2008 Media Sexism, Cont.
posted by on June 13 at 10:15 AM
Today the debate over sexism in political coverage hits the front page of the New York Times, where the paper of record finds relatively little support in the elite media world for the idea that Hillary Clinton was a victim of overwhelming media misogyny.
Angered by what they consider sexist news coverage of Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton’s bid for the Democratic presidential nomination, many women and erstwhile Clinton supporters are proposing boycotts of the cable networks, putting up videos on a “Media Hall of Shame,” starting a national conversation about sexism and pushing Mrs. Clinton’s rival, Senator Barack Obama, to address the matter.But many in the news media — with a few exceptions, including Katie Couric, the anchor of the “CBS Evening News” — see little need for reconsidering their coverage or changing their approach going forward. Rather, they say, as the Clinton campaign fell behind, it exploited a few glaring examples of sexist coverage to whip up a backlash and to try to create momentum for Mrs. Clinton.
Phil Griffin, senior vice president of NBC News and the executive in charge of MSNBC, a particular target of criticism, said that although a few mistakes had been made, that they had been corrected quickly and that the network’s overall coverage was fair.
“I get it, that in this 24-hour media world, you’ve got to be on your game and there’s very little room for mistakes,” Mr. Griffin said. “But the Clinton campaign saw an opportunity to use it for their advantage. They were trying to rally a certain demographic, and women were behind it.”
I’ll leave it to others to choose sides in this—ready, set, comment!—but here’s something from the article that I found interesting on a slightly different level. The article notes that much of the criticized coverage was on cable television and in blogs, and then goes on to place those two forces in the context of their audiences:
The cable networks do not reach as many viewers as the broadcast networks — 2.6 million per night for prime-time news programs on cable compared with 23 million for broadcast — but their coverage runs in a continuous loop, is amplified by the Internet and is seen by many people involved in politics.“Largely, the problem was on cable and in the blogosphere and on the Internet, and that’s a relatively small audience,” said Kathleen Hall Jamieson, director of the Annenberg Public Policy Center at the University of Pennsylvania. “But while it was limited, it was limited to influential people.”
It’s easy to forget, and humbling to remember, that the blogosphere-cable axis of political outrage does not have infinite reach, and is instead a self-contained and self-selected world of people who read blogs, watch cable, and actually care about what’s being said in those realms. (A world that, if studies of political junkies and blog obsessives can be believed, is largely male.)
That said, as Jamieson of the Public Policy Center notes, the people in this axis of outrage do tend to either be important opinion leaders or, more often, people under the delusion that their opinions matter—which results, in either case, in a kind of cultural chatter that leaks far beyond the realm of blog addicts and cable junkies.
The virulent misogyny of the Sloggers in this comments section is just too much! I am simply shocked - shocked! - to find that rude things will sometimes be said about women by anonymous Internet users. Before I could be oblivious to the sheer, virulent hatred that every man has for every woman in society, but no longer. This post has now inspired me to go join a lesbian separatist commune.
I really thought it said, "Media, Sexism, Cunt." at the top there.
Obviously any claims of bias &etc. were just part of the Clinton conspiracy and, in particular, Hillary's plan to DESTROY THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY. Now that Hillary has self-immolated and party has been destroyed let's just move on and let the academics pick over the bones.
And, oh, I'm not under any delusions. My opinions do matter. Yours do too. Really. (I'm important. You're important.)
Again, I say that MSM are a bunch of sensationalist blowhards and don't represent mainstream opinion or sensibilities about gender.
Those voting based on race voted overwhelmingly for Clinton. Those voting based on gender also voted overwhelmingly for Clinton.
Just sayin'.
99% of it was something chris matthews said. the other 1% was some guy on fox news saying that when hillary speaks, men hear their wives telling them to take out the trash.
Digging up the videos that showed her repeated Bosnia story was complete fabricated bullshit -- or her claim that she never supported NAFTA -- etc. -- these were new lows in the war against women.
Women should have the freedom to lie and not be attacked with the truth, dammit. If we didn't live under a patriarchy it would be possible.
There were sexist comments about Clinton all along the way, and while I don't think they had any impact on the race, I do think that it is completely unacceptable. When some one lies you call them a liar, not a ball-buster! There was virtually no outrage in the media - which generally loves outrage - regarding sexist comments. And now, the common thread is, the comments had nothing to do with Clinton losing - so what? Why would that make them alright?
#7, "And now, the common thread is, the comments had nothing to do with Clinton losing - so what? Why would that make them alright?"
I don't think it's alright and agree that sexism is more acceptable in the mainstream than racism.
On the other hand, while I think the Clinton/Obama match up was a good illustration of the disparity, I also feel like bringing up the argument in that context has an underlying implication that the sexism somehow hurt Hillary. By all indications, though, she was actually helped more by 'reverse sexism' (identity politics) than she was hurt by traditional male sexism.
While I think its valuable for society to reflect on the relative acceptability of sexism vs. racism, a more important metric to me is the actual harm that has been done by each. Sexism in this race, while prevalent, turned out to be a lot of hot air. Racism actually turned out to be quite damaging to Obama's chances.
If a black man and a white woman interview for a job, and the interviewers are both mildly sexist and racist. The interviewers might openly make sexist jokes and sentiments but might hold back on racist jokes and sentiments, because sexism isless taboo than racism. But if the interviewers ultimately hire the white woman because they are racist against the black man, which deserves more attention? That sexist jokes were made, or that the black man didn't get the job?
Read the article.
She-devil = Matthews.
Makes me want to cross my legs = Tucker Carlson.
Looks like your ex wife outside of divorce court - Mike Barnicle.
When you get three lead personalities saying things like that it is refelctive of overall coverage. For example, after Obama started losing they never, ever focused on how his original claim of being more electable was wrong.
Obama used the yardstick "most delegates, most votes, most states" over and over. WTF, who counts no. of states? This was accepted as normal, a fine way to argue to superdelegates.
But then when HRC started using the "most votes" metric they compalined over and over and over that that was cheating a nd she was moving the goalposts.
They said over and over, like many here did, that she had agreed in a signed letter that MI wouldn't count -- not true.
She tried to use an ECV vote metric, what's wrong with that, if no. of states won is an arguable metric why not no. of ECV of the states you won and they laughed and laughed at that laughable desperate attempt to come up with any argument, etc.
Then when someone said Obama benefits from his race that was derided; the same people then glow with something I agree with: it's great htat he's black and this will help us domestically and abroad. But you can't have it both ways.
They smashed her for trying to woo superdelegates as they are intended to function. In the end, OBama wooed them better and the popular vote was so close no one said, gee, if they all follow their state, who wins? Instead they all chose Obama because they liked him more. Fine. But this was inconsistent with attacking HRC for trying to say it's okay to woo superdelegates to not vote the way the opular vote went.
There was lots of bias. Some of it was sexist and some of it was just bias. It wasn't the major factor why she lost --- she failed to do anythign in caucus states -- but it played a significant role and in the end it was so close that without this bias she indeed may have won. You can't say.
What you can say is it's not ridiculous to bring it up & it is ridiculous bias to squelch it by shifting the subject to the Boston Celtics the way Barnicle did on MSNBC this morning when Mika tried to confront him on it. He just bullied his way right out of the whole discussion. IE his comment that Hillary looked like your old wife in divorce court.
What a bunch of jocks. Didn't like them in high school, still don't like them.
PS: Tim Russert dead??
PC, the point was that Clinton only won the "popular vote" using a very tortured method of counting.
The reason no one is speaking about the sexism is that they would lose their jobs or be seen as a troublemaker or not 'on the team'. They would also have to do something about it.
Sexism is a hugely powerful, self-propelling part of the status quo that too many people (men and women) benefit from to change.
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