In today's Chicago Sun-Times, columnist Mary Mitchell writes of a panel conducted at the UNITY convention of minority journalists:
Earlier, an NPR editor asked panelists whether it was appropriate for journalists to clap for Obama -- and the question uncorked a mounting frustration among many black reporters.
"The total duality of it gets to me," said Les Payne, a member of the panel.
Payne is a founding member of the National Association of Black Journalists and an editor at Newsday.
"There's no question that mainstream journalists completely adore McCain and cover him favorably," Payne said.
"Now it is: You cannot do what we do routinely . . . and have been doing for a century," he said.
"You have been writing favorable stories about [President] Bush for eight years. This is a serious problem and one of the reasons why this organization was founded," he said.
That the mainstream media adore McCain comes as a surprise to all of us continually irritated by its fawning and swooning over Barack Obama.
Even more incredible is Payne's assertion that journalists have provided favorable coverage of President Bush for all of the last eight years. The world of the MSM must be even more detached from reality than previously believed.
The Newsday columnist provided useful information as to one of the reasons UNITY was established: To stem the flow of all those gushing pieces about Bush.
Now there's a change they can believe in.
