CBS reporter John Dickerson called the Obamas’ speeches ‘nourishment’ while Van Jones said they were an oasis in a ‘spiritual desert.’
Welcome back to Forgotten Fact Checks, a weekly column produced by National Review’s News Desk. This week, we look at the mainstream media’s fluffy “reporting” on the DNC last week, and cover more media misses.
‘There’s Jesus, HBCUs, and Then There’s Barack Obama’: Media’s Embarrassingly Friendly Coverage of the DNC
Last week’s Democratic National Convention gave cable-news anchors and pundits an opportunity to engage in one of their favorite past times, one they’ve sorely missed in recent years: Obama cheerleading.
When former president Barack Obama and Michelle Obama took the stage last week, the media quickly picked up where they left off in their glowing coverage of one of politics’ most famous couples.
President Obama time and time again enjoyed softball coverage of his administration, with pundits making frequent comparisons to FDR. Fifty-nine percent of press coverage of Obama’s first 100 days in office was positive, according to a study by researchers at George Mason and Chapman universities.
While the media would often work to protect their progressive hero, the Obama administration was criticized in a 2013 Committee to Protect Journalists report for having the most aggressively adversarial stance toward the press of any administration since President Nixon’s.
And yet, pundits were quick to flex their pro-Obama muscle memory last week after the duo delivered their own speeches, which supporters claimed help bring the magic, hope, and joy back to politics.
CNN commentator Van Jones praised the Obamas’ speeches as a “masterful act of leadership.”
“It was a sacred task. They took it on well. I didn‘t realize I had been in a spiritual desert until they created that oasis on that stage,” he said.
“I didn’t know how much I missed them,” Jones added. “I missed that.”
CBS reporter John Dickerson called the speeches “nourishment.”
April Ryan, a White House correspondent for TheGrio, all out gushed over the Obamas after the pair spoke at the convention last week.
“I mean, I joke about this, but there is Jesus, HBCUs and then there’s Barack Obama. It may change. It may change a little bit if Kamala Harris becomes president. But you know, these are two people people want to hear from right now,” Ryan said, also calling Michelle Obama’s performance “stratospheric.”
Other pundits spoke with similar reverence for the convention as a whole.
“Well, that was one hell of a Democratic convention,” said Biden White House press secretary-turned-MSNBC host Jen Psaki. “Like so many of you sitting at home, I laughed, I cried, I cheered. I was inspired. It overall felt like the message and the vibes of a winning campaign.”
She claimed it “wasn’t even really a fair fight,” between the DNC and RNC. “This contrast, joyful vs. pretty joyless and flat, future vs. past, unity versus division, love vs. hate, those are the options right now. And this week really reminded me that our country is more aligned with what we saw in Chicago,” Psaki said.
In fact, MSNBC host Rachel Maddow admitted that MSNBC staffers gave Minnesota governor Tim Walz a standing ovation after his DNC speech.
“I had no idea it was going to be like that,” Maddow said after Walz delivered his speech accepting the Democratic party’s vice presidential nomination. “The room in here, in terms of our little crowd at MSNBC mothership, everybody got out of their seats and started stamping and clapping.”
Back on CNN, host Dana Bash said Democrats are trying to appeal to less “testosterone-laden” men than Republicans, particularly with a woman at the top of the party’s ticket.
“It has been noteworthy to see how they are learning about what to do and how to confront Donald Trump as the opponent to a woman. 2016 and now, very different campaigns, very different female candidates.”
“But they are doing so in trying to put forward male figures, Tim Walz being one of them, Doug Emhoff last night, who can speak to men out there who might not be the sort of testosterone-laden, y’know, gun-toting kind of guy who wants to listen to Hulk Hogan and the kind of players that came out at the RNC or might want to listen to that,” she said.
Rolling Stone, for its part, praised the “genius work” of the Harris–Walz campaign in releasing a camouflage hat that “reclaims the rural and Southern identity that mainstream Democrats have long ignored.” Performances at the DNC by country artists Mickey Guton and Jason Isbell furthered that effort, the outlet claimed.
And while the Harris–Walz campaign apparently reaches rural voters, MSNBC’s Alex Wagner claims Trump and his “white patriarchy” MAGA supporters are scared of the “multicultural” future that Obama and Harris represent.
“That’s a powerful, distressing idea if you are part of the White patriarchy like Donald Trump and his supporters who see change, who see people like Barack Obama, who see people like Kamala Harris, you know, multi-ethnic leaders, multi-racial progressive leaders, and are scared of that vision, right?” she said.
Headline Fail of the Week
Washington Post columnist Catherine Rampell brings us this eyebrow-raising headline: “Doug Emhoff, modern-day sex symbol.”
“Doug Emhoff has been called many things in recent years: ‘Second Gentleman.’ ‘Goofy dad.’ ‘Crappy Jew.’ But perhaps his most appropriate title: ‘Progressive Sex Symbol,’” she writes.
She continues: “Move over, Ryan Gosling. The modern female fantasy is embodied by the man who might soon become our first First Gentleman. Emhoff appears to be a genuine mensch with an impressive career. He’s smitten with his wife and supports her ambitions, as is obvious from his convention speech and their sweet interactions on the campaign trail. But most important for this sexy sobriquet: Emhoff is secure enough with his own masculinity to sometimes prioritize his wife’s ambitions over his own.”
And for maximum cringe, she adds: “What. A. Hunk.”
Media Misses
- The Associated Press was recently forced to issue a correction after it falsely claimed that more than 40,000 civilians have died in Gaza as a result of the Israel-Hamas War — this despite Hamas not even claiming figures that high. The AP issued a correction after being called out by the Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting and Analysis. The story now reads: “More than 40,000 Palestinians have been killed in the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza, the territory’s Hamas-controlled Health Ministry says, but how many are civilians is unknown. The ministry does not distinguish between civilians and militants in its count. Israel says it has killed more than 17,000 militants in the war.”
- Axios’s purported fact-check on “how price gouging bans really work,” after Harris introduced her plan to ban “price gouging” on food and groceries. “Don’t call it price controls,” reads a post on X from the outlet. The post earned Axios a Community Note that reads: “The same author called it ‘price controls’ when the UK proposed voluntary caps on grocery store profits. Axios called it ‘price controls’ when it was proposed to limit how much Russia could profit off oil in a time of crisis.”
- Secretary of Commerce Gina Raimondo was apparently unaware that a new revision from the Bureau of Labor Statistics revealed that job growth over the last year was actually much less than the bureau first reported in March: There were 818,000 fewer jobs created between April 2023 and March 2024 than first reported. When confronted with the news that nearly a million jobs “created” under the Biden–Harris administration don’t exist, Raimondo said, “I don’t believe it because I’ve never heard Trump say anything truthful.” When the reporter clarified that the statistic came from the Bureau of Labor, Raimondo replied: “I’m not familiar with that.”