The recent article “NSFW: Birther Report Public Statement Regarding American News Media And Obama’s Article II Ineligibility” at Birther Report warns: “NOTE: if you are easily offended do not read beyond this point,” But readers with any sense of decency would have been offended already by the graphic that preceded the warning. I have chosen a less-offensive leading graphic for my differently-toned article.
If anything, the news media and social media have all too many kittens, and I am genuinely concerned about the lack of independence in the media due to conglomeration and ownership by large corporations. (See the book “935 Lies: The Future of Truth and the Decline of America’s Moral Integrity” on the decline of investigative journalism.) That said, I cannot fault the big picture coverage by the media of the topic of Obama’s Article II eligibility.
Obama’s eligibility itself was no story at all. A few journalists probed the issue, for example CNN’s Anderson Cooper 360 program went to Hawaii and did some reports. Dr. Fukino’s statements on Obama’s documentation were enough to satisfy reasonable doubters, and there was never any justification to follow birthers down the rabbit hole of suspicions and conspiracy theories. Their “evidence” fell apart under scrutiny, so there was no reason to report it. The media also, from time to time, consulted legal experts on the “natural born citizen” question and received answers in line with a longstanding legal consensus. Obama was eligible, and if there was any question, it was quickly settled.
The birthers complained bitterly about the lack of media coverage, but as I documented early on at this blog, there were multiple media reports almost every day for years on birthers. AC 360 gave Terry Lakin and his attorney the opportunity to make their case on CNN. What birthers really objected to was that the media didn’t agree with them. That disagreement is inherent in the system because news organization have standards of verifiability, while birthers run off bias and belief. What a birther believes is not news, and what somebody on the Internet surmises is not an expert opinion. Birther opinion does not qualify as news and what little novelty they represented did not warrant in depth coverage.
What the media did not, I think, come terms with was the birther movement itself. They reported that it was big, but few tried to answer the critical question of “why.” They didn’t try to trace the money to see whether birtherism was a well-funded smear campaign or a loose grass roots movement motivated by bias against people like Barack Obama. I cannot think of any media reports that could be titled “who are the birthers”?
So while I would have liked to have seem more targeted coverage of the birther movement, overall I think the American media got it about right, and gave the birther movement enough airtime. Obama was elected twice, so apparently the truth was out there.
Visit SFW: Obama Conspiracy Theories Public Statement Regarding American News Media and Obama’s Article II Eligibility for updates to this article that originally appeared at Obama Conspiracy Theories.
