Did the national media have a bias generally in favor of Sen. Barack Obama over Sen. Hillary Clinton during the primary contest?
“I think the answer to that is undeniably ‘yes,’” said Howard Fineman of Newsweek in response to a question from an audience member Wednesday at the Aspen Ideas Festival. “But the answer to the question is more complicated than a simple one-word answer.
“Why has the media so far been so mesmerized by Obama? There are a number of reasons, but the simplest one is that it is one helluva story,” said Fineman, Newsweek’s senior Washington correspondent and an NBC News analyst. “And I think Hillary, in particular, and women in general, kind of got screwed by the timing.”
Fineman noted that with more than 80 women now serving in Congress, Sen. Hillary Clinton’s bid for the presidency “wasn’t quite as sociologically dramatic” as a young African-American man running for the top political job in the land.
“You can view that as sexist if you want to ... but that is just the nature of it,” Fineman said.
Fineman listed several other compelling aspects of Obama’s story, including Obama’s use of the “new digital grassroots” to raise money and get his message out, and the idea that “Hillary was the frontrunner and media don’t like frontrunners.”
“I would also say that, to some extent, the Clintons were old news,” Fineman added: “Hillary was trapped by being new news in an old-news vessel.”
Fineman added that Obama will be the subject of tough scrutiny between now and election day, especially when it comes to changing his position on issues.
Then another questioner stood up.
“I think I’m in the minority in this room in that I just turned 25 years old,” the man said.
That got a slightly indignant laugh from the mature audience at the Hotel Jerome luncheon who, looking around, had to admit the young man was right.
He wanted to know what Fineman thinks about how young people are now obtaining and receiving information.
“I don’t have a single friend who reads a paper front to finish in the morning,” the questioner said. “Not one. I don’t have a single friend who comes home from work and turns on the evening news, if the evening news even exists anymore.”
Fineman, who began his talk by showing a photograph of himself at an Aspen Institute seminar 36 years ago with a beard and long hair, assured the young man that the evening news still exists to cover various “elderly medical issues,” which got another laugh.
Fineman, who has been writing on MSNBC.com for 10 years, who loves doing television, and who has just written a book called “The Thirteen American Arguments,” conceded that the “mainstream media is dying on the vine” and that journalists are “all multi-platform content providers now.”
Underscoring that point, Fineman went live from Aspen at 6 p.m. Wednesday evening on MSNBC’s “Countdown with Keith Olberman” to discuss how Obama’s recent moves to the center could hurt him with some liberal supporters.
bgs@aspendailynews.com
