Full Version: McCain & the lobbyist....where there's smoke?
I will want to know why the New York Time would endorse McCain when they were working on this very story. 
QUOTE(Sleeper @ Feb 24 2008, 01:27 PM) 
I will want to know why the New York Time would endorse McCain when they were working on this very story.
The paper also endorsed Clinton for the Democratic nomination. It was an endorsement for both primaries. I don't know who the paper will endorse for president but editors are traditionally more conservative than reporters.
QUOTE(Sleeper @ Feb 24 2008, 01:27 PM)
I will want to know why the New York Time would endorse McCain when they were working on this very story.
Well, one word posts are against forum-rules. So I'll offer this:
Consider the alternatives:
Religious Leader A. He hails from Michigan by birth and governed Kerry Country.
Religious Leader B. Hails from Arkansas and used an alternative platform before entering politics.
Who seemed like the logical choice out of the three?
Oh, they could've endorsed Ron Paul... But why?
QUOTE(VDemosthenes @ Feb 24 2008, 10:58 AM)
QUOTE(Sleeper @ Feb 24 2008, 01:27 PM)
I will want to know why the New York Time would endorse McCain when they were working on this very story.
Well, one word posts are against forum-rules. So I'll offer this:
Consider the alternatives:
Religious Leader A. He hails from Michigan by birth and governed Kerry Country.
Religious Leader B. Hails from Arkansas and used an alternative platform before entering politics.
Who seemed like the logical choice out of the three?
Oh, they could've endorsed Ron Paul... But why?
I am still waiting for some answers to these questions:
1) Did McCain send some letters that earned him a rebuke? If yes- that is the keating 5 all over again- it doesn't show unethical behavior to me- it shows that he CONTINUES to show horrible judgement in regards to business special interests. Agreed?
2) Is he not happy with lobbyists- or is he cool with them? I mean, Renzi now, and, on top of that, the 'retreat" with all the lobbyists.
Because both of those issues are the main issues really raised in the (awfully written) NYT article. The rest I don't give a rat's fanny about- but if he hasn't learned his lesson from his behavior in the keating 5, we will have another Enron on our hands.
Now that even The New York Times' own ombudman said that the article was a stinky pile of dog-doo, I trust that everyone here will stop defending them? Just a tip for you reporters out there - when you used the word "romantic" in the lede, you aren't writing a serious story about telecom lobbyists.
QUOTE
article was notable for what it did not say: It did not say what convinced the advisers that there was a romance. It did not make clear what McCain was admitting when he acknowledged behaving inappropriately — an affair or just an association with a lobbyist that could look bad. And it did not say whether Weaver, the only on-the-record source, believed there was a romance. The Times did not offer independent proof, like the text messages between Detroit’s mayor and a female aide that The Detroit Free Press disclosed recently, or the photograph of Donna Rice sitting on Gary Hart’s lap.
It was not for want of trying. Four highly respected reporters in the Washington bureau worked for months on the story and were pressed repeatedly to get sources on the record and to find documentary evidence like e-mail. If McCain had been having an affair with a lobbyist seeking his help on public policy issues, and The Times had proved it, it would have been a story of unquestionable importance.
<snip>
I think that ignores the scarlet elephant in the room. A newspaper cannot begin a story about the all-but-certain Republican presidential nominee with the suggestion of an extramarital affair with an attractive lobbyist 31 years his junior and expect readers to focus on anything other than what most of them did. And if a newspaper is going to suggest an improper sexual affair, whether editors think that is the central point or not, it owes readers more proof than The Times was able to provide.
The stakes are just too big. As the flamboyant Edwin Edwards of Louisiana once said, “The only way I can lose this election is if I’m caught in bed with either a dead girl or a live boy.”
It was not for want of trying. Four highly respected reporters in the Washington bureau worked for months on the story and were pressed repeatedly to get sources on the record and to find documentary evidence like e-mail. If McCain had been having an affair with a lobbyist seeking his help on public policy issues, and The Times had proved it, it would have been a story of unquestionable importance.
<snip>
I think that ignores the scarlet elephant in the room. A newspaper cannot begin a story about the all-but-certain Republican presidential nominee with the suggestion of an extramarital affair with an attractive lobbyist 31 years his junior and expect readers to focus on anything other than what most of them did. And if a newspaper is going to suggest an improper sexual affair, whether editors think that is the central point or not, it owes readers more proof than The Times was able to provide.
The stakes are just too big. As the flamboyant Edwin Edwards of Louisiana once said, “The only way I can lose this election is if I’m caught in bed with either a dead girl or a live boy.”
Clark Hoyt: I think that ignores the scarlet elephant in the room. A newspaper cannot begin a story about the all-but-certain Republican presidential nominee with the suggestion of an extramarital affair with an attractive lobbyist 31 years his junior and expect readers to focus on anything other than what most of them did. And if a newspaper is going to suggest an improper sexual affair, whether editors think that is the central point or not, it owes readers more proof than The Times was able to provide.
Yep. Hoyt is being a good ombudsman pointing out the obvious; readers don't appreciate nonsense. Unfortunately pointing out the obvious isn't going to change anything. Nonsense sells and the bottom line trumps everything else.
Extramarital affairs sell. Controversy sells. Being informative does not sell in a race to the bottom for ratings and subscriptions. If selling newspapers wasn't about catching readers' attention editors wouldn't ask reporters to rewrite ledes again and again, even if the story doesn't support the lede well. Being straightforward is not enough. If network news wasn't about ratings the airwaves wouldn't be saturated with cheap- and easy-to-broadcast crime stories. Listening to the police scanner waiting for breaking news to come to you is a hell of a lot cheaper than practicing civic journalism, for example.
Yep. Hoyt is being a good ombudsman pointing out the obvious; readers don't appreciate nonsense. Unfortunately pointing out the obvious isn't going to change anything. Nonsense sells and the bottom line trumps everything else.
Extramarital affairs sell. Controversy sells. Being informative does not sell in a race to the bottom for ratings and subscriptions. If selling newspapers wasn't about catching readers' attention editors wouldn't ask reporters to rewrite ledes again and again, even if the story doesn't support the lede well. Being straightforward is not enough. If network news wasn't about ratings the airwaves wouldn't be saturated with cheap- and easy-to-broadcast crime stories. Listening to the police scanner waiting for breaking news to come to you is a hell of a lot cheaper than practicing civic journalism, for example.
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