The New Media War
The usually prescient veteran Peggy Noonan wrote in her WSJ column about Sarah Palin and more importantly her impressions on the media war being fought over her:
I don’t like the new media war. I don’t like what it has the potential to do to the election, and the country.
The media overstepped. The Republican party resented it. GOP strategists saw a unifying force rising: anger in the base. They too had seen this movie before. They slammed the media. The media shot back: “You’re attacking us for doing our job!”
How did the media overstep? By offending people by going so immediately and so personally into issues surrounding Mrs. Palin’s family. They did not overstep by digging, by deep reporting, by investigating Palin’s professional record.
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In the end it made Palin the underdog, and gave her the perfect platform for the perfect dive she made Wednesday night.
We have had these old press fights in the past—they were a source of constant tension when I was a child, when Barry Goldwater came forward as a conservative and the press scorned him as a flake, and later when Ronald Reagan came up and the press dismissed him as Bonzo.
But this latest fight commences on a new and wilder battlefield. The old combatants were old school gentlemen, Eric Sevareid and Walter Cronkite; the new combatants are half-crazy cable anchors, the lower lurkers of the Internet, and the anonymous posters on the comment thread on the radical website.
This new war on new turf is not good, and carries the potential of great harm. Everyone really ought to stop, breathe deep, and think.
I am worried they won’t. A friend IM’d the day after Palin’s speech, and I told him of an inexplicable sense of foreboding. He surprised me by saying he shared it. “Calling all underworlds reporting for duty!,” he wrote. “The bed is about to fly around the room, the puke is about to come out.” He meant: this campaign is going to engage unseen powers and forces. He meant: this campaign, this beautiful golden thing with two admirable men at the top and two admirable vice presidential candidates, is going to turn dark.
I am inclined to agree with Ms. Noonan, but don’t blame it on the GOP. Like most of the Republican base I was completely outraged when half the network (MSNBC in particular) completely suspended all attempt at journalistic integrity in order to attack Gov. Palin’s personal life. Indeed, most telling was MSNBC’s now infamous “How many houses does Palin add to the ticket?” breaking news banner. The President of MSNBC apologized for this remark the other day and Keith Olbermann and Chris Mathews have been removed from covering the Presidential and Vice Presidential debates.
A decent peace offering, but I’m not sure I am ready to take it. MSNBC was only one offender.
The GOP base backlash (along with Palin’s star power), however, have catapulted McCain into the lead by 10 points in the latest Zogby poll. Looks like we are winning this media war as of now.
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