World - Doing without the media

The media generally takes itself very seriously, especially in America. Which is why certain recent developments could have come as a bit of a shock to the US media. At a time when TV commercials are prohibitively expensive and televised interviews on major news-channels are regarded as a free opportunity for a US presidential candidate to make his case on why he should be elected, Republican nominee John McCain abruptly cancelled a scheduled September 2 appearance on “Larry King Live”.

And CNN’s Wolf Blitzer reported that the McCain campaign had complained that the network’s previous night’s grilling of its spokesperson on the lack of foreign-affairs experience of vice-presidential nominee Sarah Palin was “over the line”. On September 3, while addressing the Republican National Convention, Palin made it a point to tell the mainstream media that “I’m not a member of the permanent political establishment.

And I learnt quickly these past few days that if you’re not a member in good standing of the Washington establishment, then some in the media consider a candidate unqualified for that reason alone. But here’s a little news flash for those reporters and commentators. I’m not going to Washington to seek their good opinion. I’m going to Washington to serve the people of this great country.”

All of which does not seem to have hurt the McCain-Palin campaign, going by the fact that it has caught up with the Obama-Biden pair in the opinion polls. In fact, an earlier opinion poll had even indicated that the saturation coverage of the Democratic presidential nominee since the beginning of this year had resulted in some kind of “Obama fatigue” among voters. Is there a lesson in all this for India’s 24-by-7 TV news-channels whose anchors keep equating themselves with the country and who keep reminding political party spokespersons on their programmes that “You are addressing the nation which demands an answer”!