Sen. Barack Obama - FishbowlDC

Are You Noticing A Shift In Coverage?

Patrick — Tue, 09 Sep 2008 10:35:29 +0000

For quite some time, Sen. Barack Obama has dominated media coverage. So much so that even the Washington Post’s ombudsman had to call out her own paper for skewed coverage.

Now, via the Project for Excellence in Journalism, we learn that a shift has occured, thanks to Sen. John McCain’s running mate, Sarah Palin:

For the first time in three months, John McCain generated more coverage than Democratic hopeful Barack Obama last week. But McCain’s running mate, Sarah Palin, earned even more attention during Republican National Convention week, according to a new report from the Pew Research Center’s Project for Excellence in Journalism.

Palin appeared as a significant or dominant factor in 60% of campaign stories the week of Sept.1-7 while McCain registered in 52% of the stories. Obama appeared as a key figure in 22% of election coverage last week. His VP pick, Joe Biden, was a leading newsmaker in 2%.

Taken together, storylines focusing on Palin accounted for 45% of the campaign newshole last week. The biggest Palin narrative was the response to her selection (28%), which included her Sept. 3 convention speech. Coverage of her personal and family life accounted for 10% and stories about her public record registered at 6%. The claims made by the McCain campaign that the media were unfairly attacking Palin constituted 1% of last weekâ€™s campaign coverage.

Full report can be read here.

Also on FishbowlDC:

“RNC Thinks Obama Stole From Toles”

“Morning Reading List, 09.09.08″

“Kurtz: Palin Criticisms ‘Something Out Of The Distant Past’”

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

How Not To Win Over Reporters

Patrick — Thu, 21 Aug 2008 15:59:08 +0000

So, today, Sen. Barack Obama announced his “battleground state tour leading up to Democratic National Convention.” The campaign put out the advisory at 5:52pm EST.

The deadline for credentials? Just one hour later. (And reporters are on deadline!)

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

Obama First Pol To Grace GQ Cover In 15 Years

Patrick — Mon, 13 Aug 2007 07:52:08 +0000

First on FishbowlDC…

GQ asks: Does “the new star of the Democratic Party” have “the nerve, the political spine, and the will to do the (sometimes dirty) work it takes to get to the White House?”

That was then (Nov. 1992)…

…this is now (Sept. 2007)…

FishbowlDC has learned that Sen. Barack Obama will grace the cover of September’s GQ magazine. Ryan Lizza authors the cover story, which begins:

We already know that Barack Obama has what it takes–the crowd-pleasing charisma, the outsize ambition, the audacity of hope–to be a serious candidate for president. But does he have all the rest–the nerve, the political spine, and the will to do the (sometimes dirty) work it takes to get to the White House? That is the question. A journey with the new star of the Democratic Party.

Obama is the first politician to appear on GQ’s cover since Bill Clinton and Al Gore appeared on the men’s magazine cover nearly fifteen years ago (Nov. 1992). But the cover story almost didn’t happen. Writes Lizza:

They struggled for weeks before deciding to agree to let him grace the cover of this magazine. “Frankly, I could do with fewer cover stories generally,” David Axelrod, Obama’s top strategist and adman told me during a recent visit to his Chicago office. “He’s an incredibly magnetic and also photogenic person, and so he lands on the covers of a lot of magazines. And that had its utility at one point, but it can get overdone. This is a really profound guy in many ways, and you don’t want him trivialized.”

Lizza calls Obama “more of an old-fashioned pol than you think.” and says that, “underneath the inspirational leader who wants to change politics…is an ambitious, prickly, and occasionally ruthless politician.”

Other notes:

Obama has been trying to lower expectations of his candidacy…

On Hillary:

I asked [communications director Robert] Gibbs if his understanding was that, despite the campaign’s rhetoric, Hillary had to be actively taken down. Gibbs looked at me and smiled. “We’re not running the race thinking we’re the horse in second,” he said, “and that ultimately the horse in first is just going to stop running.”

On Howard Dean:

But Obama also offers a cautionary note. He leans back in his chair and crosses his legs. “Movement without organization,” he says, “without policy, without plans, will dissipate. Howard Dean, one could argue, back in 2004 helped to engineer a movement, a movement in opposition to the war. But there wasn’t a structure there and a set of policies and plans that would then lead to governance.”

And yet…

Obama is on his way to raising more money from a larger pool of donors than any presidential candidate in history. He will out-raise Hillary by an astounding $10 million for the quarter. He can parachute into almost any city in America and attract a crowd of thousands. But his poll numbers, both nationally and in the early primary states, still aren’t budging, and the whispers about Obama being the next Howard Dean are growing louder.

Lizza notes “Obama’s reputation for being a little thin-skinned.”

“Few politicians are better than Obama at speaking about the most polarizing issues.”

“Pollsters are beginning to talk about Obama’s “beer problem.” Survey after survey shows that he appeals to the college-educated, “wine sipping” Democrats but isn’t reaching less educated “beer drinkers.”

“Personally, for me,” Obama says, “I think the story of my campaign is the ongoing struggle to maintain my voice and my compass in a process that in a lot of ways is slightly ridiculous.”

(We also hear that one of those “50 Most Powerful People in Washington” is the Washington Post’s national news head, Susan Glasser).

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

Matthews Ruvs Obama

Patrick — Tue, 19 Jun 2007 14:25:25 +0000

As moderator Chris Matthews questioned Sen. Barack Obama at today’s American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, he said:

MATTHEWS: So much of what you say just grabs people like me, because it sounds like Bobby Kennedy. It sounds like the ’60s at its absolute best.
(APPLAUSE)

Also, Fishwrap reports some of the flak Matthews got today from the liberal crowd.

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.