Four Award Winning Journalists who Agree with Governor Palin's #WHCD Sentiments

The response to anything Governor Palin tweets, writes, or says is often akin to Pavlov ringing the bell to feed his dog.She tweets, and the hounds come running. The Governor's tweet on Saturday rightly calling out the "Let Them Eat Cake" mentality of both the "a**clown" press and politicians in DC garnered a lot of pearl clutching fauxrage from the Left and some of  the "me too" pseudo-conservatives. Some wrongly deemed her a hypocrite for calling out the White House Correspondents' Dinner self-absorption and decadence in the time of financial hardship for much of the nation. However, Governor Palin never attended the White House Correspondent's Dinner, as she was giving a pro-life speech at the time of the 2011 dinner. Did she attend the brunch in the morning or the after parties following the dinner? Yes. However, using Palin's critics logic, this means that President Obama cannot criticize the House of Representatives because he once was part of the Senate--which is tangentially associated with the House per our Constitution. I'm not going to hold my breath for the Governor Palin's critics to turn their fire towards President Obama though.

Prior to and following Saturday's White House Correspondents' Dinner, at least four award winning journalists have essentially agreed with Governor Palin's sentiments. Usually I could care less about a journalists' opinion, but if there are several of them who agree that the event has become a largely gratuitous,  narcissistic, and out-of-touch, it is worth noting. Additionally, if these are journalists who are have won the respect of their peers, yet are criticizing their profession's self-absorption, that is also worth noting.

Tom Brokaw, who has won numerous journalistic awards and has attended the event in the past,  compared the present-day WHCD to Versailles and said that he's seen "more dignity at my daughter's junior prom".  Ron Fournier wrote at the National Journal that the Washington is "never more out-of-touch" than during the weekend of the dinner. Fournier's comments are especially pertinent as he won the Merriman Smith Memorial Award presented at the 2005 Correspondents' Dinner.   There has been no hue and cry about the hypocrisy of these journalists.There shouldn't be, just as their shouldn't be for Governor Palin. Brokaw and Fournier are just more self-aware than their peers.

Today, award winning journalist Barbara Walters noted disappointment that the event has become more and more about movie stars, and that's why she didn't attend. Additionally, today Lee Strobel, noted Christian apologist and award winning former investigative journalist for the Chicago Tribune, tweeted:

I don't understand the WH Correspondents Dinner. Journalists shouldn't be social butterflies with people they cover.
— Lee Strobel (@LeeStrobel) April 30, 2013

All of these individuals echoed Governor Palin's sentiments of the self-indulgent, incestuous, and out-of-touch nature of the event. It isn't any wonder she compared Washington D.C. to reality television during her CPAC speech last month. It's almost as if Washington D.C. has become "The Real World on the Potomac" except the press and politicians (minus the examples listed above) have yet to "stop being polite and start getting real".

Crossposted here and here.

Media Message: Judge a Woman by the Height of Her Shoes, not the Height of her Character

With the Olympics in full swing, one author at the Boston's Metro.us posited an intriguing question, what if all Olympics sports were photographed like women's beach volleyball? The author noted that he had performed  a Getty image search for women's beach volleyball. He found that overwhelming, the photos were of the women's rear ends, not an action shot of a player making a dig or block. He then posted a photo essay of similarly cropped photos of male athletes---gymnasts' rear ends and divers' torsos--noting the awkwardness of those photos (See here). The female athletes were photographed to highlight their physical appearance and sex appeal, not their athletic ability.

Similarly, there seems to be a difference in the way both that female politicians are photographed and written about as well. It begs the question, what if male politicians were photographed and written about the same way that female politicians are?  Too often female politicians' physical traits are highlighted while their policy positions and experience are minimized. In 2007, then Senator Hillary Clinton famously spoke on the Senate floor and her blouse revealed a little bit of cleavage:

That incident provided not only late night fodder, but the basis an entire article the Washington Post. about Senator Clinton's cleavage and overall style. The article was 12 paragraphs long, and only one sentence even touched on the policy issue she was discussing.

Late last year, Congressman Barney Frank spoke on a the House floor wearing a not-so-flattering shirt:

To be sure, this incident became fodder for the political blogosphere, but it certainly didn't become mainstream media frenzy that Hillary Clinton's cleavage appearance did.

In 2008, much ado was made about vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin's appearance--her glasses, her clothes, her shoes. In fact, this photo of her shoes in the foreground and a young male supporter in the background accompanied was an image captured by both AP and Reuters photographers:

What if multiple photographers decided to make Vice President Joe Biden's legs and shoes the subject of their shot?:

Of course, this image was not the subject of a photographer. It was an image that I had to crop myself, and it was difficult to even find an image that wasn't a head shot of the vice president or from the torso up. There certainly weren't any photos of the Vice President's legs in the foreground and a young woman in the background.

Earlier this election season, Congresswoman Michele Bachmann appeared on the cover of Newsweek with this bizarre, wide-eyed expression (not to mention biased, sexist title):

For photo shoots, many pictures are taken and with today's technology can be immediately checked digitally for closed eyes and other imperfections. Why was this photo chosen of likely the dozens that were taken? Certainly a photo like the one below of President Obama never made its way onto a major news magazine:

Pictures are often with a thousand words. They speak volumes about how the photographer, writer, or editor is trying to portray a politician--as a competent leader, a sex object, a crazy person, etc. However, focusing on a women's style over her substance isn't limited to photos.  Washington Post writer Diana Reese  used her platform at the Post's "She the People" feature to criticize Sarah Palin's clothes at a recent campaign rally/BBQ for Missouri Senatorial candidate Sarah Steelman:

When Palin took to the makeshift stage in the middle of a Missouri farm field, she was dressed more for the part of Hollywood celebrity than serious politician. I know someone’s going to remind me that just last week, I said it was sexist to focus on the wardrobes of women in politics. 

But it was hard for me to take Palin seriously dressed as she was. 

First, her shoes: Five-inch wedges. Her black capris weren’t quite skin-tight but tight enough, and her t-shirt with its Superman logo (a Steelman campaign shirt emblazoned with “Our freedom. Our fight.”) emphasized her figure. She never once removed her oversized sunglasses. 

I’m sorry, but I’d like my minister, my doctor and yes, my politicians, to look and dress for their parts.

Palin stumped for Steelman at an event that took place at a blueberry farm, and she delivered her speech from a trailer that can be attached to a truck. It wasn't a flashy event, and Governor Palin is known for her down home appeal. The candidate herself, Sarah Steelman, was dressed in jeans and boot . It was a very Midwestern, down-to-earth event. It wasn't a big dollar fundraiser at a fancy location. Palin wore one of the campaign's t-shirts-- standing in solidarity with the Steelman campaign workers who were also wearing "Superman" ( man of steel--Steelman, get it?) shirts. Additionally, it was a hot, sunny evening, and Palin usually wears glasses. Was Palin supposed to wear her normal glasses the whole time and squint or take her prescription sunglasses off and not be able to see? Governor Palin gave a very solid stump speech focusing on Steelman's plans if she was elected and noting her reformer credentials. All of these were apparently lost on Reese. She decided, as she notes in this piece, that she should call out sexism about the cost of a female political figure's clothes if it's Michelle Obama, but also apply a different standard to Palin by criticizing Palin's choice of clothing at a low key, Midwestern campaign event.

Women can't expect their counterparts in the media--be they writers, editors, or photographers--to stop being sexist in their portrayal of female politicians when they themselves focus more on the height of a political figure's shoes than the height of her character or the weight of her words. As depicted above, the media's sexist portrayal of women is bipartisan. In order to counter that, it would behoove all women to make sure the voice against sexism is a bipartisan one as well.

Crossposted from The New Agenda.

Media Hypocrisy in the Review of Governor Palin's Emails

As the media sifts through the thousands and thousands of emails from Governor Palin and her staff and family, it has only proven to affirm what SarahPAC aide, Tim Crawford's statement yesterday when he said that he hopes everyone reads the emails because it shows what an "engaged CEO of Alaska" Governor Palin was. Even in their broadcast yesterday, CNN conceded that Governor Palin was very hardworking and was responsive and polite with both her constituents and her staff. Yet, at the same time, CNN opens their segment by reminding their viewers that these emails were requested by them and other news outlets and individuals upon the announcement of Governor Palin as Senator McCain's running mate in 2008, proving that from day one of Governor Palin's appearance on the national scene, the rules changed and the hypocrisy of the media ramped up. Such emails were never requested of other politicians, not even of either of the presidential nominees. At the time of his announcement of his presidential run, then Senator Obama was not particularly well known, much like Governor Palin, yet the media barely even looked into his associations, his record, and his worldview, much less request emails from either his time as a state senator in Illinois or as a US Senator. However, as Stanley Kurtz, author of Radical-in-Chief, notes at the National Review:

The deafening roar of nothingness emerging from the Sarah Palin email trove points up the media’s hypocritical lack of interest in Barack Obama’s pre-presidential record.

Just as Palin’s emails were released, Slate’s David Weigel pointed out that Barack Obama’s State Senate records are not available. Weigel quotes Obama’s statement to the effect that he didn’t have the staff or financial resources to preserve office paperwork. As a result, Obama claims, his State Senate records may have been thrown out.

In fact, Obama could easily have preserved his State Senate records had he wanted to. The papers of many Illinois legislators are preserved at the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library. I know, because I went through many a box there. The records are in various states of completeness and (dis)organization. Often, chaotic boxes of papers have been handed over to the archivists with little effort at cataloguing. Nonetheless, many records from state legislative offices are preserved.

[...]

I’m not the only one who’s noticed Obama’s desire to hide his record, as well as the reluctance of mainstream outlets to investigate such sources as do exist. Obama fan and sympathetic Obama biographer Sasha Abramsky writes:

Much of the media, including his biographers, have concluded that the community organizing period of Obama’s life should be accorded relatively little space, assuming those years simply reflected the radical foibles of a young man trying to find himself.

Abramsky goes on to argue, in opposition to the media’s implicit judgement, that Obama’s community organizing years were actually the key to who he became. I agree. Yet the media continues to ignore important documentary revelations from a sitting president’s political past, while devoting enormous attention to the emails of an unsuccessful candidate for the vice-presidency.

Isn’t it obvious that the media’s lack of interest in Obama’s radical past–noticed even by a supporter like Abramsky–is a simple case of political protection, not to mention journalistic abdication?

The double standards are glaring. Think of the media outrage if the response to the request for Governor Palin's emails had yielded as empty a response as the inquiry into President Obama's early political career-- by both critics and sympathizers alike. The double standard does not lie in the emails request themselves, but also in the media's handling of the receipt of the emails. The New York Times, Washington Post, and LA Times all asked that their readers to do the work of the media and wade through the emails and send them any "interesting" things they find that have the potential to be made a story. The Real Feminist notes an extra layer of hypocrisy with the LA Times:

Curiously though, this same L.A. Times has – for 3 years running – repeatedly, despite numerous requests, refused to release a video it possesses of Barack Obama reportedly praising Palestinian radical Rashid Khalidi at 2003 Chicago dinner. The same Khalidi who has called Israel a “racist” state and who called suicide attacks a justified response to “Israeli aggression”. The same Khalidi who organized a 2000 fundraiser for Barack Obama’s unsuccessful congressional bid, and whose Arab American Action Network received a $75,000 grant from the Woods Fund of Chicago, while Mr. Obama served on its board.

Yes, THAT Rashid Khalidi, the lavish praise for whom by then-candidate and now-President Barack Obama the L.A. Times apparently finds less relevant than Sarah Palin’s emails sending Merry Christmas wishes, or updating staff on the latest techniques in waste management.

As Governor Palin once said in an interview, " if it wasn't for double standards, some liberals wouldn't have standards". The entire process of the email inquiry only further affirms the hypocrisy of an increasingly irrelevant Old Media. Despite the best efforts of these newspapers and their shrinking readership, the revelations of these emails have likely left a deflated media feeling much like Geraldo Rivera after his special on Al Capone's vault or Andree McLeod after yet another frivolous ethics complaint was dismissed.

Additionally, this only further confirms that Governor Palin is indeed the anti-Illinois politician. She strove to truly make her administration as transparent as possible by ridding the state of the crony capitalism and corruption of the past. She budgeted frugally and prudently. How many other governors even had the opportunity to receive emails from his or her constituents with suggestions and thoughts on what to do with a state surplus? When in Washington for the Rolling Thunder motorcycle rally last week, Governor Palin said she likes the smell of the emissions. I think she might like the sound of backfiring as well.

H/T Doug and Nicole

Crossposted here, here, and here.