With the election over, journalists and pundits gathered for a “Media & The Presidency” panel at the Rainbow Room in New York last night.
Portfolio.com’s Jeff Bercovici writes about some of the comments of the panelists, including Joe Scarborough, Dan Rather and Lesley Stahl.
Discussing the perceived bias against Sen. Hillary Clinton, Scarborough joked, “I love Hillary. She’s my girlfriend. We don’t like to talk about it much.” (She already asked him to be her running mate.)
Rather talked about the reason President-Elect Barack Obama got the most favorable coverage. “Journalism loves the new, and Obama was the new,” he said. “Obama represents something newsworthy and historic..It had to do with a bias toward the story. Obama was the best story.”
Scarborough had a different take. “I learned something this year. It’s not ideologically-based. It’s more culturally based,” he said.
Politico’s Michael Calderone attended as well, and writes about Stahl’s take on the growing media. “Now the media is everybody from way over here to way over there, and they’re all included,” she said. “And if they start beating up on somebody, they’re part of us now, because they’re on 24 hours a day. And we all get tarred by it.”