What’s wrong with this Washington Post editorial? (You can also see it in a Wordle.)

“One caveat comes in the report of the Pew Global Attitudes Project, which points out that Obamamania is largely absent in the region where U.S. influence most needs a boost: the Middle East. Only 34 percent of Lebanese, 31 percent of Egyptians and 22 percent of Jordanians said they have confidence in Mr. Obama to do the right thing in world affairs; in Pakistan the figure was 10 percent. Israel is one of the few countries in the world where at least some polls have shown Mr. McCain leading Mr. Obama. Many Israelis fear that Mr. Obama will be too soft on Iran; many Arabs predict that he will be too soft on Israel.” (emphasis added)

To use the sensationalist and media-created term, Obamamania ,when in actuality the reference is to Senator Obama’s favorability ratings related to his temperament and judgment is an example of precisely what is wrong with campaign journalism.

Use descriptors and adjectives which are free of jargon and which to not intentionally antagonize any faction of the voting population.

The term fear is also wrongly used. The sentence was actually referring to respondents’ favorability about Sen. Obama’s position on Iran and Israel.

I’m pointing this out simply as but one example of many across all corporate media. Journalists are contributing to the incivility in discourse, and they are fanning the flames underlying the shadow campaign against Sen. Obama and other candidates by incorrectly using inflammatory terms which associate a negative and scary trait with a candidate without any basis of evidence, logic or reason.

The Washington Post must admit its failings, admit its culpability and take immediate and significant steps to stop this.

The US truly cannot tolerate this egregiousness if the public is to have any way of being informed through the “fourth estate.”

It’s time for the Washington Post and other media venues to clean up their acts or to get out of the business of journalism entirely.

One thing corporate media won’t have to do any longer, though, is to spend money analyzing why it’s are losing readership.

Lack. Of. Trust.

The New York Times devoted only 10% of campaign reportage to substantive issues.  Fail.

“Why feed the garbage machine?” asked Michael Leonard of Evergreen,
Colo. “This election is about the future of this country at a
precipitous time,” he said. “Why don’t you help us focus on the matters
of consequence and where the candidates stand with regard to them?” It
is a fair question. Through Friday, of 270 news articles published in
The Times about the election since the national tickets were formed in
late August, only 29, or a little over 10 percent, were primarily about
policy substance. And that is a generous tally that includes some very
brief items.

Information Aesthetics posted about bias in political reporting as only it can - with compelling visuals.

highlighting political bias in texts

13 October 2008

the “Memeorandum Colors” script colors sites that usually link to conservative topics red, & sites that generally link to liberal topics blue (the colors get darker or lighter depending on the sites’ linking activity) on all recent stories featured on the Memeorandum website. the result is a quick visualization of what kind of political site a link points to using colors.

[link: waxy.org|via lifehacker.com]

Cursor.org, one of the best for getting it accurately, timely and concise, shuttered on October 10, 2008 due to a lack of financial support.  That’s a real loss of some of the best journalism out there.

Der Spiegel includes two must read stories about inflammatory leadership and another that discuses what the next US leader must do to restore American’s reputation around the world.  It would appear that a leader is already emerging and blazing some trails.