Recently, Sara Palin was featured on the cover of gossip magazine US weekly with an article titled "Babies, Lies, and Scandal." Inside the article, Palin's family life is described as "new, embarrassing surprises." "Within hours of McCain's surprise introduction of the little-known, charismatic mother of five as his running mate, the scandals began to emerge as quickly as flies at a labor day picnic." This statement mentions nothing of relevance to the election or McCain's decision to pick Palin as his running mate. Instead it is focusing on the gossip element, which in my opinion, has no relevance to the actual voting in November. Later in the article is a spread of photos mocking Palin's lack of experience, with pictures of her hunting caribou, participating in the Miss Alaska Pageant, and sitting in her office with furs on the wall. Inexperience is a legitimate concern for the candidates, but there is no need to make fun of her past or personal hobbies, which have absolutely no relevance to her ability to be a good vice president.
In class, we discussed the importance of having multiple perspectives to a story, like in Reservation Blues. This is important, but having a narrow-minded gossip perspective of politics is crossing a line. While I don't doubt that some people may be uneasy with Palin's lack of experience, her personal life should not play a decisive factor in whether or not people vote for her. Personally, I admire Palin's honesty in eventually admitting to the public that her 17 year old daughter Bristol is pregnant. "We're proud of Bristol's decision to have her baby, and even prouder to become grandparents." Palin is doing nothing politically wrong by showing her daughter love and support in this very difficult time, but all the press focuses on in the scandal aspect. This article also uses very unreliable sources for quotes. "as a commenter on yahoo! sniped: "how can Palin help McCain keep America in control when she cant even keep her own daughter in control?"" Using a comment from a website is completely unreliable, because nobody knows who could have made the comment. In addition, this article uses quotes from Levi Johnson (Bristol's Baby's father's) myspace page. There is no way of knowing whether or not these facts are true, because people can claim to be anyone they want to on the internet.
3 comments:
It is interesting to see how the media portrays the political candidates in our nation. Magazines that typically focus on celebrity gossip, now are finding information about presidential candidates and their running mates like Sarah Palin. I recently saw the editor of the article, "Babies, Lies, and Scandal" being interviewed by Megyn Kelly of Fox News. In it Megyn under covers the truth behind the story, and discovers the scandal being discussed was about her husband's DUI in Alaska 22 years ago. The article failed to mention that this event took place that long ago, and was written as if this DUI was a recent occurrence. The articles' title also mentions lies, when the reader simply sees this title, they would most likely believe that Palin lied about something, but the lies being referred to are actually lies being told about Palins' daughter. This misleading article and title leads me to believe that present day media will do anything for people to buy their magazines, even if it means lying about the person running for arguably the second most important job in the country. I agree with your blog, I don't think that gossip magazines should impact voters by creating fabricated stories.
Fox News Interview:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0M05JiYnjNI
Great find on the video, and I completely agree with what Megyn Kelly is saying. My favorite quote of hers is "what I'm satisfied with is fair and balanced reporting, where you tell the whole story. You make one accusation and then tell what the other side is saying."
This topic relates to a lot of what we talked about in class, how it is important to have both perspectives of a narrative. Since the US Weekly article does not use accurate facts or both sides of the story, it is untruthful.
Because of this article, the magazine is losing subscribers. If I were a subscriber myself, I would stop reading the magazine since it is biased and untruthful.
I find that putting Governor Palin on the cover of a gossip magazine is a mockery of our countries' politics. Vice Presidential Candidates should be giving interviews about her political agenda rather than trying to appeal to teenage girls. I also feel that her situation as a soon to be grandmother is ironic. As a firm believer of abstinance, Palin and her daughter, Bristol, have acted hypocritically. Governor Palin obviously does not believe in abstinance, for she has 5 children and neither does her daughter, who is now (accidentaly) pregnant. These incidents show to me the "quality" service Governor Palin will bring to office if elected. What has American politics come to??
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