News Roundup, 5/1/08: The Media Misses The Point. Again.

We've got a veritable smorgasbord of news from yesterday, but I want to lead off with Senator Clinton's appearance on O'Reilly — where the loser in the showdown was the American media.

Why do I say that? Well, you can find plenty of coverage about 37 seconds that Clinton and O'Reilly spent talking about Reverend Wright, and just about nothing else about the interview. (One of those links is from Fox News itself, in fact.) NPR is the only coverage I can find that actually addresses the interview on the whole.

I suppose it's predictable that nearly fifteen minutes worth of interview would be culled to 37 seconds of sensationalism. But it just so happens that the real story here — the one that everyone's failing to report — is that Clinton held a ten-minute lesson on How To Talk To A Soft Republican 101.

I know, I know: it's not good television when a candidate stays on message and successfully defuses loaded questions with aplomb. But she had Bill O'Reilly saying that he would be willing to pay for the health insurance of a family that couldn't afford it — that's got to be worth a few Nielsen points. Heck, my jaw was on the floor when I heard that.

But don't take my word for it: judge for yourself. After wading through the Fox News site long enough to have to change my galoshes twice, we have here on the Blue something that you'll be hard pressed to find anywhere else on the Internet outside of a poorly advertised link on Fox News itself: both parts of the four-part Clinton interview that aired yesterday in their entirety.

We will follow up with the two remaining parts later today, after they air.

O'Reilly has been doing a "heckuva job" lately garnering attention. Not only did he have Clinton on his show, but shortly before that he got the attention about just about the entire liberal blog community when he had Warren Ballentine on his show and told him that "we didn't invade Iraq." Because if you haven't been keeping track, we're at war with Eastasia, not Iran — er, I mean Eurasia.

McCain's media coverage as of late has been comparatively sparse when put alongside the two Democratic candidates. I guess when your health care plan is basically identical to George W. Bush's, and you don't have a real plan for helping renew an economy that's taking down some of the cornerstones of the American industrial sector, there's not much to talk about. But hey — at least Fred Thompson's campaigning with him now! Who says there are no silver linings?

But advocacy group Progressive Media USA is not satisfied with McCain's getting little coverage. They've launched McCain Source, a fact-check and accountability site directed at McCain and his media coverage.

In the meanwhile, Democrats continue fighting the good fight, whether it be in supporting our troops by assuring that they have decent living conditions or cleaning house to end the endless stream of sweetheart deals and no-bid contracts coming out of the Bush White House.

Finally yesterday, State Senator Kirk Watson spoke to the Austin Chronicle about his hope that the appointment of his former chief of staff, Deirdre Delisi, to a spot on the Texas Transportation Commission will help the organization move away from its "us versus them mentality."