Eric Alterman explains the corporate media treatment of Edwards

the liberal media by Eric Alterman - The Nation 10/1/07

"For the people who cover them for a living, elections are not about issues or evidence or even truth; they are about the narrative.

Each year's election narrative is determined by the bigfoot correspondents and the top tier of the punditocracy and then reinforced by everyone else...It is determined in places like Time, Newsweek, the New York Times and the Washington Post. To get an idea of how the process works, take a look at the coverage of John Edwards's campaign. In an alleged news story, "Edwards Talks Tough on Hedge Funds," Times reporter Leslie Wayne observed, "Mr. Edwards has made poverty his signature issue, a topic that stands in sharp contrast to his own $30 million net worth." Wayne and her editors apparently think there's a "sharp contrast" between a man being wealthy and his expressing concern for the poor. It's a constant theme of the Edwards coverage.

The unmistakable implication is that poor people have no right to representation in our society.

Then there are the haircuts. You won't be surprised to hear that the fact that John Edwards got a couple of expensive haircuts has generated, according to Lexis/Nexis, about a thousand "news" stories. I can't say I've read many of them, but I'd be amazed if any proved more ridiculous than the 1,220-word "investigation" by the Post's John Solomon, who notes, "It is some kind of commentary on the state of American politics that as Edwards has campaigned, his hair seems to have attracted as much attention as his position on health care"...Perhaps a 1,220-word investigation of a haircut might be part of the problem.

If the point of the stories about Edwards's wealth is to delegitimize his arguments on behalf of the poor, the haircut obsession is designed to feminize the candidate and thereby undermine his credentials as macho-man for President--which are those deemed to be the most important by the media. Ann Coulter calls him a "faggot." Maureen Dowd, Chris Matthews and Joe Scarborough, among many others, use the term "Breck Girl." The wording is more polite, but the effect is the same.

http://www.thenation.com/doc/20071001/alterman

The Wall Street-controlled media tolerates no candidate who addresses the grotesque economic inequality in post-Reagan America. The last thing they will permit is an Eisenhower tax structure!

Who else is going to represent the poor in today's big-money political climate, but the rich?

so they're going to call him a phony.

Because why would a rich person care for the poor unless they were a phony? /sarc

Not even the "poor" so much...but LABOR. He's rich because he won for labor. As opposed to George who is rich because he used eminent domain to steal private land.

:bounce:

I support John Edwards because I think he cares about people and America.

It's all about sound bites and ratings.

And I don't think just Edwards has been their victim.