Wednesday, June 4, 2008

Sexism In The Media Coverage of this Campaign

Sadly, up until now, Clinton supporters have done a poor job of pointing out specific instances of gender bias in the media coverage of this historic campaign. Even as an Obama supporter, I saw comments made by pundits that were clearly beyond the pale that somehow went unchallenged. However, the Women's Media Center has done a SUPERB job of creating a video montage that pieces together some of the most offensive comments made by some of the more thoughtless pundits out there (this whole 'comment first, think later' trend in punditry has to be killed at the stake).

As an Obama supporter, I thought that MSNBC's decision to have an all-white male cast of commentators (with the exception of a brief comment from Harold Ford) cover yesterday's historic June 3 Obama "victory" speech and Clinton "(non-)concession" speech was an amazingly thoughtless editorial decision. The first African-American candidate to secure a major party presidential nomination and the first woman to lose a high profile race for the same position and reaction to the night culminating these events is covered by four white men? Absurd.

In any case, as the father of a beautiful young girl, this state of affairs worries me deeply.

If this concerns you, please sign the WMC petition on this issue and link/forward this blog entry to anyone you think would be concerned.

1 comment:

Ron Brown pka RBi said...

this was interesting, it's always funny to see how often these things are said and how ridiculous people can be when they feel like they hold all the power