TopicsOn The Media is produced by:
John McCain and Barack Obama say they favor a series of town hall debates, but both campaigns turned down ABC News's invitation this week, saying that no single network should be in control. Ezra Klein of The American Prospect says this might not be such a bad thing.
This isn’t the first time the presidential candidates and the TV networks have disagreed on the debates. Presidential debate historian Alan Schroeder describes a long and contentious history.
The Associated Press has joined with Fox News, CNN, ABC, NBC and CBS in a lawsuit against South Dakota over a law forbidding exit polling with in 100 feet of a voting place. South Dakota Secretary of State Chris Nelson says exit polling can impinge on the voting process. The networks say the law violates their first amendment rights. We talk with both sides.
Barack Obama's success in this week's primary contests took place despite an all-out effort by the Clinton campaign to paint him as "elite." Linguist Geoffrey Nunberg describes how the meaning of elite has changed over the years and psychologist Drew Westen explains why being labeled an elitist can be so damaging.
Media were awash with charges this week that ABC News hosted little more than a gossipy game-show masquerading as a debate. Or maybe co-moderator George Stephanopoulos posed important questions that cut to the heart of electibility, as he later claimed. Either way, what did you learn that you'll take to the ballot box? Project for Excellence in Journalism associate director Mark Jurkowitz says that if the goal was to inform voters then ABC largely failed.
For some in the media, the race for the Democratic nomination is effectively over. Most outlets, however, continue to cover every twist and turn as if it all still matters. Slate political reporter Chris Beam, Atlantic associate editor Marc Ambinder and ABC News political director David Chalian weigh in.
For supporters of Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama the candidates' Wikipedia pages have become a key election battleground. The up-to-the-second nature of user-generated, user-corrected content means that an editor’s work is never done. The New Republic's Eve Fairbanks explains the political stakes of wiki-work.
Hillary Clinton's victories this week barely dented Barack Obama’s delegate lead, but they did wonders for her momentum. That is if you believe in all that momentum stuff. Slate's Tim Noah says momentum is less a political reality than a narrative device for reporters.
