d probably still be waiting for CNN to declare a winner.
Any reporter who says it’s “hard to stay objective” when reporting for one of many news organizations whose objectivity is questionable is probably speaking more truth than they’re willing to admit. I don’t trust the media to give me the straight dope on Obama in the least.
Maybe they’re all just finding it really hard to be objective.