About 20 years ago or so, there was a character Dana Carvey would play during a segment on Saturday Night Live's "Weekend Update" known simply as "The Grumpy Old Man". He would randomly rant about the direction the modern world was headed. If you have no idea what I'm talking about, look here (You might want to stop it at about the 1:40 mark--Trust me):
http://www.hulu.com/watch/4303/saturday-night-live-grumpy-old-man
I bring this up because some people might have had the same feeling listening to John McCain vent to Katie Couric during her follow-up interview with Sarah Palin. If you haven't seen it yet, take a look here: http://www.cnn.com/video/#/video/politics/2008/09/30/am.mccain.palin.gotcha.cnn
So, who or what is to blame for this era of "gotcha" journalism? Is it the individual journalists or is it the news organizations as a whole? Can it be totally contributed to what some would say as the decay of traditional journalistic values?
Some other questions also come to mind:
*If it were a Town Hall meeting or some other public function, would McCain have called out the media in such a way? Did he rant just because it was a one-on-one interview?
*What about Katie Couric's response? Does she think McCain's evaluation of "gotcha" journalism is fair or accurate?
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2 comments:
Wow. It seems to me that more and more in this election, the battle has become MEDIA vs POLITICIANS, and completely strayed from THE PEOPLE and THE ISSUES. It is really disappointing to me to watch all of these clips of journalists butting heads with the President, and the potentials.
I personally think the media has been treated unfairly. Couric's questions to Palin were very reasonable ones, and ones that shouldn't have been too difficult to answer. The interview was far from an example of 'gotcha' politics. I really think it was an example of good journalism.
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