Campaign Coverage Dissected

Saturday, October 18, 2008

Sen. Barack Obama has promised to bring change and hope. The Post's Oct. 17 endorsement editorial "Barack Obama for President" made it clear that he has already succeeded in bringing hope to The Post when it stated:

· "We hope he would navigate between the amoral realism of some in his party and the counterproductive cocksureness of the current administration, especially in its first term."

· ". . . we can only hope and assume that Mr. Obama would recognize the strategic importance of success in Iraq and adjust his plans."

· "We also can only hope that the alarming anti-trade rhetoric we have heard from Mr. Obama during the campaign would give way to the understanding of the benefits of trade reflected in his writings."

· "We had hoped, throughout this long campaign, to see more evidence that Mr. Obama might stand up to Democratic orthodoxy and end, as he said in his announcement speech, 'our chronic avoidance of tough decisions.' "

That sure is a lot of "hope."

Personally, I hope we won't have occasion to find out whether or not the hopes of The Post are realized.

-- Jay R. Baker

Rockville

·

The Oct. 14 news story "GOP Officials Assail Community Group" made it sound as if the charges of voter fraud leveled against ACORN -- the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now -- were figments of the McCain camp's imagination. It was only in the seventh paragraph that The Post cited media reports of ACORN improprieties in 12 states. In Nevada, for example, ACORN allegedly hired convicts on a work-release program to register voters. It was not until the third to the last paragraph that we learned that ACORN'S founder resigned after it was discovered that his brother embezzled nearly $1 million from the organization.

But my question concerns the photo. It showed a man named Freddie Johnson speaking to the media in Cleveland, and the caption said he admitted signing 73 voter registration forms for ACORN.

Unfortunately, Mr. Johnson's confession never made it into the article. I think he deserves his own article. How about it?

-- John G. Leyden

Davidsonville

·

I'm tired of cranky letters complaining that The Post is giving Sen. John McCain and Gov. Sarah Palin bad press [Free for All, Oct. 4 and 11].

Objectivity does not mean reporting the same proportion of positive and negative stories about each side. If one side messes up more often, it's going to generate more negative stories.

McCain was the one who picked Palin, an underqualified, inarticulate candidate with extreme views and a history of controversial behavior. That's not The Post's fault.

-- Rose Kelleher

Gaithersburg

·

Regarding the Oct. 11 Free for All letters headlined "Too Much Tilt in Campaign Coverage":

I believe The Post has been balanced in its coverage of the candidates, with its profiles of John McCain [front page, Oct. 13] less than a month before the election and his wife, Cindy [front page, Sept. 12], whom I consider an outstanding person.

I've seen plenty of coverage of Joe Biden, and the reporting on Sarah Palin, who has plenty of charisma, has been legitimate because of her inexperience. The Post does a good job.

-- John J. Wolff

Rockville