Journalisms: an online column by Richard Prince

Obama, McCain Finally Face Off

September 26, 2008

C-SPAN provided video of the entire debate.

Focus Groups, Pundits, Internet Used to Weigh Debate

The news media took to what was anticipated to be the most-watched presidential debate in history with focus groups, pundits and new ways to exploit the Internet as Sens. John McCain, the Republican, and Barack Obama, the Democrat, faced off Friday night at the University of Mississippi.

McCain's campaign said only on Friday morning that he would attend, reversing his earlier call to postpone the debate so he could participate in the congressional negotiations over the $700 billion bailout plan for financial firms, as Patrick Healy and Jeff Zeleny reported on the New York Times Web site.

"Engagement But No Big Moments" was the headline on Time magazine correspondent Mark Halperin's site, "The Page," in his instant analysis.

"Version of Obama who showed up: focused, firm, prepared.

"Version of McCain who showed up: firm.

"Mark Halperin's overall grades: Obama A-, McCain B-"

If you wanted real emotion, you had to wait for the e-mailed responses, such as this one from blogger Melody McCloud of Atlanta:

"It is 4 AM Saturday morning after the first debate and I can't even sleep; I am so angry -- at my candidate, Barack Obama," she wrote.

". . . I hate to say it, but, if Barack HEARD those demeaning (and repeated) 'Sen. Obama doesn't understand,' " comments from McCain, "I think he didn't respond to them IN FORCE, for fear of coming off as the 'angry Black male.' And thus, McCain seemed to mimic a slave master talking down to his slave -- or field hand (field nigger) . . . and Barack let it happen.

"I am NOT happy. Can't even sleep from frustration."

But McCloud's passion was not replicated in media analysis -- or in the debate.

The Politico Web site, in a quick joint assessment, wrote: "Tonight's debate turned into something of an inkblot test, with neither candidate scoring any major points and probably just reinforcing the impressions voters had going in. Like most debates, this looked like a 51-49 affair –- though we reserve the right to dramatically re-interpret tonight's events after the spin cycle has run its course.

"Predictably, Obama was stronger on the economy and McCain was stronger on foreign policy. Obama seemed oddly unassertive at important moments tonight. McCain, while sounding more authoritative, occasionally strayed into condescension. For anyone familiar with these candidates, there weren't really any surprises here."

A CNN focus group in Ohio scored it 61 percent for Obama, 39 percent for McCain.

But another Republican focus group in Las Vegas thought McCain won handily.

A CBS poll of 500 uncommitted voters found only one in four had made up their mind after the debate.

CNN recorded the reactions of audience members minute-by-minute and found that they disliked it when the candidates attacked each other.

Pundits, too, were calmly split. Were McCain's continual assertions that Obama "just doesn't understand" a positive or a negative? Did Obama say "John is right about that" too much?

Watching with the Congressional Black Caucus, which was meeting for its annual meeting in Washington, CNN's Roland Martin said the pro-Obama crowd thought the foreign policy emphasis was fine, but they really wanted the candidates to discuss domestic issues, such as health care and education, the topics for the next and final presidential debate.

Some Internet sites featured live blogging. "The New York Times enlisted student newspaper editors from around the country to weigh in . . . in real time. Some are watching in student centers; others at debate parties near campus," that news outlet wrote.

National Public Radio broadcast a special at Johns Hopkins University's School of Advanced International Studies in Washington. The first comments in the hourlong post-debate segment featured students who had been in the military who thought the candidates' statements about Iraq were bromides.

But others singled out particular points. Farai Chideya, host of NPR's "News & Notes," said she appreciated that Obama responded to McCain's call for a spending freeze by noting that would hurt programs where spending should be increased, such as education.

Some of the morning papers catered to those who thought in horse-race terms, and seemed disappointed that there wasn't blood on the track:

"Temperature of Debate? Lukewarm," was the headline over a Dana Milbank analysis in the Washington Post. "In debate, no great sound bites, no knockout blow," according to Bill Lambrecht in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch.

"Spinners" for each campaign roamed the media room to influence reporters. They were political heavyweights -- among them for Republicans, former Sen. Trent Lott and former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani; for Democrats, political advisers David Plouffe and David Axelrod, Patsy R. Brumfield wrote in the Northeast Mississippi Daily Journal.

C-SPAN launched a "Debate Hub," a social destination for the American public during the four presidential and vice-presidential debates leading up to this year's election, as ZDNet reported.

"The site allows users to follow the debate in near-real-time on their gadgets and simultaneously see how the Web is reacting to it."

Not counting C-SPAN, nine English-language television networks -- ABC, CBS, NBC, FOX, PBS, CNN, Fox News, MSNBC, BBC America -- planned to televise the debate, according to Roger Catlin, writing in the Hartford Courant.

That list did not include Univision and Telemundo, which both announced Spanish-language live coverage.

"MySpace will stream Friday's debate between US presidential contenders Barack Obama and John McCain live online in an Internet first and provide software tools letting people see which candidate is in tune with their views," Agence France-Press reported earlier in the week. The exchange between the candidates was to be broadcast at a MyDebates.org Web site that MySpace created. ImpreMedia teamed with the social networking site to provide live streaming and simultaneous Spanish translation of all presidential and vice presidential debates.

Black Entertainment Television was "not showing the speech, however Jeff Johnson's show goes live at 11p with highlights from the speech and dialogue," spokeswoman Jeanine Liburd said, speaking of "The Truth With Jeff Johnson." BET is using celebrities to promote a voter registration drive on Saturday in Norfolk, Va., Cleveland, Detroit (Highland Park) and Philadelphia from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m.

"TV One is not covering the debates but they are opening their political blog -- Primary Colors -- to allow people to talk about the debates as they're watching," spokeswoman Karen Baratz said.

CNN announced that on Saturday, "CNN contributor Roland Martin, along with a team of panelists, looks at what Sens. John McCain and Barack Obama did not address during the first presidential debate." "What They Didn't Say. . . In The Debate," airs Saturday at 8 p.m. Eastern time, re-airing Sunday at 8 p.m. and "will take an in-depth look at what wasn't said about the economy, foreign policy and national security, as well as the latest on the bailout package and how it affects Americans."

[To its credit, CNN returned to the subject after Martin's program Saturday with futher analysis of the debate by its panel of experts and pundits, hosted by John King.

[Also: "It wasn’t the record crowd that some, including the head of the Commission on Presidential Debates, had been predicting. But it was still a healthy turnout," Toni Fitzgerald reported Monday for medialife magazine.]

Genetta Adams Named AP's Entertainment Editor

Genetta AdamsGenetta Adams, former assistant managing editor for features and entertainment at Newsday, has been appointed entertainment editor for the Associated Press, the AP announced on Friday.

"The appointment was announced Friday by Dan Becker, AP's director of entertainment content. Adams, who will be based in New York, will be responsible for 20 reporters and editors based primarily in New York, London and Los Angeles and will work to expand AP's entertainment coverage. The AP has been expanding entertainment coverage in text, photos and video throughout the year," the story said.

"Adams, 41, is a graduate of the University of California, San Diego. She began her career as a circulation clerk at The Record in Stockton, Calif., then worked as a features supervisor for The News-Press in Fort Meyers, Fla., before moving to New York and joining Newsday in 1998.

"She was the deputy features editor, pop music and culture editor, deputy entertainment editor and the arts and entertainment editor before becoming the assistant managing editor for features and entertainment in 2005. Adams recently accepted a buyout from the newspaper, which was sold by Tribune Co. to Cablevision earlier this year."

In 2005, Adams edited a multipart series on the history of hip-hop that became a Pulitzer Prize finalist.

Jesse Washington, the previous entertainment editor, was named AP's race and ethnicity writer, a new position, in July.

Laid-Off Copy Chief Says He's Done With Journalism

Courtney BarrettAfter 28 years at the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, Courtney Barrett was one of five newsroom employees laid off on Aug. 28. A black journalist, he was chief of the copy desk, and he says he does not want to stay in journalism.

"For the reasons I got into it, I'm not sure I can feel fulfilled," Barrett told Journal-isms on Friday. He was attracted to the profession because, "I knew a lot of people whose voices were never included, who were never heard from" and he wanted to tell their stories.

But priorities have changed, including, he says, pride in the craft. News organizations are cutting back on copy editors, increasing the number of errors. Few seem to mind, he said. Blogs are posted without editing. "One strategy," he says of news managers, "is to wait until the people who really care" about such things "die off."

Barrett, 56, joined the Post-Dispatch in 1980 as a reporter. He worked on general assignment, and covered suburban school districts and the St. Louis County Planning Commission before joining the copy desk in 1983.

He says he might freelance or teach.

"Will there be more layoffs? I sure hope not," the paper's executive editor, Arnie Robbins, said in the Sept. 10 edition of the Riverfront Times, an alternative paper in the city. "But in this day and age, no editor or publisher or company can promise anything to anybody anymore."

Finding Humor in AP-Yahoo-Stanford Study on Race

Elon James White and his "This Week in Blackness" Web site saw humor in the Associated Press-Yahoo-Stanford University survey last week that found many white Democratic and independent voters steering clear of Barack Obama because of race.

Supermarket Tabloid Screams, "Obama a Muslim!"

A second-tier supermarket tabloid this week features something more consequential than the usual Bennifer eyebrow-raiser or aliens arriving from outer space. It claims "Shocking Proof: Obama a Muslim!"

"Inside: The DOCUMENT that proves it," screams the National Examiner, which says it is distributed to more than 250,000 retail outlets.

Inside, the story proves flimsy, but shoppers who pass by the checkout line won't know that. It raises anew the question of how these tabloids can publish such dishonesty with impunity, especially when the Barack Obama-is-Muslim story is believed by a significant number of likely voters.

"The best we can do is talk about the facts and talk about the things people really care about," Corey Ealon, a spokesman for the Obama campaign, told Journal-isms on Friday. "I think those folks are going to be led more by their pocketbooks than by their fears."

The tabloid's centerfold shows Obama in local dress during a visit to his ancestral home in Kenya, with a caption over the photo that says, as a quote: "Many are wondering when Obama is going to come out of the closet."

The story acknowledges that "Obama, 47, has been a member of the United Church of Christ for decades." But it says that as a boy in Indonesia, enrolled in a Catholic school, "he took on the name and religion of his stepdad. School registration documents have his name as 'Barry Soetoro,' an Indonesian citizen whose religion was 'Islam.'" Bingo.

In June, Obama established a Web site to debunk myths and rumors that were damaging his campaign.

The site quotes from a Newsweek story that says, "Obama's only personal contact with Islam came as a boy when he moved to Jakarta, Indonesia, with a stepfather who mixed his Islam with Hindu and Animist traditions. . . . As an adult, Obama turned to Christianity."

So how can an "Obama a Muslim!" headline be published with impunity?

Is it that the tabloid can assert that while most might read an implied "is" in the headline "Obama a Muslim!" it really should be read "Obama has been recorded as a Muslim"? Don't know. Deputy Editor Laurie Campbell did not return a call seeking an explanation.

For a 1991 story, "How the Supermarket Tabloids Stay Out of Court," a lawyer for the National Enquirer explained that that tabloid's success in avoiding legal judgments "stems from its careful reporting and editing and its reliance on legal advice throughout the editorial process.

"For those who decide to pursue a case, the going can be rough," the story said.

"The tabloids' lawyers, employing a defense strategy that is often used by daily newspapers and other publications in libel suits, usually file a barrage of motions in court that tend to delay cases and put pressure on the plaintiffs to settle.

"As a result, very few lawsuits ever come to trial." [See comments in Comments section below.]

Tran Ha to Edit Chicago Tribune's RedEye Tabloid

Tran HaTran Ha was named editor of RedEye, the Chicago Tribune's free six-day-a-week tabloid, on Thursday, Phil Rosenthal reported on the Tribune's Web site.

Ha, 30, succeeds Jane Hirt, who became the Tribune's managing editor last month.

Ha, born in Vietnam to ethnic Chinese parents, is a member of the Asian American Journalists Association and a 2007 graduate of the Maynard Institute Media Academy management class at Harvard University.

"Tran has been at the center of our recent innovation efforts, and we're thrilled to have her lead our talented newsroom," RedEye General Manager Brad Moore said in a statement.

"Ha initially was hired as a RedEye copy editor five years ago and later edited Chicago Tribune features, returning to RedEye last year to help launch a Saturday edition as its editor. Earlier this year, she became editor of TheMash, a new Chicago Tribune paper produced for and in collaboration with Chicago public high school students," Rosenthal's story said.

The RedEye has a staff of two dozen and a circulation of 200,000 daily, Ha told Journal-isms. Before she joined the Tribune, she worked on the Detroit Free Press Web team and was a fellow at the Poynter Institute when it launched its Web site. [Posted Sept. 25]

Reporter Resigns After Flap Over Romantic E-Mails

"A former Miami Herald education reporter implicated in a romantic relationship with a top Miami-Dade schools official has resigned from her post at The Boston Globe, according to a Globe spokesman," Steve Myers reported Thursday on the Poynter Institute Web site.Tania deLuzuriaga (Credit: Miami Herald)

"Tania deLuzuriaga has resigned to pursue other opportunities," said Bob Powers. DeLuzuriaga is a former member of the National Association of Hispanic Journalists.

"Personal e-mails purportedly between deLuzuriaga and Alberto Carvalho surfaced a couple weeks ago while Carvalho was being considered for a promotion from associate superintendent to the top job over the Miami-Dade school system.

"The messages, most of them apparently from deLuzuriaga and dated between July and September 2007, indicate a romantic relationship between the two and suggest that they work together to help each other."

The Miami New Times reported on Sept. 12 that some of the e-mails were graphic: "The first string of e-mails began on July 19, 2007 whilst deLuzuriaga was on a 40-mile bike ride. Subject line: 'Fuzzy.' She wrote: 'It occurred to me while I was riding that I seem to have forgotten to bathe the past two days. I also haven’t shaven since I left Miami. Thought you might like that image. If you say you’d still go down on me I’ll call you a liar. Hope your day is wonderful. I love you.' His reply: 'Don’t shave.'” [Posted Sept. 25]

Short Takes

  • "The Tennessean at Nashville helped change the decision on whether 14 Freedom Riders from the 1960s should receive honorary college degrees. The Arizona Republic at Phoenix's Diversity Committee developed a style guide on when to use 'status of immigration' references in stories. The Cincinnati Enquirer met with Latino Web site operators to better understand the Latino community. These are just a few examples of efforts by Gannett Information Centers to further understand and report on the diversity communities in which they live," Gannett executive Ann Clark wrote Friday in a column for Gannett newspapers. She went on to cite other examples.
  • Brad Turner, longtime Los Angeles Lakers beat writer for the Riverside (Calif.) Press-Enterprise, starts Monday at the Los Angeles Times as part of its Lakers coverage team, Times Sports Editor Randy Harvey told Journal-isms. Harvey said his 60-person department, which has about five journalists of color, has lost 16 people this year.
  • Newsweek senior writer Lorraine Ali, formerly of the LA Weekly and Los Angeles Times, sold a "memoir of her life as an Iraqi-American, her rediscovery of her Iraqi family, and a portrayal of their lives before and after the American invasion of Iraq" to the Holt publishing company, according to Publishers Lunch.
  • Ciara says she's not really nude"R&B chanteuse Ciara would like to set the record straight about the photo spread she shot for the October issue of Vibe magazine: She was not nude, and yes, she's very upset by the magazine's depiction of her as such — but she is not planning any legal action against the urban glossy," Chris Harris reported Tuesday for MTV News.
  • Philadelphia Councilman W. Wilson Goode Jr. "questioned the diversity of the news media, and said many black elected officials feel that they don't enjoy the same freedom of speech that others do," Jeff Shields reported Friday in the Philadelphia Inquirer. "Goode indirectly defended his aide, Latrice Bryant, who last week flashed handwritten signs in Council Chambers comparing a Fox29 news reporter to the Ku Klux Klan." The Fox29 investigation questioned Bryant's work habits. Philadelphia columnists Jenice Armstrong and Annette John-Hall comment.
  • Zondra Hughes, an editor at Ebony magazine for seven years, wrote
    Wednesday on the Huffington Post site about Wil LaVeist's account
    of his unceremonious firing from Johnson Publishing Co. "Think about it," she said, should LaVeist "have aired dirty laundry about the oldest black magazine in existence, in front of the entire world, just weeks before this race-fueled presidential election? . . . I can tell you that some current and ex-employees are in shock over LaVeist's book, and I am one of them." She added, "Base the boss/worker bee relationship on respect, and such dissolutions would be the end of the story, allowing both parties to begin their next chapter on a high note."
  • "Azteca América on Monday (Sept. 29) will launch a one-hour nightly news magazine 'Al Extremo' ('To the Extreme'), hosted by Juan Barragán, Aline Hernández and María Teresa Alexandri," Della de Lafuente wrote Friday for Marketing y Medios. "The program will offer a mix of investigative news, features, real-life stories and celebrity coverage, airing at 10 p.m., Eastern time, and replacing "Pasiones Prohibidas," which moves to an 11 a.m. weekday time slot."
  • Raju Narisetti"Raju Narisetti left a potential path to one of the most coveted spots in journalism for a risky bet that a new business newspaper can succeed in India," Jeremy Kahn wrote Thursday for portfolio.com, speaking of the Wall Street Journal. "To its credit, Mint has grown from an initial circulation of 80,000 in two cities to 120,000 readers in five cities in the past 18 months, and it also has a popular website, livemint.com. But its print edition lags far behind the market leader—the Economic Times, one of India's oldest and largest newspapers, with a circulation of over 1 million."
  • "Gospel Today, the Fayetteville-published magazine, was pulled off the racks by the bookstores' owner, the Southern Baptist Convention. The problem? The five smiling women on the cover are women of the cloth — church pastors," Christopher Quinn wrote last week in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. The Southern Baptists say that's a role reserved for men. Roland S. Martin comments.
  • In Pittsburgh, "WTAE announced a shake-up of just about all its anchor teams yesterday, promoting Andrew Stockey to 5, 6 and 11 p.m." Rob Owen reported in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.
  • In Mexico, Reporters Without Borders voiced its support for EXA FM, a local radio station based the southeastern state of Tabasco, after the fatal shooting of one of its program hosts, Alejandro Xenón Fonseca Estrada, on Sept. 23. "The organisation is outraged that neither federal nor state investigators had contacted the station nearly 24 hours after the murder," the press freedom organization said on Thursday.
  • The memorial service for Nancy Maynard, co-founder of the Maynard Institute for Journalism Education, has been set for 10:30 a.m. Friday, Oct. 3, at the Fourth Universalist Society, 160 Central Park West (corner of 76th Street), New York, N.Y. 10023. Reception: noon, Dizzy's Club, Coca-Cola Frederick P. Rose Hall, home of Jazz at Lincoln Center, Broadway at 60th Street, 5th floor, New York, N.Y. 10023. In lieu of flowers, please send donations to the Maynard Institute for Journalism Education, 1211 Preservation Parkway, Oakland, CA 94612. Maynard died on Sunday at 61. [Posted Sept. 25.]

Feedback: McCain Has an Ego Problem

John "The Maverick" McCain's recent action of pretending to "suspend" his campaign can best be understood when you factor in his ego's reaction to Paris Palin.

The Maverick wanted the energy and crowd boost that Paris Palin delivered. However, his ego cannot handle her celebrity. This man is a war hero and a longtime Washington playmaker. He is dependent on an airhead to draw attention to his campaign. He thought he could deal with that. He can't.

McCain is now running two campaigns -- one against Barack and one against Paris Palin.

Jason Whitlock
Kansas City Star
Kansas City

Article tools:
  • Delicious
  • Digg
  • StumbleUpon
  • Reddit
  • Newsvine
  • Facebook
  • Google
  • Yahoo
  • Technorati

Richard Prince's Journal-isms originates from Washington and is published Monday, Wednesday and Friday. (Full disclosure: Richard Prince works part time at the Washington Post.) It began in print before most of us knew what the Internet was, and it would like to be referred to as a "column." For newcomers: The words in blue (on most computers) are links leading to more information. The Web site BugMeNot.com provides passwords and user names to some registration-only news sites.

Send tips and comments to Richard Prince.

To be notified of new columns, contact journal-isms-subscribe@yahoogroups.com and tell us who you are.

View previous columns.

The First Amendment

Submitted by Dan Lewerenz on Sat, 09/27/2008 - 18:48.

You write that the National Enquirer's "Obama is a Muslim" headline "raises anew the question of how these tabloids can publish such dishonesty with impunity, especially when the Barack Obama-is-Muslim story is believed by a significant number of likely voters,"

I'm not sure there's much of a question here. It's called the First Amendment. "Congress shall pass no law ... abridging the freedom ... of the press ...." That means people can publish lies and half-truths. The Founders seemed to think it was better to allow the publication of lies with "impunity" than to have the government deciding which statements were true and which were lies, which lies were actionable and which were not, etc. Maybe they were wrong, but I'm not sure what you do about it aside from amending the Constitution again.

You also quote from a 1991 story that said the National Enquirer and other tabloids "employ[] a defense strategy that is often used by daily newspapers and other publications in libel suits, usually fil[ing] a barrage of motions in court that tend to delay cases and put pressure on the plaintiffs to settle. As a result, very few lawsuits ever come to trial."

Daily papers and other publications use this strategy not to delay or to put pressure on plaintiffs to settle, but because the courts - relying, in no small part, on the First Amendment - have established a very high bar for winning a libel suit. Most plaintiffs sue out of anger, and have little legal ground to stand on, so publishers win on summary judgment. Settlement usually enters the picture only after a plaintiff's case has survived summary judgment, and then it's usually the publication (or their insurance company) that wants to settle.

One final note - we are talking about the National Enquirer here. Yes, there are a lot of people who (foolishly) believe Obama is a Muslim. Seeing this headline might reinforce their belief, but I honestly doubt even they give the Enquirer much credibility. Yes, the Enquirer and its kin catch many an eye in the checkout line. But does anyone honestly believe that they influence voters?

Supermarket tabloids

Submitted by princeeditor on Sat, 09/27/2008 - 21:49.

Thanks, Dan,

I didn't mean to open up a debate about the First Amendment, but let's talk about that, and others can weigh in. I think it's possible to sanction publications that publish untruths without violating the First Amendment. While the amendment says Congress shall make no law abridging freedom of the press, it doesn't require anyone to provide a platform for untruths.

Nor does it prevent citizens from protesting to the publication or from opposing its sale. Supermarkets really don't have to sell tabloids that cross the line if they don't want to.

One can argue that no one believes them anyway. In 1992, a lawyer for the Sun tried that very defense in Arkansas. He said, "Most reasonable people recognize that the stories are essentially fiction." But that failed to sway a U.S. District Court jury. Nellie Mitchell, the 97-year-old woman who sued, was awarded $1 million.

Other juries have indeed awarded damages against tabloids under libel and other laws. The First Amendment is not absolute.

Just in August, according to the Associated Press, the National Enquirer settled a lawsuit filed by a Massachusetts woman who accused the Enquirer of fabricating stories that said her son was fathered by Sen. Edward Kennedy.

I'm not arguing that calling Obama a Muslim is libelous. But it is inaccurate, and it is
affecting the outcome of a presidential election.

On Sept. 20, a story by Perry Bacon in the Washington Post described Joe Biden on the campaign trail in Ohio.

"Everybody likes him, they get out there and they look and they go, 'I like him a lot, but is this guy a Muslim? Does he go to a madrassa?' " Biden said. "People like him, but they want to be reassured [that] some of the malarkey, the negative stuff they hear about him, is just not true."

The story continued: "Asked to elaborate on the challenge Obama faces from working-class voters, Biden told of an elderly woman at a Philadelphia area diner, who showed him an e-mail on her mobile phone repeating the charge that Obama is a Muslim.

"'She said, "Senator, I love you, I was going to vote for you, and I thought I liked Barack, but I can't do it," ' Biden said. 'And I said, "Why not?" She said, "Well, look," and she shows me an e-mail. She says, "He's a radical Muslim," and I said, "Why would you say that?"

"'She said, "Everybody tells me that." And I said, "I promise you that's not true," and she said, "What do I do?" And I said, "Well, vote for me." And she looked at me and said, "Does that mean I have to vote for him, too?"'"

A Pew Research Center study released this month found that "nearly half of Americans (46%) are unable to correctly identify Barack Obama as a Christian including 13% who still maintain that he is a Muslim and another 16% who say they have heard different things about his religion."

A supermarket tabloid that goes to 250,000 retail outlets spreads the myth. Are we saying there's nothing the public can or should do about it?

What do others think?

Richard Prince

More on First Amendment

Submitted by Dan Lewerenz on Sun, 09/28/2008 - 11:12.

I agree that the First Amendment is not absolute, and that libel law does provide a remedy for certain transgressions by the press. However, there are several differences between the cases you cite (the Nellie Mitchell case, the Kennedy kid case) and the Enquirer calling Obama a Muslim. The biggest difference is that Obama is a public figure running for public office, while the others were not, and the law gives a tremendous amount of deference to those commenting on public figures, especially during elections.

It seems your beef is primarily with the headline "Obama a Muslim," and I agree with you that the headline almost implies "is," as in "Obama is a Muslim." (The same could be said of the current Globe cover story, which declares "McCain Wife Hooked on Drugs." Although I have not read the story, from the description on the Web site I am fairly certain the story refers to her drug addiction in the early to mid-1990s.)

Finally, I agree that that both headlines are inaccurate - or, at the very least, that they convey an inaccurate impression to most readers.

I think we disagree on two things. First, I simply do not agree that a headline in either the National Enquirer or the Globe will, as you say, "affect[] the outcome of the election." I know many people mistakenly believe Obama is a Muslim, and I suspect the vast majority of those people will vote against him. However, I don't think the Enquirer is going to persuade anyone to believe that Obama is a Muslim. Those who already believe it might buy the paper to see their "document that proves it." But let's face it - the Enquirer isn't going to persuade anyone. (I know the court in the Nellie Mitchell case rejected that as a defense. However, as noted above, there are many, many differences between how a court would look at the Mitchell case and how a court would look at this case.)

Our second point of disagreement, I think, has to do with remedy. You state that "it's possible to sanction publications that publish untruths without violating the First Amendment," and you're right. But the government only pursues such sanctions in the narrowest of cases - national security, child pornography, etc. That leaves private action under libel law, and it's going to be largely irrelevant here. Why? First, because only Obama himself as an action under libel law (none of us, individually or collectively, can bring a case against the Enquirer for this headline), and he's not going to sue. Second, because if he did sue, he'd probably lose, for a whole host of reasons.

What can/should the public do about it? Those in the public who disagree with what the Enquirer has done should not buy the paper. Those who want to take it farther can seek to publish their own rebuttals, or they can boycott businesses that advertise in or sell the Enquirer, and make clear their reasons for doing so.

But remember, some 1 in 6 Americans do not think the Enquirer is lying - they think it is one of the few publications out there brave enough to print the truth. And the "truth" in this case has more to do with individual ideas about what constitutes being Christian than with anything else. I know plenty of people who believe Mormons are not Christian, who believe Catholics are not Christian, etc. Those people could acknowledge that Obama goes to a Christian church and prays to a Christian god and believes Jesus Christ is his personal savior and still not believe he's a Christian because of one thing or another he does or doesn't do.

I'm going to leave it at that and let others chime in. But bottom line, I can't conceive of a "sanction" that would address the Enquirer headline (or the Globe headline about the McCains) that wouldn't seriously offend the First Amendment as we know it.

Post new comment

The content of this field is kept private and will not be shown publicly.
CAPTCHA
This question is for testing whether you are a human visitor and to prevent automated spam submissions.
15 + 3 =
Solve this simple math problem and enter the result. E.g. for 1+3, enter 4.

Nancy Maynard, co-founder of the Robert C. Maynard Institute for Journalism Education died September 21, 2008.
For 30 years, the Robert C. Maynard Institute for Journalism Education has been committed to helping the news media reflect America's diversity in staffing, content, and business operations. Incorporated in 1977, the Institute offers editing and management training programs as well as direct services to news organizations. [more]
Alumni Watch
See the work of Maynard alums and the changes they are making in the newsroom.

Maynard Journal
The Maynard Journal is published quarterly in print. To download the latest issues in PDF format, please click below.

Robert C. Maynard
Take a tour through the Robert C. Maynard Photo Gallery		 Media Academy
View photos from the Maynard Media Academy at Harvard University		 Editing Program
View photos from the Maynard Editing Program at the Reynolds School of Journalism
Martin Reynolds
View an interview with Martin Reynolds, Managing Editor at the Oakland Tribune.		 Media Academy
View video from the Maynard Media Academy at Harvard University		 Chauncey Bailey
View video and more from the Chauncey Bailey Project
History Project
Stories of the African American journalists who broke into media during the '60s and '70s.		 Caldwell Journals
An account of the pioneers who broke the color barrier in America's newspapers		 Ed Bradley
View video from his interview as part of the Black Journalists Movement Project