Volunteer to umpire a Little League game and be prepared for maniacal parents to obnoxiously question your eyesight. Join the national press corps and expect rabid charges of bias from all political wings. Lampooning the media is as natural - and as fair - as coaches working the ref; no one wants to lose because of a blown call. But besides falling for a few flops and missing some hard fouls, the traditional media outlets are generally evenhanded in their coverage.
Still, we've got a couple Tim Donaghys running around. Ron Fournier, Washington Bureau chief for the Associated Press, is turning one of America's most established newswires into another outlet for partisan bluster. Republican presidential nominee John McCain's campaign offered Fournier a senior communications position in the McCain campaign, but instead he chose to have the AP channel his Republican talking points. Sandy Johnson, the previous D.C. Bureau chief, blasted Fournier's impact on the AP. "I just hope he doesn't destroy it," she said.
Indeed, as The Washington Post's E.J. Dionne notes, when the media fail at their duty of objectivity, the results have been disastrous. In the aftermath of the 2000 election there quickly developed a national narrative that Al Gore should concede quickly and graciously - well before the outcome was clear. And, famously, nearly every mainstream media outlet was complicit in the rush to war in Iraq. Several have since issued mea culpas, but there are 4,000-plus troops, $500-plus billion and unquantifiable amounts of international leverage lost.
Too often the press acts as passive stenographers for the current administration or get hung up on irrelevancies. I'm convinced most Americans have really never been bothered by what color Democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama is or about New York Sen. Hillary Clinton's gender or Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin's balance of career and family - or, for that matter, how much money the candidates raise, who snagged the latest state legislator endorsement or how the new polls compare to the old batch released 10 minutes ago. The trivialization of politics isn't new, but it's still discouraging.
This election season, the scrutiny on the media will be particularly intense. Republicans are playing from their traditional script, demanding a level of "deference" before Palin would sit for an interview. Republican National Convention participants heartily booed the same reporters that McCain once called "my base." NBC flinched first and removed Keith Olberman and Chris Matthews from their election-coverage anchor seats.
What may be most surprising, at least this month, is the reluctance of the traditional media (to borrow a phrase) to put lipstick on the McCain campaign's pig of lies. The Wall Street Journal acknowledged that Palin's repeated claim of having opposed the infamous "Bridge to Nowhere" is factually wrong. McClatchy called McCain's ad on Obama's plan to teach sex education to kindergartners "deliberately misleading." FactCheck.org reported that a McCain ad citing FactCheck.org is wrong. CBS had YouTube pull a misleading McCain ad featuring Katie Couric. From small fibs (that Palin sold Alaska's state jet on eBay) to policy distortions (that Obama would raise taxes on the middle class) news organizations have been busy setting the record straight.
But just calling out these lies as isolated events isn't enough. The media creates narratives, and there's an important one here. Again and again, McCain has proved willing to sacrifice any honor in his campaign to become president. As the Post asked, doubtfully, will McCain "be able to look back on this [campaign] with pride?"
Jacob Shelly is a senior in the School of Public Affairs and a liberal columnist for The Eagle. You can reach him at edpage@theeagleonline.com
