Star continues Obama sabotage

by David Safier

I was buoyed by Obama's speech last night, and I opened this morning's Star with some optimism about the coverage I would see. Surely the paper would have to give him some credit for delivering an excellent speech.

To say I was disappointed is putting it lightly. The coverage amounted to a hit piece in 3 movements.

Let's look at the 3 elements of the Star coverage, one by one.

1. The front page article is an analysis of the speech from McClatchy. A front page analysis, not a news report? Analysis isn't news. It's only valuable once the reader has the facts. The Star doesn't have a straight report of the speech anywhere in the paper.

There's nothing wrong with the analysis, really. But its emphasis is, Obama channeled Reagan instead of Bush 1 or Clinton. That's the stuff of op ed writing. For those who didn't see the speech, it doesn't convey what Obama said.

A google search yielded few uses of this analysis in papers across the nation. A reportorial AP article, which was in the Republic, was widely used across the country. Once again, the Star made a bizarre choice, one that spun Obama's speech rather than reporting on it.

And the Star created its very own banner for the analysis. Head: "Obama: Just stick with me." Subhead: "Give his programs more time to work, President tells us." Translated, the head/subhead says, "I've given you nothing so far, but if you just stick with me , eventually things will work out." Sounds like a guy in a bad marriage asking for another chance, doesn't it? That wasn't Obama's message, at all. He said the first year has effectively staved off a much more severe crisis, but it's not enough, so we need to continue on the path he's laid out. The Republic, which also ran this analysis (along with an actual news report) used the head, "Obama channels Ronald Reagan: Stay the course." That's a far more accurate reflection of the piece, with none of the implications of failure in the Star's head. It's the headline chosen by other papers as well, which tells me it was the one supplied by McClatchy. But it wasn't negative enough to meet the Star's anti-Obama standards.

2. The local quotes are ridiculously skewed toward a Republican, anti-Obama perspective. Bodfield compiled some quotes from Arizonans on the speech. Here's the scorecard.

• 1 Democratic cheerleader: Jeff Rogers, Pima Democratic Chair
• 4 Republican cheerleaders: John McCain; Bob Westerman, Pima Republican Chair; Margaret Kenski, Republican pollster; Trent Humphries, Tea Party organizer and past Republican candidate for state legislature
• 3 on the fence: 2 poli sci professors, who gave professorial analyses; Brian Flagg, who voted for Obama but is clearly one of the people on the left who has been discouraged by Obama's first year.

Where is someone like Giffords or Grijalva, or a Democratic state legislator, to balance McCain? Where is the Democratic pollster? Where is the loyal Democrat who hasn't lost faith in Obama, maybe someone who, like Humphries, has run for state office unsuccessfully?

3. The AP Fact Check focuses only on things Obama said which aren't absolutely accurate or are changes from positions he took earlier. Fact checks are a good idea, but the good ones I have read on both Ds and Rs, say, "This is right. This is only half right. This is wrong." The AP fact check is about as negative as any I've ever read.

Put those 3 elements together, and you get a glass of cold water mixed with a couple tablespoons of mud thrown on Obama's speech — no straight reporting, an analysis whose major positive is that Obama was channeling Reagan, a Republican-heavy set of local quotes, and a Fact Check that could have been headlined "You Lie!" (Fortunately, the Star avoided that temptation.)

Today represents just one example in a continuing pattern of the Star's heavily biased coverage of Obama-related news.