I will pay good money to see someone with some video editing skills (Ryan?) put Charles Gibson’s Sarah Palin interview(s) up against his interviews of Barack Obama and John Edwards. Particularly, I am interested in seeing all three interviews mashed together, so that we can compare every question Gibson posed to the candidates.
Some have already compared transcripts. For example, Newsbusters contrasted Gibson’s interview of Palin this week to his interview of a comparably experienced John Edwards in 2004, Gibson Didn’t Pound Edwards in 2004; Asked Him If GOP Attacks Made Him Mad:
As Charles Gibson interviewed young vice-presidential nominee Sarah Palin, some might wonder: did Gibson (then a co-host of Good Morning America) throw tough foreign-policy questions at John Edwards in 2004, since he had only four and a half years experience in public office? No.
Gibson’s first John Edwards interview after he was nominated for vice president came on the September 2, 2004 Good Morning America, on the Thursday morning of the Republican convention in New York. Gibson didn’t ask any quiz questions about his readiness or about foreign policy. Instead, he asked six questions about how the Democrats would respond [to GOP attacks] Gibson merely asked Edwards how he felt about it, and then demanded to know: “You speak with such equanimity this morning. Didn’t they make you mad last night?” Edwards replied in part: “Oh, I thought they were over the top, completely over the top.” Gibson repeated: ” Did you get mad, though?” Follow the link to read the full transcript of the Gibson-Edwards interview.
Equally disturbing is the contrast between Gibson’s Sarah Palin interrogation and his leisurely chat with Barack Obama earlier this year. Again, I’d love all the video side-by-side. Right now, someone has summarized Gibson’s questions from the two interviews. See for yourself how they compare, Contrasting the Sarah Palin Interview with Charles Gibson’s Interview of Barack Obama:
…Obama was asked much easier questions mostly about feelings about winning, breaking the glass ceiling and 2008 campaign decisions. In contrast, Palin was asked numerous specific policy and military strategy questions that required extensive knowledge about treaties, U.S. anti-terrorism strategy and world history. And Gibson misquoted Palin… The following is a breakdown of the questions asked of the nominees:
How does it feel to break a glass ceiling?
How does it feel to “win”?
How does your family feel about your “winning” breaking a glass ceiling?
Who will be your VP?
Should you choose Hillary Clinton as VP?
Will you accept public finance?
What issues is your campaign about?
Will you visit Iraq?
Will you debate McCain at a town hall?
What did you think of your competitor’s [Clinton] speech?Palin interview [transcript]:
Do you have enough qualifications for the job you’re seeking? Specifically have you visited foreign countries and met foreign leaders?
Aren’t you conceited to be seeking this high level job?
Questions about foreign policy
-territorial integrity of Georgia
-allowing Georgia and Ukraine to be members of NATO
-NATO treaty
-Iranian nuclear threat
-what to do if Israel attacks Iran
-Al Qaeda motivations
-the Bush Doctrine
-attacking terrorists harbored by Pakistan
Is America fighting a holy war? [misquoted Palin]There’s no doubt the Charles Gibson interviews showed extreme prejudice against Palin and extreme favoritism towards Obama…He constantly questioned her ability to lead but never questioned Obama’s ability to lead, all the more amazing considering that Palin was the only one with executive experience and the presidency is the highest level executive job in politics.
See also Side by side Gibson questions and more.
Gibson did ask both Obama and Palin about a hypothetical Israel/Iran military conflict:
Gibson repeatedly asks Gov. Palin the same question, three times, as if her answer was flawed. In comparison, Gibson asked the exact same question to Obama, got nearly the exact same response, and quickly accepted and moved on.
I’d totally edit something…the trick is finding raw footage that isn’t already YouTube degraded.
I have to agree with the post though. I never watched the Edwards or Obama interviews but the thing that stood out to me more than anything was the condescending way in which he asked the questions. It was like he was this voice of reason that was trying to put Palin in her place. The interview was stiflingly condescending.
I’m looking forward to the Palin/Biden debate. And goodness, the McCain Obama debates? I think McCain is going to get a bump after each one.
Sure, Gibson’s politics are clearly on display which is an ethical issue for interviewers, I guess–but so what?
Shouldn’t Palin be able to answer those kind of questions (which I think she did fine)? Isn’t it fair to ask a potential president what she thinks about foreign policy?
Just becasue Gibson dropped the ball on Obama, doesn’t mean he is supposed to do the same on Palin. I think it’s good that he grilled her (if you want to call that a grilling)–apparently he realized what a journalist should do. My only request would be that he call up obama again and beg for a re-do.
Differing treatment in interviews compromises the fundamentals of disseminating information.
Why not talk about the “alleged” debate Gibson and his ABC pals conducted for the Democrats in which he spent half the time talking about Obama’s lack of a flag lapel pin or some other stupid thing? You’re cherry picking here…also, none of the Democrats you are attacking was thrust upon the American public as suddenly and with so little time before the election as Palin was. They were both known commodities, most of their views were well known, unlike Palin who was until a few weeks ago a virtual unknown. Get real!
The lapen pin that Obama couldn’t seem to decide what to do with or what to say what about?
Palin was selected as the Vice-Presidential running mate. Obama is running for President. Democrats don’t seem to notice a difference.
Democrats champion equal rights but deny McCain’s as an aging cancer survivor.
And no, Obama is not a known commodity. Questionable friends in the past all the way up til the present. Flip flopping on fundamental campaign promises of accepting public financing. How many “present” votes in Illinois?
Just because hes been on Time magazine and sat down for photo ops with foreign leaders more than Palin does not equate to much to most voters.
And by your standards, should Gibson have been talking about Palin’s glasses then? 🙂
its not just an issue of ethics when guys who run media outlets admit their bias creates a huge electoral advantage for the democrats.
hey, did you know john mccain owns several houses and cars? do you know he doesn’t use email? we would not know these shocking and highly relevant facts without the media’s help.
on the other hand, i would prefer journalists not to ask whether the man who wants to be president of my country is patriotic, or if he threw away his flag pin because the USA just embarrasses him all the time.
I see your angle, but I think it is still a question of pure ethics. Gibson’s little interview was violation of a journalistic code to ensure that there is some integrity and some presentataion of reality in the news. But it was NOT the moral violation that people want it to be.
Gibson does not owe some duty to us to provide any kind of balanced coverage–he can say whatever he wants and we can change the channel if we want. It’s nice that journalists at least have an ethical ideal of non-bias, but that is self-imposed. Gibson doesn’t owe us squat.
Or am I wrong and has All-encompassingly committed some kind of moral wrong by presenting a right-wing slant on nearly everything?
you’re way off.
the first newspapers in our country were created by the political parties. they were completely partisan and full of lies. at some point, most likely for marketing purposes when newspapers became big business, the trend was toward impartiality, so as to appeal to the widest possible audience. TV news developed in that environment. you had three channels, or however many (i wasn’t alive then, as you know, but that’s what i understand) so TV news basically was a monopoly. walter cronkite used to end his broadcasts with “and that’s the way it is” as if he were moses pronouncing god’s will for the evening.
my argument is not that journalists are not entitled to free speech while bloggers are. my argument is that certain media outlets (1) have so much power and influence, and (2) put on such an air of impartiality that it is improper for them to be so partisan.
for example, air america radio, all-encompassingly.com, FOX news, and MSNBC don’t have the same responsibility to be impartial that ABC, NBC, CBS, the New York Times, or NPR have.
the difference between the first and second groups, above, is that the first group have little to none of (1) and (2). the second group has lots of (1) and tons of (2).
That’s an interesting thought. I had never thought to insert into the constitution that it only applies to people with “little to none of (1) and (2).”
But assuming that I am correct in agreeing with every serious legal scholar in the country–that the constitution actually applies to people that happen to have money and/or influence–then the brief history of newspaper marketing purposes is irrelevant. So, in such a case, Gibson has no duty to the audience, in terms of journalistic standards,other than what he may impose on himself.
But, yes I agree completely that if we add the phrase “except someone who might have a large television audience” to the constitution, then Gibson’s actions were deplorable, and he should have asked Palin about her hair style.
yes, he does. these standards may not have originated with any formal pronouncement, but you can get it from the expectations the industry has created in its audience.
surely you’ve heard how important journalism is to democracy. when you hear people say that, do you think they mean that partisan journalism disguised as fair reporting is what is important to democracy?
you know, very few people actually pay attention to the news like you do. many, many, many people will vote for a president this fall having only seen or read or heard one or two news stories on the candidates. many people probably have no idea how differently sarah palin and john mccain are treated from barack obama and joe biden in the news. so if an individual encounters a report where mccain’s policy positions are pooh-poohed and obama’s policy positions are ogled, and said individual holds the justified belief that the news source will be impartial to both sides in reporting on the election, he or she may be led to the conclusion that obama is just better than mccain. you can see how this easily can influence votes, so it matters a lot.
this doesn’t have anything to do with the first amendment, but it does have something to do with an industry-wide trust with our democracy. here are some points from a liberal website that is concerned about media consolidation and the resulting bias. note how they talk about journalism and democracy. i disagree with your point about gibson, because i believe partisan hackery that masquerades as fair, neutral reporting is much more serious than just the regrettable personal choice of an individual journalist who leaves his ethics at the door.
i suppose my argument is, if we had the choice between the current system of stealth bias in supposedly non-partisan news sources and the old system of outright falsehoods that i described a couple of comments up, then i would prefer the latter. then, at least, everybody would know to view journalists’ reports with the proper amount of skepticism.
Are there any issues in play regarding government broadcast regulations through the FCC or something?
But I think Travis hit the nail on the head. Like I said earlier:
To claim to diseeminate information, but instead disseminate opinion or “news” through a tinted lens, is hypocritical and breaks the unwritten rules they wrote themselves.
Travis:
Maybe we disagree less on journalism than on the general public.
I agree that the biased new reports are irresponsible and can be damaging to the democratic process.
But I also am fairly confident that, while a good chunk of America is stupid, Americans as a whole are smart enough to know when they are being fed an agenda.
As media access increases, I think irresponsible journalism becomes less of a danger because we can always go to the next source. I’m not sure that means it is less incumbant on a journalist to be thorough in his research, and I certainly don’t mean it is an excuse for dishonesty, but I think even a major news source has a legitimate right to present things in the light they feel is best (I think this may not have been true when there were essentially monopolies on the news–but my first foray into journalistic history was reading your post).
I think it is more incumbant on the voter to get his facts right, and if the voter doesn’t care, then he gets what he deserves.
ok, but your view of the news industry negates 90% of the reason people read newspapers: to get facts.
if i am reading a news story, i don’t want to have to read a half-dozen news stories to make sure i’m being told the truth. i want to read one news story.
since gwen ifill’s apparent conflict of interest is in the news today, i’ll concede that her decision to host the debate despite her vested financial interest (book deal) in an obama victory is a decision she is free to make, and she is not breaking any ethical or journalistic rule simply by moderating a debate when she cares who wins. it would only become an issue if she actually was unfair or partial in the debate.
but now that i’ve conceded that, let me reiterate my point about impartiality, neutrality, and objectivity being a standard tenet of the news industry, let me quote PBS and their statement on editorial standards.
the following snippet from PBS’ editorial standards statement goes to my point two, above, that differentiates certain fox and msnbc programs from NPR, ABC, CBS, and NBC programs:
requiring reporters to be objective does not limit their free speech. they can always go write any opinion column they want, or quit their jobs and drive around the country spray painting “george bush sucks balls” on every overpass they see. but there are certain places in our society where clamoring for “free speech” to be honored and respected is just silly. i wouldn’t want to wake up from major surgery to my doctor telling me, “well, i almost cut out that cancerous lump, but i decided to exercise my free speech rights and spend my time drawing peace signs on your internal organs.” likewise, i don’t want a journalist to put a slant on what is supposed to be objective news, then claim safe harbor in his right to express himself. its really just a non sequitur.
And here is a reason why…
We never heard, saw or knew anything about Ms. Palin. We have had so many grilling interviews of Mr.Obama. We saw Obama talk to Bill O’Reilly and Katie Coric.. those were not cake walks. So Ms. Palin really had to convince not only the media persons but the regular people she was the right person, it is not sufficient to just do a song and dance type of performance to be a VP pic.
If anyone can point me to the links of complete footage of all three videos, I’d be happy to mash them together for review.
I agree this seemed like Palin got sand bagged compared to the questions that Obama was asked. Wonder if it would have helped if she had been on Newsweek 16 times with one of the headlines being, “The next vice president?”