Obama Trip Attracting Media Circus, Criticism from McCain Camp | Online NewsHour: Presidential, Senate and Gubernatorial Election Coverage: Vote 2008 | July 18, 2008 7:20 PM

Presidential Race

By Talea Miller on July 18, 2008

Sen. Barack Obama’s first overseas trip as a presidential candidate is shaping up to be a mob-scene of press coverage.

Sen. Barack Obama

Obama will be traveling with a plane full of journalists, and at least 200 have applied to come on the trip, though only about 40 will be able to go. The big names will be along for the ride too: top newspaper reporters and network nightly news anchors Brian William, Charles Gibson and Katie Couric.

It’s a stark contrast from Sen. John McCain’s trip to the Middle East in March, which received only modest coverage. McCain did not invite reporters along with him on that trip.

Obama’s campaign has announced visits to Jordan, Israel, Germany, France and England. They have not said publicly whether Obama will go to Iraq and Afghanistan on this trip, but he is expected to.

McCain has criticized Obama for never having been on the ground in Iraq to see the progress there, and even offered to take him several times earlier this year.

McCain’s communications director Jill Hazelbaker criticized Obama’s motives for the trip on Fox News Thursday morning.

“Let’s drop the pretense that this is a fact-finding trip and call it what it is: the first-of-its-kind campaign rally overseas,” Hazelbaker said.

Her quote was later mailed out to campaign list-serve members.

Later in the day, Sen. John McCain told reporters “The fact is I’m glad that he’s going to Iraq. I’m glad that he’s going to Afghanistan. It’s long, long overdue if you want to lead this nation and secure our national security.”

The McCain camp and other conservatives have also taken issue with the distribution of press coverage between the two candidates.

The Tyndall Report, which monitors network news coverage said the networks spent 114 minutes covering Obama since June, and 48 minutes covering McCain.

“The press may or may not have a bias in favor of Obama but it definitely has a bias in favor of being with the frontrunner at a particular moment in time,” the Washington Post’ Dana Milbank told MSNBC. Milbank said Obama’s historic candidacy and the enthusiasm around his campaign contributes to the media attention.

“There is a perception right or wrong right now in the media that Obama is in a very solid position so the network anchors believe they are heading overseas with the next president,” Milbank said.

Posted:
07/19/08 at
03:26 AM

Chagrined : Senator Obama excites the world as John Kennedy did as refreshing, cerebral, honest and someone who can restore America's credibility, security and standing in t he world. Obama is different from George Bush who is visceral, shrill, uninformed, someone who projects a "cow boy image" ( I apologize to cow boys.), who has diminished America's credibility, security and standing in the world. Of course, Bush has been guided by insidious neocons who have betrayed the American people and killed, tortured and humiliated the Iraqi people. Chagrined

Posted:
07/19/08 at
11:12 PM

Lowell H : Isn't it great that when we have an opportunity to show the non-democratic world how democracy really works, our major news anchors accompany the "anointed" one on an overseas jaunt as though they are in fact co-managers of his campaign. He hasn't been elected yet folks but you sure as hell can't tell that by his press entourage. If I were McCain, I would be livid and I think most of us in this country should be insulted that the press talking heads have already elected the "anointed" one to our highest political office. Unless you are completely devoid of intelligence, you have had ample opportunity to observe the preferential treatment bestowed on Obama by the 'heads'. This was even embarrassingly apparent during debates with Hilary - so much so that it made me ashamed to be a democrat. It hasn't stopped, -- only increased in intensity as though the American people are such fools that they will blindly follow 'the heads' lead. I am compelled to insert an entry about the 'fourth estate' which I think many in the media have completely forgotten (or otherwise ignored): "From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia The term Fourth Estate refers to the press, both in its explicit capacity of advocacy and in its implicit ability to frame political issues. The term goes back at least to Thomas Carlyle in the first half of the 19th century. Novelist Jeffrey Archer in his work The Fourth Estate made the observation: "In May 1789, Louis XVI summoned to Versailles a full meeting of the 'Estate General'. The First Estate consisted of three hundred clergy. The Second Estate, three hundred nobles. The Third Estate, six hundred commoners. Some years later, after the French Revolution, Edmund Burke, looking up at the Press Gallery of the House of Commons, said, 'Yonder sits the Fourth Estate, and they are more important than them all.'" I'm hoping that you noted the advocacy responsibility. It cannot be a democracy if the fourth estate rules - even if from the shadows. When the members of the press at large fail in their advocacy for the people at large, democracy is in a serious bind and will be administered however by the privileged few.

Posted:
07/20/08 at
07:55 AM

Vegas : McCain should lighten up. Because Obama's getting so much coverage, it's even covering up all the flip flops and mistakes McCain makes 2 or 3 times per day. I hope Obama wins.

Posted:
07/21/08 at
01:32 AM

CynPro : I want to see Senator Obama's trip overseas, but virtually nothing is being broadcast on broadcast TV news channels. Is there a news blackout?

Posted:
08/ 7/08 at
06:41 AM

Kenneth J. Robinson : What is going on here?Paris Hilton,Britney Spears? Is this what politics has come to within the Republican Party?No Black faces on the dollar? You'd spend it if Santa Claus was on it.Crispus Attucks was the first man Black or White to die in the American Revolution during the Boston Massacre and his face is not even on a food stamp. George Washington Caver damn did more for the peanut than GOD did and his face is not on a jar of peanutbutter,but if it was and it taste good you'd eat it anyway Paul Dunbar Drew the father of plasma and the safe blood transfusion is not on one bag of blood or plasma,but like I told a Caucasian guy in Vietnam do you really care where the blood came from when it comes to saving your life? I'm O-NEG the Universal blood type,I'm of ethnic origin and not suppose to have that blood type. Lincoln never really fought or died in any WAR yet there is a monument big as all get out, in Washington DC. There are no statues of Crispus Attucks anywhere.Drew has a few schools named after him.So what is the big Hullabaloo over?Have we really become as a society as shallow as a mud-puddle? They killed King because he spoke out on Vietnam. They killed the Kennedy brothers because they had an inclusive vision for the nation.They killed Malcolm-X because he learned the truth that Muslim come in more colors than Black,after his visit to Mecca.You can't kill the truth only the carrier of it. The truth remains the truth no matter who's carring it. And the truth is we all need a change from the usual BS that has been going on in this country for centuries now. While we have been tripping on the face race, the wealthy have been getting richer on the space race (Land Aquisition) I'm not talking about going to another planet ,but another precentage rise in the stock market. Politicians and their wealthy chronnies,start and profit from WARS poor people no matter what their color fight and die in them, and the BAND PLAYS ON.


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