Journalists Predict Scrutiny of McCain...Some Day (FAIR Media Advisory)

The conclusion of an interesting article:

...It's unusual to hear reporters admitting that a prominent politician and presidential candidate is saying and doing things that deserve scrutiny, but they haven't gotten around to giving his words or deeds any attention.

It is true that McCain's recent activities cry out for media coverage. On April 18, McCain released his own tax returns , showing that he has next to no assets in his own name, while keeping his wife's sizable fortune private--a tactic that attracted intensely skeptical coverage when Sen. John Kerry tried it in 2004 (New York Times, 5/9/04). Or consider McCain's comment that a bridge collapse last year in Minneapolis was a result of earmark spending in Washington--a claim the alleged Straight Talker promptly withdrew (L.A. Times, 5/2/08). Or McCain's assurance that his energy policy "will prevent us from having ever to send our young men and women into conflict again in the Middle East"--a phrasing that implies that all Mideast wars the U.S. has been involved in are essentially about oil, although McCain later claimed that he was only referring to the 1991 Gulf War (AP, 5/2/08).

Journalism, of course, is supposed to hold politicians to account--not some day, but every day. Putting off scrutiny of John McCain until some imagined future moment is really giving him a free pass in the present--and that's a journalistic problem that deserves some self-scrutiny.

only hack writers who do their master's bidding about distorting (or ignoring) the news.

out of wet paper bags :(