The Colombia Journalism Review has posted a critique of the Detroit Free Press‘s coverage of John McCain’s visit to Michigan last week. A portion of the blog post reads:
“The Detroit Free Press lets Sen. McCain talk (lots) for himself in its coverage of his speech on the economy at Bayloff Stamped Products in Michigan yesterday.
Reading like a transcript of the exchange between McCain and his audience, it underscores the need for local media to challenge the candidates’ sound bytes and perform more of its own analysis, instead of leaving it in the hands of The Wall Street Journal or The Washington Post.
The only bit of analysis present in the Detroit Free Press piece is a paragraph on the gas tax holiday, which is old news. Oh, and a rather ridiculous line: “It wasn’t a given that McCain would get all the votes in the room.”
Unfortunately, this is a common problem with campaign journalism, both in Michigan and beyond. All too often, corporate news sources fail to question candidates and examine their policies, instead opting to simply repeat what the candidates said–a type of reporting that Mediamouse.org refers to as “stenography.”
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