Is someone up there listening?

Is it me or have the mainstream media actually been doing a marginally better job calling the candidates out on false claims and inaccuracies, lately?  Ever since John McCain released a string a of ridiculous attack ads a few weeks ago, some members the mainstream media have (at least for the time being) abandoned this virtue of false balance and pointed out the untruths in ads coming from both candidates.  I'm not saying it has been perfect, but I feel like the press is playing a bit more of a referee function than they had been playing previously.  Perhaps its the level of ridiculousness some these ads have risen to (i.e. Sex-ed for kindegartners).  Or perhaps the media has learned its lesson from last election's swift boat fiasco.  Maybe the presidents of the major news networks, and the editors of the top dailies have been reading my blog (yeah right).  

My point is I can't always point out the negative.  I have to give credit when I see improvement.  In last week's issue of Time there was a useful grid dissecting a number of ads from both sides and rating them based on their factuality and seriousness.  It also corrects any fallacies stated in the ads.  This, however, is not what I found particularly shocking about this grid.  I expected that in an effort to maintain some sort of balance, Time would have had an equal number of true/false ads from either side ... this was not the case.  The count? In the truthful ads department Obama held the lead 6 to 4.  The lying champion?  That dubious distinction fell to Senator McCain with 6 false ads to Obama's 4.   Perhaps the bells and whistles of a graph were not necessary when a well reported story would have sufficed, but one still has to appreciate the effort.  Not to mention, as a magazine, Time does have to be concerned with graphics/layout more than a newspaper might.

Another example of good whistle-blowing came on the front-page of Friday's New York Times.  This article by Jim Ruttenberg and Julie Bosman does a good job debunking many falsehoods put forth by the Obama campaign in a string of ads launched against Senator McCain over the weekend.  The article breaks the mold of unbiased stenographic reporting when it comes to dubious ads.  It deconstructs myths about McCain put forth in the ads ranging from his supposed opposition to stem-cell research, to a non-existent connection between him and racist radio talk show host Rush Limbaugh (this claim coming from a particularly vicious spanish-language ad.)  It is a good piece of reporting.

If the media is actually reading this blog, I do want to point out some issues before they start patting themselves on the back.  The same Jim Ruttenberg  that did such extensive reporting on Friday produced this piece of garbage only three days earlier.  The headline "Pinpoint Attacks Focus Obama" is the complete opposite of the hard stance Ruttenberg took in Friday's article.  The piece deals with a series of ads (funded by a PAC) linking Obama to Rev. Wright and former Detroit mayor Kwame Kilpatrick.  Ruttenberg does not make mention of the authenticity of either of these connections until this statement appears in the 13th paragraph:

"... the group's intention was to show Mr. Obama's affiliations - although Mr. Obama and Mr. Kilpatrick were never known to be close."

Are you kidding me??? You don't mention this until the 13th paragraph???  To compound this Ruttenberg buries this under a laundry list of other underhanded tactics used by Republican PAC's to brand Obama as a foreigner, without calling out these tactics as underhanded or unfair.  Jim does a good job in the article showing what kinds of groups these ads are coming from, but does little to nothing in contesting their accuracy.  Hopefully as the election enters its final month we will see more reporting similar to the first two examples and less of the latter, but I'm not holding my breath, unless the powers at be are actually reading this.