Media Coverage of the Presidential Race: Veteran Journalist Ashamed of his Profession

Michael S. Malone’s column at ABC News on the “Media’s Presidential Bias and Decline” in which he details the media’s irresponsible, if not unethical, coverage of the 2008 presidential campaign comes as no surprise to those who supported Hillary Clinton during the Democratic primary. Some of us continue to feel so stunned by the blatant sexist abuse the media heaped on our candidate, including its demand for her to drop out while the race was still tight, that we probably won’t bother to vote on Nov. 4.

Malone, updates us on media bias increasingly evident in the general election, especially its pathological assault on Sarah Palin, surpassing even what Clinton and her supporters underwent, and he asks why there has been no equivalent hardball coverage of the Obama camp.

Malone writes:

“The traditional media are playing a very, very dangerous game -- with their readers, with the Constitution and with their own fates.

“The sheer bias in the print and television coverage of this election campaign is not just bewildering, but appalling. And over the last few months I've found myself slowly moving from shaking my head at the obvious one-sided reporting, to actually shouting at the screen of my television and my laptop computer.

“But worst of all, for the last couple weeks, I've begun -- for the first time in my adult life -- to be embarrassed to admit what I do for a living. A few days ago, when asked by a new acquaintance what I did for a living, I replied that I was "a writer," because I couldn't bring myself to admit to a stranger that I'm a journalist.

“You need to understand how painful this is for me. I am one of those people who truly bleeds ink when I'm cut. I am a fourth-generation newspaperman. As family history tells it, my great-grandfather was a newspaper editor in Abilene, Kan., during the last of the cowboy days, then moved to Oregon to help start the Oregon Journal (now the Oregonian).

“My hard-living -- and when I knew her, scary -- grandmother was one of the first women reporters for the Los Angeles Times. And my father, though profoundly dyslexic, followed a long career in intelligence to finish his life (thanks to word processors and spellcheckers) as a very successful freelance writer. I've spent 30 years in every part of journalism, from beat reporter to magazine editor. And my oldest son, following in the family business, so to speak, earned his first national byline before he earned his drivers license.

“So, when I say I'm deeply ashamed right now to be called a "journalist," you can imagine just how deep that cuts into my soul.”

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