These days you can't turn on a news channel without hearing about how far Obama's sleeves were rolled up today or which candidate Sarah Palin's glasses designer is supporting (Obama!). It seems every election year news channels focus more on candidate performance than the issues. If we want to gain any sense of what the election is actually about (issues, duh), we often have to go to the candidates themselves, listening to speeches word for word and examining the "issues" page on their web sites.
The 24 hour news channel isn't innocent in the petty coverage department. This week Obama was in New Mexico and Florida on the campaign trail, talking about the economy as well as rallying the woman vote. CNN provided minimal details of Obama's speeches via sound byte (TV) and quotes (online). Although www.cnn.com/live has live streaming video of candidate speeches (and other less important stuff) that's pretty convenient.
Anyways, instead of outlining Obama's plans for satisfying women's needs such as improving the education system, stabilizing social security, and upholding the woman's right to choose, CNN found Obama's mention of Hillary Clinton and the old "18 million cracks in the glass ceiling" spiel one of the key points of his speech. That's newsworthy right? I mean we've only heard it about 500 times. In the past week.
Other than the brief web article about Obama's pitch to women, the politics page of the web site has this main headline: "Poll of polls: Obama has advantage in key state". See what I mean about performance coverage?
Seeing as how CNN has 24 hours of news to fill you'd think they'd suck every last minute detail (like the issues) out of each campaign and make it known. I guess they'd rather repeat Anderson Cooper 360 twice in four hours. Time and money, I suppose.
The Grade: C+ CNN tried to give it's viewers what they want, but the coverage wasn't all there. Give us the issues! We can handle it.
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