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“The Media Has Won This One”

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Rangel Dissents From Jeremiah Wright Fixation

It was a day in Sunday talk-show land where it seemed everyone was following the script, including Sen. Barack Obama: Questions about the Rev. Jeremiah Wright were expected to lead to a denunciation, and his impact on Obama’s candidacy was Topic A. But on CNN’s “Late Edition” with Wolf Blitzer, Rep. Charles Rangel, D-N.Y., apparently didn’t get the memo.

“Charlie Rangel, I’ll start with you, and I’ll play this sound bite from what Barack Obama said on this sensitive issue of the Reverend Wright, earlier today on ‘Meet the Press,’ ” Blitzer began, showing a video clip of a contrite, wounded Obama.

“Now, the criticism of Barack Obama is that what Jeremiah Wright said at the National Press Club, Congressman Rangel, was no different than what he’s been saying for some time, and he should have known that these controversial remarks would be made,” Blitzer continued.

“Is this explanation that Senator Obama is making good enough for you?”

Replied Rangel, a supporter of Hillary Clinton’s candidacy, co-founder of the Congressional Black Caucus and chairman of the powerful House Ways and Means Committee:

“It’s disgraceful that he has to make any explanation for anything. The intrusion of the media and Republicans into the sacred relationship that worshipers have with their spiritual leaders, I think, is going to come back to haunt us.

“To think that we have to go into the lives and the beliefs of rabbis and priests and ministers and imams is absolutely ridiculous.

“We’ve got a war on. We’ve got an economy that’s splintered. I think the media should be more responsible and start dealing with those issues. I don’t think many people care what Reverend Wright thinks, and I don’t see how — why any candidate should have to explain . . .”

Blitzer returned to the script.

“But, Congressman, even Senator Obama, last Sunday, said this was a legitimate issue, given the nature of — he wants to be president of the United States. If there’s a right-wing politician — let’s say a Republican politician that has an extraordinarily close relationship with a pastor who is making outrageous statements, has been a member of that church for 20 years, wouldn’t that be fair game?”

RANGEL: “Of course not. Of course he’s a candidate, and he doesn’t want to take all of you on. And I’m probably over the hill. But the truth is that you guys know that his beliefs have nothing to do with someone that went to the church.

“And if we’ve got to get into the Jerry Falwells and to the Robertsons and to the number of people that have what appears to other religions to be bizarre beliefs, we’ll never get to the issues that America is concerned about.

“I know that every American is more concerned with who is going to be a better presidential candidate and a better president, more than they are on anything that happened in the church that Senator Obama went to.”

With that, Blitzer turned to Donna Brazile, the Democratic Party strategist, Democratic Party superdelegate and CNN commentator. “Let me let Donna Brazile weigh in,” the host said. “And Congressman Rangel, speaking not as a supporter of Barack Obama — he supports Hillary Clinton. What do you think?”

BRAZILE: “I think Congressman Rangel is absolutely correct. There are many people out there that believe that the media has just gone overboard. Reverend Wright, Reverend Wright all the time, 24/7.

“They want to hear about the candidates’ views. They want to hear about what they will do on the economy. And they think that Reverend Wright has been used as an ax to destroy or diminish Senator Obama and to divide people unnecessarily, in this country, at a time when we are at war and we’re trying to get our economy back on track.”

Earlier Sunday, Obama appeared for an hour-long interview with Tim Russert on NBC’s “Meet the Press,” and Clinton showed up on ABC’s “This Week with George Stephanopoulos” for an hour-long “town hall” meeting.

The New York Times headline over a story by Alessandra Stanley about the appearances was, “Clinton Steals One Show, While Obama Endures Another.”

“Mrs. Clinton was forceful, confident and at times even frisky as she easily deflected questions from Mr. Stephanopoulos and members of a town-hall-style meeting in Indianapolis. Mr. Obama, usually the one to see the humor in politics, instead looked grave and dispirited,” Stanley wrote.

On Monday morning, with friendlier questioning from morning radio host Tom Joyner, Obama said, “the media is lazy. If they get on a certain line, they stick with it.” That was in reference to claims that he is “elitist.” He acknowledged underestimating the staying power of the Wright issue, saying, “if you had told me it would end up dominating the news for a month, I’d have said that doesn’t make any sense.” Joyner volunteered that Fox News had televised a story about Wright every hour that morning.

Obama, pushing for a big turnout of his supporters in Tuesday’s Indiana and North Carolina primaries, appeared on both Joyner’s and Steve Harvey’s syndicated morning shows.

In the Washington Post, media writer Howard Kurtz wrote, “Obama aides . . . are somewhat taken aback at the abrupt turn of events. They didn’t mind the pundits declaring for weeks that Clinton had virtually no chance to win the nomination, but now believe the result is a huge imbalance in the level of media scrutiny. The staff is constantly fielding questions from reporters digging into Obama’s background in places from Chicago to Honolulu.”

Others were sharper in evaluating the media focus.

“Barack Obama’s forceful denunciation and disavowal of his former pastor doesn’t change the fact that it is an irrelevant distraction entirely created by cable television pundits using out-of-context and skewed sound bites,” Kenneth F. Bunting, associate publisher of the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, wrote on Friday.

“Their supposedly innocent analyses and sanctimonious scolding of Wright ignore the salient fact that it was a media obsession, preoccupation and dishonest portrayal that made him a story in the first place.”

The New York Times’ Frank Rich joined others in noting the imbalance in coverage of inflammatory remarks by white preachers associated with other candidates and of comments by Wright. “A sonorous white preacher spouting venom just doesn’t have the telegenic zing of a theatrical black man,” Rich wrote on Sunday.

“Perhaps that’s why virtually no one has rebroadcast the highly relevant prototype for Mr. Wright’s fiery claim that 9/11 was America’s chickens ‘coming home to roost.’ That would be the Sept. 13, 2001, televised exchange between Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell, who blamed the attacks on America’s abortionists, feminists, gays and A.C.L.U. lawyers. (Mr. Wright blamed the attacks on America’s foreign policy.) Had that video re-emerged in the frenzied cable-news rotation, Mr. McCain might have been asked to explain why he no longer calls these preachers ‘agents of intolerance’ and chose to cozy up to Mr. Falwell by speaking at his Liberty University in 2006,” Rich wrote, referring to Sen. John McCain, the presumptive Republican presidential nominee.

On the Huffington Post Web site, Clinton biographer Carl Bernstein, noting Clinton’s linking of Obama to former Weather Underground member William Ayers, explored her own past associations with left-wing radicals.

“Precisely because she knows the destructive power of such assertions and how unfair they can be, she has sought for a quarter-century to hide and minimize her own activities, associations, student fascination, and personal history with the radical Left,” Bernstein wrote. “Those associations — logical, explicable, and (her acolytes have always maintained) even character-building in the context of the times — are far more extensive than any radical past that has come to be known about Barack Obama.”

But those questions were not asked on the Sunday morning shows.

“It’s so painful at a time when the country is in such bad shape that we are on a national television program talking about the Bible and what people thought they should be teaching,” Rangel told Blitzer, though he no doubt believes a discussion of any candidate’s past associations would also be a distraction.

“We got so many non-Christians, so many other people — and the media has won this one, and the advertisers have — because people are tuned in not to find out what Bathsheba had done, but really to find out what Hillary Clinton and what Obama can do to make this country come back. So, this is the sadness of the whole thing.”

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Buchanan Sees Whites as Endangered Species

 
 

After Sen. Barack Obama’s March speech in Philadelphia calling for a conversation on race, commentator Pat Buchanan responded with “A Brief for Whitey,” declaring, “America has been the best country on earth for black folks. . . . We hear the grievances. Where is the gratitude?”

Now, Buchanan has turned his attention to world fertility rates and concluded that whites are an endangered species. “The Third World is coming to colonize the mother countries,” he writes of trends in Europe.

“And America?” he continues in a column headlined, “The Way the World Ends.”

“According to the Pew Research Center, the Hispanic population of the United States will triple to 127 million by 2050, as Mexico’s population grows to 130 million. An erasure of the U.S. border, or merger of the two countries, or the linguistic, cultural and social annexation of the American Southwest by Mexico appears fated.

“Hopefully, the peoples of Asia, Africa and the Middle East, who are about to inherit the earth as we pass away, will treat us better than our ancestors treated them in the five centuries that Western Man ruled the world.”

On his St. Petersburg Times blog, media critic Eric Deggans wrote of Buchanan Monday, “This is the man who is allowed to opine daily on NBC News platforms about the most diverse presidential race in history; a man who sees weakness in diversity and failure in our continuing merging and meeting of world cultures as populations increase.

“You could imagine the media firestorm if Jeremiah Wright made similar observations from a black nationalist perspective. But Buchanan is a welcome guest on Russert’s show,” referring to “Meet the Press” host Tim Russert, “presented as a voice to argue about immigration reform and election issues, despite his prejudicial perspectives.”

MSNBC spokesman Jeremy Gaines told Journal-isms that Buchanan would continue in his role as commentator.

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“Former Clinton Pastor” Stories Dupe the Unwary

Certain months-old stories about a “former Clinton pastor” guilty of sexual abuse were dwarfing current stories in the number of hits they were getting on the Web site of the Utica (N.Y.) Observer-Dispatch.

You might have received an e-mail alerting you to one of them, or read about the case on Web site proclaiming that the media were suppressing the story.

“I felt like this was occurring in this weird political nether land,” Mike Kilian, the Observer-Dispatch’s managing editor, told Journal-isms. “And nobody called me and asked me about it.” So on Sunday, Kilian felt compelled to set readers straight.

“A number of Web sites and bloggers — either mistakenly or intentionally — have described this case as involving not a Clinton, N.Y., pastor but presidential candidate Hillary Rodham Clinton’s pastor,” Kilian wrote.

“On these Web sites, headlines such as ‘Former Clinton pastor appears in court on sex charge'” are “twisted into creating the impression that Sen. Clinton is associated with an alleged pedophile.

“Take this tease at www.mediatakeout.com: ‘Scandal??? Was Hillary Clinton’s pastor convicted of child sex abuse?’

“Well, no, he wasn’t.

“Yet dozens of individuals have attached comments to these Web sites to debate whether the media has a double standard in writing about the controversial statements of Clinton opponent Barack Obama’s minister, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, but not about the Procanick case,” referring to the minister of the Utica paper’s headline, the Rev. William Procanick.

Clinton, N.Y., home of Hamilton College, is five miles from Utica, and both are in New York’s Mohawk Valley.

“In discussing this issue here at the O-D, we drew two conclusions,” Kilian continued.

“One, all citizens need to read news items carefully and not take information they find online at face value. As the old saying puts it, ‘A lie is halfway ’round the world before the truth has got its boots on.’

“Two, we need to find a ‘McCain Street’ somewhere in the Mohawk Valley and look for some news there. Maybe it’s being repaved, and we can write this headline. ‘McCain getting facelift.’

“Oops, we did it again.”

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Des Moines TV Reporter Michelle Parker Dies at 52

 
 

Longtime reporter Michelle Parker of KCCI-TV in Des Moines, Iowa, died on Sunday at age 52.

“Michelle fell ill at a birthday party for a KCCI staff member on Saturday night and was taken to the hospital by colleagues. She was admitted into the intensive care unit at Iowa Methodist Medical Center overnight. She died just after noon on Sunday. Doctors said the cause of death was heart failure,” the station reported.

The Des Moines native went to Grand View College and Drake University.

“Michelle this weekend had just won a first place award for reporting from the Associated Press Broadcasters of Iowa. The story she did with photographer Cortney Kintzer won a first place in ‘general reporting’ and was about a soldier returning from Iraq in May of 2007 who surprised his elementary school son by showing up in his class.

“Iowa Governor Chet Culver released a statement Sunday afternoon: ‘Lt. Governor Patty Judge and I were deeply saddened to hear the news of Michelle Parker’s death. Michelle was an excellent reporter who covered the statehouse for years. She was tough and fair yet always kind. The people of Iowa trusted Michelle to come into our homes every evening and bring us the news of the day. Our prayers are with Michelle’s family and our sympathies go out to her colleagues at KCCI and in the local media. We will remember Michelle’s gentle spirit, hard work and professionalism. She will be greatly missed.'”

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Marvin Gaye Documentary Starts on PBS Wednesday

 
 

For a PBS “American Masters” documentary on the late Motown legend Marvin Gaye, premiering on Wednesday, Sam Pollard, the show’s writer and director, assembled the following for interviews:

Nick Ashford, Janie Bradford, Mos Def, Lamont Dozier, Michael Eric Dyson, Nelson George, Berry Gordy, Mabel John, Gladys Knight, David Ritz, Martha Reeves, Smokey Robinson, Valerie Simpson, Elgie Stover, Bobby Taylor, Leon Ware, Bishop West, Kim Weston, Otis Williams and Mary Wilson.

To snare them, he told Journal-isms on Monday, Pollard used means familiar to any reporter: buying tickets to an Ashford & Simpson show to be able to reach the writer-performers backstage; for others, making multiple calls and sending numerous e-mails; and going through people who knew people. Even so, there were still some, such as Stevie Wonder and Diana Ross, who couldn’t make it work.

 
 

The list of on-camera interviewees includes authors — Ritz, George and Dyson — who have written about Gaye; performers and writers who were his contemporaries, and even an actor from a succeeding generation, Mos Def.

Pollard, 58, who grew up in New York’s East Harlem, said he wants viewers to take away two things from “Marvin Gaye: What’s Going On,” which is produced by New York’s WNET: “For that 52 minutes . . . to be reacquainted with all that wonderful music that was so fabulous, from Marvin and Tammi to “Pride and Joy” to “Ain’t No Mountain High Enough. Just fall back in love with all that music.”

Secondly, “I want people to have a window into how complicated every life is: No matter what you do in life, it’s always some kind of struggle. He was able to use those struggles to create great works.” Gaye was shot to death by his father on April 1, 1984, the day before his 45th birthday.

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Pitts Asks, “How Can I Trust the Justice System?”

“I want you to tell me how I can trust the justice system,” Leonard Pitts Jr. wrote in his Miami Herald column on Friday.

“Mister Attorney General, the question is for you. And you too, Ms. Police Officer, Madame District Attorney and Mr. Judge. It is also for you, Mr. and Ms. Average Citizen. I realize this will be an engraved invitation for those crackpots who get their jollies flaunting their hatefulness and ignorance on electronic message boards, and I’m willing to live with that because the question, I assure you, is in earnest.

“Somebody tell me: How can I trust the justice system?

“You will think this is about Sean Bell, the unarmed black man who died in a fusillade of 50 bullets from New York police on what was to have been his wedding day; the shooters were acquitted last week. But the question isn’t about Bell, at least not solely.

“Rather, it’s about the fact that the justice system so often seems to have less justice in it where black people are concerned.

“It’s about Amadou Diallo, shot at 41 times — hit 19 — by New York police while reaching for his wallet. It’s about Rodney King, beaten to pieces by L.A. police for a traffic violation. It’s about Arthur McDuffie, beaten to death by Miami police for a traffic violation.

“It’s about Jeffrey Gilbert, bones fractured by police who broke into the Greenbelt, Md., apartment of his girlfriend and pounced on him as he lay nude in bed because they mistakenly thought him a cop killer. It’s about L.A. police manufacturing and planting evidence. It’s about my son, stopped by police for driving with an ‘obstructed’ windshield — he had an air freshener in the shape of a Christmas tree dangling from his rear view mirror.

“It’s about studies documenting the enduring racial bias in our justice system so that, for example, African Americans account for 13 percent of all regular drug users, but 35 percent of those arrested, 55 percent of those convicted and 74 percent of those imprisoned, for drug possession.”

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Short Takes

 
Reginald Hudlin

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Feedback: Juan Williams Is Poison

I tried unsuccessfully to find the NPR blog for Juan Williams. In New Orleans we use a phrase, “We are like crabs in a barrel.”

Would it be better for Juan Williams if Williams were the Democratic candidate for president? If not Sen. Barack Obama, than WHO? This guy, Williams is poison.

Shame — shame. This is 2008.

Naomi Smith
New Orleans
May 5, 2008

Wayback machine: https://web.archive.org/web/20080620090145/http://www.mije.org/richardprince/media_has_won

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