Media reaction to Governor Palin shows they are elite and out-of-touch

Written by Viguerie on Fri Sep 12 06:40:33 -0400 2008

     The news media’s reaction to the Sarah Palin selection shows how elite and out of touch with the interests and values of average Americans. 

     Before she was selected as McCain’s running mate, Governor Palin was widely known and respected in conservative circles.  Many conservatives spent the past six months pushing for her to be considered, along with Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal and South Carolina Governor Mark Sanford. 

     In March, she was profiled as a possible VP choice in ConservativeHQ.com.

     Conservative publications like the Weekly Standard, the American Spectator, Human Events, and the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, along with prominent conservative bloggers like Ed Morrissey, put forth Governor Palin as a VP prospect. 

     Even a few in the so-called mainstream media, such as Congressional Quarterly and McClatchy newspapers, noted her as a possibility for the job.  And a month ago, Weekly Standard editor and New York Times columnist Bill Kristol flatly predicted, on Fox News, that she would be the VP choice.

     Yet most of the media treated her as a nobody whom no one had ever heard of, and whom no one of any significance had mentioned for the job, and who could not possibly have been vetted because the media would have known about it if she had been. 

     The online publication, Slate, reported the selection with the sub-headline: “McCain's decision prompts one important question: Huh?” 

     They treated her as someone strange, ridiculing her mainstream values and working-class background.  The same media were depicting her as a beauty queen, a religious fanatic, and small town mayor.

     Millions of regular Americans were energized and excited by the Palin pick.  “Her story is my story,” people say, especially working women with kids. 

     But Eleanor Clift of Newsweek said, on the McLaughlin Group, “If the media reaction is anything, it’s been literally laughter in many places . . . in very, very many newsrooms.”

     I doubt that Clift can speak for “many news rooms,” but if it’s true for Newsweek, then that says a lot of bad things about the reporters and editors in that publication.

     Interestingly, both Newsweek and Slate are owned by the Washington Post.