President-Elect Obama's Agenda

While the election may be over, the media attention to it has not completely died out, but has merely shifted over to Barack Obama establishing his administration, especially the steps he must take to address the economy even before taking the oath of office. The Washington Post had several good articles about Obama’s plans

-This article effectively showed Obama’s stance on a critical issue, and indicated how he is using the days between his election and his inauguration to combat the economic problems.

-This article was an informative exploration into Obama’s views and the reactions to them from people in the military. As Afghanistan is once again assuming national importance, Obama’s plan will have important consequences for the region.

-This article appropriately analyzes how much good Obama can do once in office by examining the limits of a president’s influence, how much has changed and what challenges Obama will face, rather than exulting over Obama’s election as a young, black or Democratic president.

For the Huffington Post, this article effectively shows the details of Obama’s plans once he comes into office, including the various provisions, helping to spark informed debate about it and the main issue of whom Obama will choose for his administration. This was a pleasant example of substantial and informative reporting on their part. FOX News’ Bill O’Reilly wasted no time in smearing Obama. In his November 11 edition of Talking Points, he brought up the issue of illegal immigration, slamming Obama and New York Times for granting illegal immigrants amnesty, and contrasted his position with his proposal that “reasonable” people should accept. It also mentioned that thousands of US citizens have been killed by illegal aliens, and that they will be The First Presidential Problem segment has some conservative undertones, such as when Stephen Moore mentions that the economic problems of the 1970s that Reagan fixed were worse than today’s (an unspoken favoring of an instance of Republican president cleaning up problems from a Democratic predecessor over one that is the other way around), the host’s description of taxes as unpalatable, and the suggestion to rein in government spending.

The excitement may have subsided somewhat after the election, but reporting on the rise of president-elect Obama is comparably important. He has gone from promising changes to inform the voters of what he will do if elected to revealing what changes he hopes to make into law, but it remains to be seen how and if those promises will be fulfilled. These plans will become important in the months and years to come, and the media outlets should do all they can to educate the public on them, just as they should have done what they could to help the public understand his platform during the election.