Kucinich...Who's He?

With the election coming up in the near future and presidential hopefuls joining the race almost every day, it is time to start looking at the candidates. At this stage in the game, that isn't very hard to do. The candidates are already getting prime media coverage, some even before they have announced their entry into the race. Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton especially are at the focus of the coverage, leaving the American people to assume that they are the only two Democratic candidates worth noticing. In fact, this seems to be exactly the attitude that news stations and reporters have embraced. Take Democratic candidate Dennis Kucinich, for example...yes, he is running again. But has he received any air time? All the press and publicity go to Obama and Clinton, and the media simply pay him no attention.

An interesting interview by OTM (On the Media) talks with both Kucinich and his former communications director Jeff Cohen about how the media treated Kucinich in the 2004 election and how their opinions of him appear unaltered since then. According to the two, the reporters covering the election allowed their own opinions of the candidates to dominate their coverage and their very public attitudes about Kucinich. As Cohen stated, "I think that the reasons have to do with elitism on the part of the press corps, that they're too important to be mere reporters. They're too important to report what happened on the campaign trail that day. They're wise men. They're pundits. They're analysts. [They] know better for the American people who's the serious candidate and who isn't (OTM)."

Personally, I had never thought of this idea before, that the reporters themselves had adopted a self-fulfilling prophecy to name in advance who the worthwhile candidates were and ignore those they felt were substandard. After listening to this interview, however, Cohen and Kucinich make noteworthy arguments, and they leave the listeners questioning the trustworthy, dependable reporters they have listened to for so long. This reminds me of the episode of Crossfire where Jon Stewart appeared and hounded the show's hosts for hurting America by playing into the candidates' campaign strategies. As Cohen says in the interview, "It's my attitude that if they don't want to be political reporters covering the different policies and proposals of the candidates, go into something else (OTM)." I think he's right. What do you think?



For more interesting interviews and articles about the media, go to the On the Media website.