NEW YORK (AP) — President Barack Obama’s turn as a media critic this week may not have thrilled many journalists, but it has forced a new look at how a media-saturated presidential campaign is being covered.
Obama’s challenge to reporters to be more probing comes at a time the media is facing two seemingly contradictory strains of criticism for its treatment of Republican front-runner Donald Trump: that it has covered him too much, or not done enough to look into his background and promises.
Obama, speaking Monday night at a Syracuse University awards ceremony honoring the late political journalist Robin Toner, said he’s not the only one dismayed by the tone of the campaign to succeed him. “I was going to call it a ‘carnival atmosphere,’ but that implies fun,” he said. He said he always believed there was a price to pay if a politician said one thing and did another and wondered “in the current atmosphere, is that still true?”
For reporters, he said “a job well done is about more than just handing someone a microphone.” The billions of dollars in free media should come with “serious accountability, especially when politicians issue unworkable plans or make promises they can’t keep,” he said.
Steve Capus, executive producer of the “CBS Evening News” and a former NBC News president, said Tuesday that he’s wary of politicians who become media critics. Lumping all of the media together is neither fair nor accurate, he said.
“When he calls for holding people accountable and talks about the role of the press in a free society, we would agree,” Capus said. “I kind of think that’s part of our marching orders on a daily basis.”
Obama’s criticism fell flat on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe.” Host Joe Scarborough and Politico founder Jim VandeHei said that while Obama is urging the press to do better, he’s had his own challenges running an open government.
Much of the criticism seems directed at cable news networks, which have been covering the campaign virtually nonstop for the past several months. They’ve been rewarded financially: Fox News Channel reported Tuesday that it will finish the first three months as the top-rated network in all of cable TV, the first such quarterly victory in the network’s history.
CNN’s chief executive Jeff Zucker has refined the strategy of “flooding the zone,” or staying on one big story nearly exclusively while it’s hot, and driven the use of town hall meetings with candidates to feed the political interest. Since the beginning of 2016, CNN has averaged 1.62 million viewers in prime time on weeknights, the Nielsen company said. Last year, CNN had 572,000 viewers during the same period.
None of the cable networks would make executives available to talk about Obama’s remarks.
It’s all about the ratings and mind control putting out perceptions . And instegating certain things against certain people.
I totally agree with the Prez regarding the media!
The media does need to improve on the way it covers and handles certain current events.
However, I doubt if they will get better since the media’s job is to put their own “spin” on
news stories rather than just relate the plan facts.
Yes, the media has and is focusing way too much on dumb Trump and his campaign.
No, they have not really held Trump’s feet to the fire when it comes to posing difficult
foreign policy questions to him. Although Trump does appear to be in the dark regarding
foreign policy matters-plus his ass simply has no tact or diplomacy.
Media in the country is controlled–by those with deep pockets which defines what news stories are
covered and which are not.
Couldn’t have said it better myself. The media has and will continue to sensationalize problems and instigate situations. Only to be the first to cover what they started in the first place for ratings.