Oct 02 2008

Passive Praise for Ifill by the AP

Category: Uncategorizedharmonicminer @ 8:38 am

McCain criticizes Ifill – Yahoo! News

Hours ahead of the vice presidential debate, Sen John McCain (R-Ariz.) criticized the selection of PBS’ Gwen Ifill as moderator because she is writing a book called “The Breakthrough: Politics and Race in the Age of Obama.”

“Frankly, I wish they had picked a moderator that isn’t writing a book favorable to Barack Obama, let’s face it,” McCain said on “Fox & Friends.” “But I have to have to have confidence that Gwen Ifill will handle this as the professional journalist that she is. …

“Life isn’t fair, as I mentioned earlier in the program.””

Ifill is host of “Washington Week” and star of “The NewsHour” and is viewed as one of Washington’s fairest journalists.

The last line is simply laughable. “Is viewed” as fair by WHOM? The AP doesn’t bother to mention this.

During the Democratic National Convention, Ifill offered her neutral analysis on NBC News before Michelle Obama’s speech: “A lot of people have never seen anything that looks like a Michelle Obama before. She’s educated, she’s beautiful, she’s tall, she tells you what she thinks and they hope that she can tell a story about Barack Obama and about herself.”

During the Republican National Convention, the PBS ombudsman fielded numerous complaints about Ifill’s coverage of Sarah Palin’s speech. Wrote Brian Meyers of Granby, Ct.:

“I was appalled by Gwen Ifill’s commentary directly following Gov. Sarah Palin’s speech. Her attitude was dismissive and the look on her face was one of disgust. Clearly, she was agitated by what most critics view as a well-delivered speech. It is quite obvious that Ms. Ifill supports Obama as she struggled to say anything redemptive about Gov. Palin’s performance. I am disappointed in Ms. Ifill’s complete disregard for journalistic objectivity.”

Having watched both of the broadcasts just referenced, I concur with the description of Ifill’s behavior.

Fairness is in the eye of the beholder. What I behold is someone with a serious conflict of interest, demonstrated partisanship, i.e., the usual main stream journa-hack.

One Response to “Passive Praise for Ifill by the AP”

  1. enharmonic says:

    I agree with you except I think it helps if the audience can know what the personal politics of a journalist are. I believe that the only folks with journalistic integrity are those who admit their own biases. This actually allows the viewer, listener, reader to more accurately assess the information given and comments made. This is what bothers me about the profession as a whole.

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