Cue the world's smallest violin
February 07, 2009 11:12 am ET by Eric Boehlert
The casual contempt for Obama--an unheard of phenomenon for the press eight years ago when Bush arrived in the Beltway--has already become impossible for many within the media industry to hide. Specifically the WaPo Lisa de Moraes and her unnamed television industry "suits" quoted her news article, "Obama's Preemptive Strike."
The premise is pretty simple: Obama may address the nation three times in primetime during the month of February. The Post's television writer treats this as a really big deal and inserts a how-dare-he attitude, as she wrings her hands wondering how many millions of dollars the networks might "lose" by, you know, handing over the public airwaves for relatively small blocks of time to the POTUS so he can address a national crisis.
"President Obama's desire to talk -- and talk, and talk -- to the American public could cost broadcast networks millions, and millions, and millions of prime-time TV dollars," wrote de Moraes. And yeah, good luck uncovering that kind of contempt when Bush addressed the nation in 2001 on network TV, even before the 9/11 attacks. The idea that it's newsworthy or unusual or a crisis for the TV networks when a president uses the public airwaves to address the nation is just absurd.
So is the Post's claim that the networks might "lose" money because of Obama. The Post writer makes the claim again and again and again. Does de Moraes really think every time the POTUS asks for primetime that networks just start writing checks to advertisers to cover the cost of missed ads? Has she never heard of make-goods? Combined, the networks control more than one hundred hours of primetime programming each week. Obviously, they can make-up a handful of lost ad slots because of Obama's primetime address, just as networks have done for decades.
And then there are the bitter, nameless TV execs quoted in the article. (Ungrateful suits whose networks have made billions using the public airwaves free of charge.) The unvarnished disdain for Obama and the contempt for public discourse expressed is just astounding:
"Do people really want to come home after looking for a job, or after being at a job they hate, sit down to veg out in front of their favorite show -- and he's on again?" said one TV suit, who suspects/hopes the Average Joe's reaction to too much Obamavision might be "nothing he's going to say is going to help me get a job, or put food on the table."
Oh, good grief. You know, MMFA is going to be very busy the next 4 years uncovering the double standard that was evidence from the Clinton years to the Bush years now again to a Dem administration.
The Beltway press has no desire to ever hold feet to the fire of GOP admins. Only Dems. Again.
And now it is going to be even worse this time around because the MSM feels pressure from Limbaugh to not have positive news coverage of Obama and to make up for the negative press given to Bush since 2005.
The networks cherish their air time so much that they'll pee more of it in the sewer via their ludicrously unqualified "analysts" after Obama's speech.
Exactly. How many people watched the inauguration in the middle of the day - tens of millions at least! Obama is ratings gold. These hacks should be happy theiy're not in LA.
It's been stated often recently, but the morbid pundits of DC really are threatened by Obama. The Gregorys and Broders are overtiming their concern trolling.
Of course if this works out and they successfully undermine him, then the meme will be how did this mighty one fall so far so fast? What were we thinking when we let this guy in? Venomous lizard people, all of them.