Michele Walk cross-examines coverage of Gov. Sarah Palin’s resignation among media outlets.
Michele Walk, Staff Writer
Ideology: Moderate | Writing From: Washington, DC
Since the Revolutionary War, journalistic bias has been a theme in American politics. Today, conservatives regularly rail against the “liberal mainstream media,” and liberals often discredit right-leaning news sources. Regardless of an outlet’s tilt, however, they should all still strive for high-quality reporting that is well substantiated. Oftentimes, they are successful at this; however, the recent sudden resignation of Alaska Governor Sarah Palin highlights the differences in quality between political news sources.
On Friday, former Vice Presidential candidate Sarah Palin announced in an afternoon news conference that she was stepping down as Governor of Alaska at the end of month in order to better engage in political climate of the lower 48 states. The announcement was universally surprising, and has been met with speculation as to what her future plans are and what her full intent behind the move is. Almost every newspaper, journal, website and blog has covered the story, with varying degrees of reporting.
The liberal Beltway publication Politico published an article on her resignation that claimed that Sarah Palin’s resignation “divided Republican ranks…in a very familiar fashion.” The article repeatedly makes claims of how the move has caused massive infighting within the Republican Party, yet of their eight sources, only quotes two Republicans in dissent. Even then, the article doesn’t quote anyone saying that the move caused a divide – just that Palin may have harmed her prospects for the future.
Perhaps in smug self-congratulation that they are part of the media camp that may have pushed Palin to resign, the Politco article is riddled with claims that the decision “adds credence to claims of some,” note - unnamed- “associates” that Palin has burned out under the “intense scrutiny” that she has been subject to. Most are surprised by her decision and the majority of the sources discuss the resignation with regards to the enormous scrutiny that Palin has been subject to. Just last week, one day before her resignation, Vanity Fair published an article by Todd Purdum that mercilessly slanders Palin. As Sarah Palin herself said in the nationally-broadcast news conference, she has been subject to the “politics of personal destruction” to a degree that is unknown by most politicians.
Compare Politico’s coverage to an article on the same topic in the Wall Street Journal, which quoted a former McCain adviser, Karl Rove, and Sen. Chuck Grassley, amongst others. Though the Journal may lean to the right, it still substantiates its claims with quotes from influential conservatives, and quotes a Republican strategist in saying that the move “reinforced the odd decision making” of Sarah Palin. Politico, on the other hand, merely asserts that as fact and peppers its piece with semi-related quotes that do not indicate a divide.
Though Politico attempts to pass off their coverage of the Palin resignation as legitimate journalism, the article makes claims and fails to substantiate them. The article, though presented as recitation of facts, is more of an opinion piece. Much of today’s journalism is in this vein, and while I understand that truly nonpartisan political reporting may be impossible, such thinly-veiled editorials merely reinforce existing political stereotypes, encourage partisanship, and are detrimental to the American people’s understanding of politics. It would be unfair of me, though, to place blame entirely upon the media, for it is an individual’s responsibility to filter their news and crucially important that we be aware of the biases of the publications we read. It is also crucial for me to note that this kind of reporting exists in both liberal and conservative news outlets, and that any legislation attempting to ensure unbiased reporting would be more detrimental to the press and to the public than the existing issues. Papers, though, are entitled to having a tilt; however, they should restrict their biases as much as possible to editorials and op-eds, and not express it in their coverage of events. Still, the only agenda of a newspaper should be to inform the public of the day’s events – not its own political views.
I encourage you to read both of the articles, and see the massive gap in quality between the two. Perhaps it is unfair to compare an esteemed newspaper like the Wall Street Journal with something like Politico; however, in which case, I encourage you then to read the Politico article and notice how its claims of the division – which very well may exist – are poorly substantiated at best and are an insult to legitimate journalism.
When she accepted the VP nomination, she knew she needed to bring her professional game up to another level, she never did. She knew that her family would get attacked as did Hilary and Chelsea before her (by even her twin maverick brother McCain in 1998), let face it she knew her family affairs would come out. But now she plays the victim card again, a card she played after those comical first extended interviews that we all enjoyed and SNL immortalized. But for the icing on the cake, she quits, because she does not want to be a lame duck governor, because the lawsuits keep coming, because it was the media’s fault, because seeing Russia from her house finally got to her, because its not fair that Alaskan’s paid her salary while she was running for the VP position, take your pick. So what does she tells us? Dear Mr. President, when things get tough, quit. Dear military men and women, if you are not having fun, quit. Dear son or daughter, if things are not going your way, quit. Sure, I agree when she first was introduced and gave a descent speech, sure the polls went up, but after the extended interviews, they went where they ended, down. She showed her true character, I real hope the book deal, Radio/ TV shows and the lecture circuits make up for what her party has lost by her actions. She may go down in history as the quitter that twittered.
Wow. I couldn’t have really said it better myself, Benito.
Michele, I agree that journalism needs to provide evidence for their claims, but Sarah Palin was a poor choice. I think everyone would love your article if it attacked the media’s handling of Michael Jackson. We’d probably all praise you and you could have made the same point about legitimate reporting.
Sarah Palin just cannot be pitied by a (vast) majority of people.
Benito,
I think you completely missed Michele’s point – the article had nothing to do with Sarah Palin, but rather how different media outlets have covered her story.
To the commenters: this post was more about differences in reporting quality than Sarah Palin herself. I think she was the perfect subject for this article; the fact that she is controversial makes it even more important that reports on her are as impartial as possible, and tThe fact that Sarah Palin doesn’t garner pity from liberals perhaps makes it even more important that she receive fair reporting. Perhaps you could compare it to the work of a defense attorney: no, their client isn’t always beloved, but for the sake of having a functioning system, they too deserve the same legal [journalistic] rights and treatment as anyone else. I wouldn’t expect liberal outlets to defend her – just, at the very least, back up their claims with relevant sources, which Politico failed to do.
While this was a fairly well written article, it would be less obviously a veiled hit piece on liberal media if you were to compare journalistic institutions of equivalent stature. Comparing the WSJ to a rag like Politico results in the expected conclusion, WSJ is made up of good, responsible, moderately biased journalists and Politico is full of sensationalist hacks.
If you want to truly analyze journalistic quality of differing journalistic operations, rather than insinuate that conservative journalists have integrity and liberals are rumor mongering scum, you should either evaluate the journalistic quality of peer sources (say WSJ, NYT and WP) or evaluate non-peer peer sources with similar political bias (say WSJ and Fox News).
Michele,
Well written and interesting article. I agree with Mark however on the equal stature of institutions. I would add that the subject should be a something or someone or an event that could be seen more neutral. Sarah skewed herself just as effectively as if the Onion had done it.
But to your greater point of the bias of media against women generally, I refer you to the Saturday Night Live sketch of Sarah Palin and Hillary Clinton. That one sketch, and the sketches of Hillary/Obama debates, brought out the bias of the media against accomplished women.
Ahaan… I will follow.