Gone are the days when all Obama had to do to charm the news media was don a pair of blue jeans. Now the Solyndra scandal has become a Jon Stewart punchline, news outlets are joining the mockery of the the AttackWatch campaign site, and even James Carville is advising the White House to panic.
David Axelrod, clearly longing for the good old days, is now blaming the media for hyping Obama’s bad month (in a memo he released to the media):
Members of the media have focused on the president’s approval ratings as if they existed in a black box. Following the intransigence of the Republicans during the debt debate, the approval rating of the GOP brand dropped to a historic low. …
Despite what you hear in elite commentary, the president’s support among base voters and in key demographic groups has stayed strong.
Let’s see. Obama’s approval ratings are crashing and burning, new scandals are popping up daily, and his jobs plan is being widely panned by members of his own party. All that, and Axelrod still expects flattering coverage?
More than anything, the memo is a sign the media culture is beginning to change. Obama still gets far better coverage than a Republican politician would. But the rise of right-leaning media outlets and the competition for web traffic has made it much harder for mainstream outlets to ignore legitimate stories that reflect poorly on Democrats. That’s not to say the coverage of Obama’s campaign will be as fair and balanced as it should be, but he’s not going to get as much of a free pass as he did in 2008.
