Last week the New York Times published a story on John McCain highlighting his shady political history, including rumors about an affair. Serious backlash about the article has forced the Times to not print just one apology, but two (on appeared the day after and the other this Sunday on the opinion page). Leaving the rumors about the affair out, the story was a good recap of McCain’s history in Washington. I had personally never heard of the ‘Keating Five Scandal’ that the story references and later explains. Not only does the story mention McCain’s wrong doings but it sums up the article by mentioning how he has managed to turn his political career around and become one of the good guys. I do think mentioning the affair was an incredibly low blow to not only McCain but his family and the woman involved, none of them deserved to be dragged into this. None-the-less the general public is disregarding the article as a whole and focusing on the affair (personally I think it is because it was in the first several paragraphs and people who read the article did not read all seven pages).
Aaron Katsman blogged about the article. He blamed the newspaper’s need for readers and circulation to go up as reasons why the article was written. “On the other hand, the paper is desperate. The readership of the paper has been in a steady decline and so have company profits.” Katsman is incredibly disappointed in the article but fails to notice what another blog has. Another Website posted said that even though most conservatives do not like McCain, most likely because of his shady political background, jumped to his defense after the article was written. The blog suggests that the article in fact boosted support for McCain among conservatives who, whether they like him or not, are going to defend him because he is one of them. I agree with this blog, I think that it is like being in a family. I can make fun of my brother or my sister and we can be in a fight and I can not agree with some of their decisions but if someone outside of my family were to say so I would jump right to my brother’s defense.
At the same time “Hoosiers for McCain” agreed, they noticed that the responses on the NYTIMES.com were not just from conservatives but from independents and liberal and democratic readers.
Another blog written by John Koblin blames the anonymous sources and the failure of the newspaper to get people on record about the affair. Which makes sense, why should people trust an article about an alleged affair when no proof is on the record? At the same time, we believe gossip, we listen to our friends when they say so-and-so did this, we read US Weekly and Star magazine and do not question what they say. The times reporting about an affair is the same thing as talking about who is dating who in US, which does lower the standards for the newspaper, what can we expect from other media outlets if one of the most influential is sinking as low as Star (no insult to the magazine, I have respect for them and what they do, but they do not have the responsibility the Times does).
One final blog says, “The concern is whether they have lost their moral and ethical compass and we need to be worried about the relevance of future lead articles. Shame, shame on the Times.”
Again, I think that people did not in fact read the whole article. I did not see it as a full blown attack on McCain, despite affair accusation it was well balanced, it looked at both positive and negative things the politician has done. It was only a matter of time before a media outlet took on a presidential candidate. Did anyone notice the article was held for months and months and was only finally published after McCain and his wife publicly insulted Obama, for his lack of experience among other things, and his wife, for her comments about pride in her country? Perhaps the article was the Times’ way of standing up for their family, for doing what Obama can not do, which is retaliate.