Poynter: Obama’s press scolding on birtherism was totally unwarranted
President Obama used his press briefing today to scold the press for spending too much time focusing on the birth certificate issue. But according to Poynter, there has been no press obsession with the question at all (a fact that has been obvious to everyone outside the White House for some time, by the way).
For the week of April 11-17, the economy accounted for 39 percent of news coverage.
That same week, Donald Trump’s revival of citizenship questions accounted for ‘much of the attention directly on the Obama administration, at 4% of the newshole,’ PEJ reports.
Last week, Trump did receive more media attention, according to PEJ’s index. The 2012 election accounted for 8 percent of the newshole, making it the third biggest story, with 3 percent of the newshole specifically focused on Obama, primarily the question of where he was born.
Some of that coverage was related to Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer’s veto of a bill that would have required presidential candidates to provide proof of birth.
So…Donald Trump was a rising story, but the birth certificate itself, not so much. It’s tempting to speculate that Obama used today’s release to make the birth certificate a bigger story, to distract from the story that the press has spent 39% of its time covering: Namely, the economy.
Just a few things:
• Trump wasn’t a story except for the birth certificate thing, so your point that Trump was a rising story but the Cert was not is completely off base. How many stories mentioned Trump but neglected to, by default, promote the birther myth?
• Obama was right to scold the press for spending too much time covering the birther myth because ANY time spent covering the birther myth is too much time.
• Your point about a tempting speculation that Obama used this opportunity to divert attention away from the economy is illogical and erroneous at best given that in his remarks Obama specifically referenced the debt and deficit, and spoke directly to larger problems at stake. So how on Earth is it a tempting speculation to say that by tacitly talking about the economy Obama is trying to divert attention away from it? What a ridiculous concept.
• This story comes off no differently than the crazy birthers who look the evidence in the face, and then draw a conclusion that the evidence itself directly refutes. It’s unfortunate.
After being forced to break the Fed’s 97 years of press stonewalling today, I for one am pleased that the President chose this morning to create a scene and address the pressing issue of his birth. Now everyone will be talking about more important issues today. Well played, sir!
Go check the Poynter stats. The president spent his presser today scolding the press for something the stats say isn’t true.
And Trump is a story all by himself. If you look at the coverage of him, it’s not all birther stuff, not here or anywhere else. He has weighed in on China, Libya, the economy, himself, himself, and himself, and the birther stuff. I looked at him from a policy perspective and concluded he’d be a disappointment. The notion that he wasn’t a story except for the birther stuff is ludicrous.
If the first time Trump opened his mouth was about Libya, would anyone have cared? Absolutely not. It would have been a non-story. It’s only because of the birther craziness that anyone even paid attention to him on anything political. Therefore any Trump story is necessarily a birther story. I’m not going to say that every single ounce of Trump coverage (Trumperage? Can we make that a word?) is re: the birther issue. But because of the volume that was, and the reason that anyone actually paid attention to him in the last month was because of the birther thing it means that Trump coverage is birther coverage. I haven’t seen a whole lot that hasn’t even at least mentioned the birther stuff in passing anyway.
Obama ended the primary birther hysteria because, after two weeks into the “War on Ryan” campaign, he hadn’t made a noticeable dent in audience appreciation. What was worse was that his own minions in the media were working against his new campaign while they prolonged the “birther” saga with their attempts to embarrass various Republicans.
Instead of making Ryan and his budget the primary point of the current media narrative, the “birther” saga was letting other news, like high energy prices, slip into the news.
Meanwhile, various independents were showing there were susceptible to the “birther” doubts, while seniors were the group who now most embraced the Ryan budget. It was like Obama was invisible, a narcissistic death sentence.