Meet the Press (and then politely ask them to leave)

Obama, McCain, and Gershon agree: The press needs to get off the stage

by Eric Boehlert
from Mediamatters.org
Tue, Jun 17, 2008

Two hopeful sparks were visible from the campaign trail last week that suggested there is growing support for the idea of pushing the press off the stage and letting voters get on with the important business of picking the next president. For years, the press played a central and welcome role in that decision-making. But over the past 12 months, the increasingly self-absorbed Beltway press corps has shown that it's no longer up to the job, that it cannot be trusted to oversee it.

The first thanks-but-no-thanks signal to the press came when the campaigns of both Sen. Barack Obama and Sen. John McCain quickly rejected an offer made by ABC News to exclusively air the first of the proposed town hall forums that the candidates agreed, in principle, to have during the general-election campaign. ABC News, as part of its pitch, offered to have Diane Sawyer act as moderator.

But both campaigns insisted that any citizen-based town hall event had to be open to all television outlets, as well as be seen on the Internet, and not be sponsored or organized by a single news organization. More important, the campaigns stressed that the town hall meeting would not be moderated by the press.

The other refreshing forum being proposed for the general election is a Lincoln/Douglas-style event, which would also let the candidates address voters unfiltered and keep journalists on the sidelines, where they belong.

I cheered that bipartisan rejection of ABC's offer because, for me, at least, the entire appeal of the citizens-first town hall format is that the television networks would have virtually no role and that their millionaire moderators (like Sawyer) would be nowhere in sight. What was the point of letting ABC News brand a town hall forum as its own by putting its host in the chair, building space-age sets as it did during the winter debate sessions, selling lots of advertising time off the event, and then turning it into prime-time programming? The town hall forums aren't about the networks, they're about the larger electoral process.

By smartly swatting down ABC's proposal, the message seemed clear: The campaigns want to get the media off the stage. Journalists are not the collective third candidate in this election, although at times it's obvious they consider themselves to be just as important as political leaders. That runaway narcissism has severely damaged the craft, and the campaigns have wisely decided to give the press a time-out.

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