Obama's Election and Effect of the Media: John Ziegler

Manhattan, N.Y., May 20, 2009- With the recent election voting President Obama into office many days have been filled with debate and controversy. John Ziegler has recently produced a movie entitled, "Media Malpractice: How Obama Got Elected and Palin was Targeted."

This movie was created to investigate the media's effect on the outcome of the election. Ziegler's stance said that the media is one of the key reason, if not the ultimate reason, President Obama won the election. The movie focuses on showing multiple examples as to how this happened. The press seemed to choose President Obama to be "their" candidate and put forth their efforts to promote him across the television screens, computer monitors and newspapers.

Ziegler said that the media was biased during the entire campaign and only presenting information in support of the candidate instead of all of the facts. Also, not only did the movie say the media was promoting President Obama, but it also presented the other side that they were targeting Vice President candidate Sarah Palin. The headlines were presenting positive news about Obama while showing only the negative of Sarah Palin.

Not only did the news media show only negative information regarding Palin but some of these facts weren't even facts at all; they were misinterpretations of what she had really said, according to Ziegler's movie. For example the media changed her wording to become "I can see Russia from my house," when she actually said that from Alaska she can see parts of Russia because they are distant neighbors. Instead of recognizing Palin's experience and accomplishments, the general public could only remember the $150,000 budget on her wardrobe and her pregnant teenage daughter.

Also they movie portrays an interview with a current senator on February 19, 2009. When asked what legislative accomplishments Obama has had, before becoming the president, and after many chances to answer, he could not speak of a single one. President Obama became the first president with the least amount of experience in U.S. history, according to Ziegler. Presidential candidate Hillary Clinton even expressed her concerns that candidate McCain and she had a lifetime of experience, but candidate Obama only had his speeches.

The movie continues to give countless examples of the media's role in the last presidential election. Ziegler said it that President Obama would not have won this election if it hadn't been for the media's portrayal of him and target of Palin. Even in the debates, Ziegler said, that the press was refraining from asking the important and tough questions such as his relationship with Ayers, whose wife was at one point on America's top 10 most wanted list.

This movie portrays the media's effect on our society and how it impacts our decisions. Whether this movie is accurate or not is for the people to decide for themselves, but it does seems to show a lapse in the media's responsibility to accuracy.

"Broadcasting is dead. It's all about 'narrow-casting' now," Ziegler said in an interview after his movie premiere.

I do not think that journalism and broadcasting is dead, nor am I saying whether I think the only reason President Obama won the election is because of the media. I simply find this documentary to be extremely interesting, and I think it did have some valid points to show that the media is not succeeding in its efforts to present its viewers with accurate and unbiased information.

It is up to the public to decide what they think of such information presented in this movie, and it is the media's responsibility to maintain an accurate and unbiased mainstream, which can use some serious recuperation.