Bill Clinton heaps praise on Obama as calm manager
Bill Clinton: Obama Got Lots of Help on Economic Crisis Response
The first, from a Reuters blog posting, went on to say:
Campaigning with Obama on Wednesday, Clinton not only gave the Illinois senator his support, he heaped praise on him, describing him as a calm manager who had responded deftly to the financial crisis and sought advice from the best experts.
He talked to his advisers. He talked to my economic advisers, Clinton said, listing experts such as investor Warren Buffett and former Federal Reserve Chairman Paul Volcker whom Obama consulted.
The second, from foxnews.com, also contained the sub-head:
Bill Clinton says at a rally that Barack Obama called a round of advisers during the height of the economic crisis and said, "tell me what ... to do."
…to hear Bill Clinton tell it, the Democratic nominee didn't quite have a handle on the situation himself.
Was Clinton providing a strong endorsement of Obama or a warning to America that the Democratic candidate was unsure of himself? A review of the clip below (from the 8:25 mark on) supports the Reuters reporting.
Fox went on to report, more accurately in the body of their story:
I haven't cleared this with him and he may even be mad at me for saying this so close to the election, but I know what else he said to his economic advisers (during the crisis), Clinton told the crowd at a Wednesday night rally with Obama in Florida.
"He said, 'Tell me what the right thing to do is. What's the right thing for America? Don't tell me what's popular. You tell me what's right -- I'll figure out how to sell it.'"
Clinton said when the crisis broke, Obama called his own advisers as well as those of the former two-term president, Hillary Clinton, Warren Buffet and others.
"He called those people. You know why? Because he knew it was complicated and before he said anything he wanted to understand," Clinton said. "That's what a president does in a crisis."
A reader moving quickly through the Fox site, however, might have read the headline and sub-head and have been left with the impression that Obama was not ready to tackle the economic crisis.
Ironically, a semi-literal definition of the “fox watching the hen house” may be found in Fox News’ belief that they are the only objective news source in America.
To hear the network's bigwigs tell it, it's not Fox that's being biased when it puts conservative fare on heavy rotation. It's the "liberal media" that are biased when they fail to do so. Fox's entire editorial philosophy revolves around the idea that the mainstream media have a liberal bias that Fox is obligated to rectify.
As revealed in the State of the News Media 2008 report:
Most Americans believe the news media are politically biased… Audiences are moving toward information on demand, to media platforms and outlets that can tell them what they want to know when they want to know it.
If the media is inherently biased, and people overwhelmingly understand that the media is biased, should we be concerned? Phil Grffin, president of MSNBC, was quoted in Saturday's NYT:
All of our material is based on fact — our guys work really hard on it, and the point-of-view shows make their conclusions, Mr. Griffin said. In this modern era, you’ve got a variety of places that look at the day’s events. Some you respect more than others, others you recognize as having a point of view, some you see as factual in a different way, and it all blends together into how you make your decision for what’s going on.
The burden is a little more on the individual.
This is the caveat emptor perspective: (1) With an understanding of the bias each media brings to their presentation, it is up to each of us as consumers of the news to decide which product we want (2) The free market of news gathering, distillation and reporting should over time correct whatever imbalances exist. If a media outlet creates a “bad product” their market share will suffer; it is the demand for each of the products that gives them their shelf-life.
With this in mind, beyond giving each of us what we want, media bias in Presidential election reporting has the potential to sway low-information voters who by their indifference may not recognize propaganda and rhetoric for what it is; implicit is the following disclaimer -
WARNING: What you are reading/seeing/hearing may not be accurate, may be misrepresenting the facts or may be entirely untrue. We report. You decide.
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