Contrasting the Washington Post, Fox News and the Huffington Post on Obama's Infomercial

For this post, I have decided to examine all three outlets' treatment of a single story- Obama's recent 30-minute infomercial. As I have seen in my study, the Washington Post presents a far more comprehensive and in-depth analysis than the other two, which often allow partisan bias to color their reporting.

The Washington Post analyzed Obama’s ad, and put it in the context of the current campaign. It effectively showed how much Obama spent, what went into the ad and what some of his other tactics were, providing a more comprehensive view of the campaign. It also provided Howard Kurtz’s fair, informative commentary.

-The Huffington post featured http://www.thrfeed.com/2008/10/obama-ad-rating.html this article about how many people watched the infomercial and a direct link to the infomercial itself, but showed little effort in critiquing the infomercial or getting any new opinions. It only emphasized how popular it was, which Fox News had mentioned in its report.

-Fox News brought up the ad, presenting its main talking points, and seeming to show the audience reacting approvingly. However, the presenter focused on the audience’s negative reaction to the speech, while suggesting that the undecideds liked Obama as a person, clearly casting Obama in a negative light by suggesting that the people who judged him on character were not focusing on what mattered. The completely unanimous negative evaluation of the infomercial, especially in light of Fox’s conservative bias, also makes me doubt the methodology behind selecting the “undecided” voters.

While the story was in and of itself relatively unimportant, it helped highlight the three outlets' approaches to the election. The differences signify that often, the hectic deadlines of the internet and radio potentially lead to less comprehensive journalism due to time constraints. Stories that focus on being the first instead of being the best may outpace the competition, but if they do not provide enough information, they do not do the voters any good.