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Are Saturday Night Live and other comedy shows shaping news coverage of this year's presidential campaign? The host of CNN's Reliable Sources, Howard Kurtz raised this distinct possibility this morning. Here's a snippet from CNN's rush transcript:
KURTZ: We've debated on this program for more than a year whether the media have been giving Barack Obama walk on water coverage, but it wasn't until a few late-night comedy skits that journalists began confronting the question, gee, have we been too easy on the freshman senator?
The phenomenon Kurtz is alluding to has a name: "The SNL effect." The skits he's talking about ginned up a lot of discussion on BlogHer and elswhere. There are the parodies of the CNN and MSNBC debates where all the tough questions are for Hillary and Barack gets nothing but fawning bouquets.
Most recently, there's the parody of the Clinton campaign's "3 am phone call" ad, which questioned Obama's judgment on national security issues. SNL's sketch shows a panicky Pres. Obama turning to Clinton not only in a national security crisis, but for help in resetting the White House furnace:
By the way, blogger Ann Althouse stirred up her readers by suggesting that the original 3 am ad might have a racist subliminal message.
In an interview with Time.com, Sen. Obama argued that the SNL sketches swayed reporters, and that contributed to his primary losses in Ohio, Texas and Rhode Island last week. Wilshire & Washington, a blog from Variety magazine that covers the intersection of entertainment and politics, has the skinny:
He says, "I actually think that what probably had the most impact this past week was the press buying into this notion that they have been too tough on her or too soft on me. I actually think that had the biggest impact. She complained to the referees and the referees gave her some calls."
Time's Karen Tumulty and David Von Drehle spell it out: "At the same time, the Clinton campaign stepped up its attacks on the media, insisting that Obama has been receiving kid-glove treatment. The theme sank into the broad public consciousness when Saturday Night Live returned from the writers' strike to make a recurring theme of the fawning press. Perhaps eager to prove that they can be equally tough on Obama, journalists filled that week with stories about Obama's Canada problem and his ties to an indicted Chicago real estate developer, Tony Rezko."
(FYI -- my take on the Tony Rezko case is here. )
Indeed, the Project for Excellence in Journalism's weekly content analysis of campaign coverage noted a pro-Clinton shift in the week before last week's primaries:
With no primary contests to consume press attention, Clinton’s charges of a pro-Obama tilt reverberated in the media echo chamber last week. Obama’s life and record came under a heightened degree of scrutiny, with everything from his legislative career to his ties to Louis Farrakhan to his African attire getting a public airing. Obama was the top campaign newsmaker and a significant or dominant factor in 69% of the stories from Feb. 25-March 2, a period between the Feb 19 Wisconsin primary and the March 4 tests in Texas and Ohio. That was the highest level of coverage for any candidate in 2008. And part of it was news outlets—from Good Morning America to The New York Times—engaged in introspective inquiry aimed at answering this headline atop one Feb. 29 newspaper story: “Are the media giving Obama a free ride?”
Clinton finished second in the derby for media exposure last week, registering as a significant or dominant figure in 58% of the campaign stories, a high water mark for her as well. And after weeks of tough coverage, Clinton may been relieved last week to find the media narrative focused more on her attacks on Obama than her 11-contest losing streak since Super Tuesday.
On Alternet, Adam McKay accuses SNL of abetting a Republican plot to secure the nomination for Sen. Clinton, because they believe she would be easier for their nominee, Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) McKay called the show's sketch writer, Jim Downey, a friend of Ann Coulter's. (I went looking for independent confirmation of that and only found that she used a quote from him as a publicity blurb on one of her books.)
And yes, it's sad that someone as capable as Hillary would be considered fodder for McCain, a "don't change horses in mid-stream, even
