Media Matters

Election 2008

ABC reports that Republicans are mocking Democrats' columned stage, not that 2004 GOP convention stage also had columns
Good Morning America's Robin Roberts and Diane Sawyer echoed Republican talking points mocking the stage at Invesco Field in Denver, where Sen. Barack Obama plans to give his acceptance speech for the Democratic nomination for president, for including a structure with columns. But Roberts and Sawyer failed to mention that the stage at the Republican National Convention in 2004 also included columns. Read more

Noonan claimed Obama's DNC speech at Invesco Field "has every possibility of looking like a Nuremberg rally"

MSNBC airs "pretty smart" McCain ad congratulating Obama without noting attacks on the same day
On MSNBC, Tom Brokaw aired an ad by Sen. John McCain in which McCain congratulates Sen. Barack Obama on the day of his acceptance of the Democratic presidential nomination, calling it a "[p]retty smart ad." Chicago Sun-Times columnist Mary Mitchell added: "Well, people who may have been turned off by the negative ads and the negative conversations of late. He may have won them over with ad like that. It's classy. It is a classy ad." But neither Brokaw nor Mitchell noted that, notwithstanding the ad’s suggestion that McCain was taking the day off from attacking Obama, the McCain campaign issued numerous attacks against Obama on August 28. Read more

In WND column, Corsi co-author Craig R. Smith called Obama "our first hip-hop president"
In his WorldNetDaily column, Craig R. Smith, who co-wrote Black Gold Stranglehold with Obama Nation author Jerome Corsi, asserted that "the real reason" Sen. Barack Obama's election would be "a moment of historical significance unlike any other" is because Obama "will be our first hip-hop president." Smith added: "I can only imagine how the world will embrace the leader of the free world when he introduces other foreign leaders with, 'give it up for my man Vladimir.' Giving 'props' for joining us in a treaty. … The use of ghetto slang during the primaries and even today may be a clear indication just how the Obamas intend to 'roll' if given the privileged seat in the Oval Office." Read more

AP's Fournier counts the "I's" in Clinton's speech, but her focus was often outward
In an AP "analysis," Ron Fournier asserted that Sen. Hillary Clinton's convention speech, which he described as "laced 17 times by some variation of the pronoun 'I,' " was part of the "bill" Sen. Barack Obama had to pay for Clinton's agreement to "end[] her historic bid for the presidency in a manner that, however messy, still left Obama in a stronger position than Kennedy left Jimmy Carter in 1980, when the Massachusetts senator extracted platform concessions and shrank from the traditional unity show at the final gavel." In fact, Media Matters counted 21 instances in the speech in which Clinton used "I." But in at least 13 of these instances, Clinton was not focusing on herself and was instead making one of three points: her support for Obama's election; the importance of the 2008 election; and who really matters in this election. Read more

Did we mention the AP has a Ron Fournier problem?
-- Eric Boehlert, blogging at County Fair