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The late Jerome Holtzman, a sports writing institution in Chicago, wrote a book 35 years ago called No Cheering in the Press Box.
It's still true. Up in the press box, partisan rooting is not tolerated. It will get the reporter tossed, credentials stripped. I've seen this happen to a local TV broadcaster in Toronto who whoop-whooped a Leaf goal during a playoff game.
The irony is that sports scribes – often belittled for working in the "toy department" – could teach their tall forehead colleagues a thing or two about professional conduct and impartiality.
I was in the press tent in Chicago on election night, with some hundred other journalists whose news organizations had ponied up large for a tabled seat at Grant Park. These were all veteran reporters, including the "travelling media" posse – embeds – who had accompanied Barack Obama throughout the campaign.
At 10 p.m. on Tuesday, Wolf Blitzer appeared on the giant television screen to announce Obama had won the U.S. presidency, as projected by CNN, which was hardly a risky declaration with several big swing states already in the bag.
Huge cheers erupted, squeals of delight, and some reporters high-fived.
I was stunned. Not at the victory, of course, but that top-drawer journalists would so lose their arm's-length professional detachment from events.
Reporters are people too. They feel things. Arguably, they should feel these things more than most in order to evoke the moment in their work.
But this spectacle did rather put the lie to heated and defensive denials of slanted, pro-Obama media sympathies during the election. Or should it be granted that privately held views, which we all have, are firmly suppressed in objective dispatches from the front?
Columnists and commentators enjoy dispensation from basic rules of neutral reportage. They're in the opinion and analysis business. And, frankly, it's more honest to wear one's tilt on one's sleeve. What's dishonest is pretending there is no bias – and, for some news organizations, no political agenda – in the meat of the coverage.
In the last month of the campaign, Senator John McCain's camp complained bitterly about the easy ride Obama was receiving in the media, while the Republican candidate was daily autopsied for missteps and ostensible poor judgment.
There was certainly a perception of liberal bias in the press trenches, even though most big media is corporately conservative, including many papers that formally endorsed Obama.
Media monitoring agencies got in on the act, confirming a huge preponderance of generally approving stories for Obama versus negative stories about McCain. That's not necessarily biased. It reflected reality.
Obama ran a brilliant campaign with few glitches.
McCain lurched from one crisis to the next, repeatedly making "bad" news.
He and disastrous running mate Sarah Palin were largely the authors of their own misfortune.
But let's not be disingenuous. The Obama love-in did extend to the media and for obvious reasons.
He was eminently quotable, his massive rallies were colour-rich and the phenomenon of Obama was simply irresistible, the candidate more compelling than policy differences with McCain, although these were fully explored.
Also, no scoop here, most reporters are left-of-centre and innately anti-establishment. For the Washington press corps, dealing with this authoritarian administration over the past eight years cannot have been fun.
Obama had his first press conference yesterday – 12 minutes of puffery, the president-elect nicely calling for a question from the local Chicago guy, shifting smoothly from sombre on the economy to playful about the puppy promised his daughters. Malia is allergic, limiting breed options.
"Our preference would be to get a shelter dog. But a lot of shelter dogs are mutts, like me."
Good line, lapped up.
It will be interesting to see how quickly the Obama crush wears off.
http://www.thestar.com/News/USElection/article/533267
