# McCain Cancels Larry King Interview because Campbell Brown spanked his buttboy **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [September 3, 2008, 4:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mccain-cancels-larry-king-interview-because-campbell-brown-spanked-his-buttboy/461814 "2008-09-03T04:15:35Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 8
**Author:** ![Oy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/bc8723/32.png) [@Oy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Oy)\ **Post date:** [September 4, 2008, 5:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mccain-cancels-larry-king-interview-because-campbell-brown-spanked-his-buttboy/461814/141 "2008-09-04T17:24:08Z")
Well, I’m still not sure that citing the same sources = liberal/conservative bias - couldn’t it mean source = in the news or relevant to the news today just as likely? In any case, [here](http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Fox_News)’s the first answer I have. A lot of it is not statistical, but rather looks to things said and people hired. However one portion is statistical: [QUOTE=Sourcewatch] A year-long study by the University of Maryland’s Program on International Policy Attitudes (PIPA)[9] reported that Americans who relied on the Fox News Channel for their coverage of the Iraq war were the most likely to believe misinformation about the war, whatever their political affiliation may be. Those mistaken facts, the study found, increased viewers’ support for the war. The study found that, in general, people who watched Fox News were, more than for other sources, convinced of several untrue propositions which were actively promoted by the Bush administration and the cheerleading media led by Fox, in rallying support for the invasion of Iraq: (percentages are of all poll respondents, not just Fox watchers) Fifty-seven percent believed the falsity that Iraq gave substantial support to Al-Qaida, or was directly involved in the September 11 attacks (48% after invasion). Sixty-nine percent believed the falsity that Saddam Hussein was personally involved in the September 11 attacks. Twenty-two percent believed the falsity that weapons of mass destruction had been found in Iraq. (Twenty-one percent believed that chem/bio weapons had actually been used against U.S. soldiers in Iraq during 2003) In the composite analysis of the PIPA study, 80 percent of Fox News watchers had one of more of these misperceptions, in contrast to 71 percent for CBS and 27 percent who tuned to NPR/PBS. As the Washington Post reported[10], “The fair and balanced folks at Fox, the survey concludes, were ‘the news source whose viewers had the most misperceptions.’ Eighty percent of Fox viewers believed at least one of these un-facts; 45 percent believed all three.” As AlterNet reported, “For each of the three misperceptions, the study found enormous differences between the viewers of Fox, who held the most misperceptions, and NPR/PBS, who held the fewest by far. Eighty percent of Fox viewers were found to hold at least one misperception, compared to 23 percent of NPR/PBS consumers. All the other media fell in between.”[11] The Project for Excellence in Journalism’s “State of the News Media 2005” concluded that Fox was “the most one-sided of all major news outlets.” On Iraq, 25 percent of 2,000 stories analyzed were negative and 20 percent were positive. “Fox News Channel was twice as likely to be positive than negative, while CNN and MSNBC were evenhanded.” Also, “with the exception of Republicans who prefer Fox News,” Americans don’t seek out news sources that reinforce their beliefs.[12] [/QUOTE] I’ve seen this study referenced elsewhere. Footnotes can be pursued on the site. I’ll look for more. ---
**Author:** ![Starving\_Artist](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/aeb1de/32.png) [@Starving\_Artist](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Starving_Artist)\ **Post date:** [September 4, 2008, 5:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mccain-cancels-larry-king-interview-because-campbell-brown-spanked-his-buttboy/461814/142 "2008-09-04T17:30:59Z")
> [@Don\_t\_Call\_Me\_Shirley](#): > > If you don’t have a cite, or in the face of opposing cites, claim that cites don’t mean anything. That’s classic. It’s true. Subjective sites, those that go to observation and depend largely on the midset of those viewing them, are not provable and posting them only leads to hair-splitting and obfuscation. A perfect example is the two _US_ covers I posted to illustrate my previous observation that the media portrays Democrats in a positive, glowing light, and Republicans in a negative, accusatory light. Those covers were a cite that I posted voluntarily and not because someone demanded it, and yet you still see the type of response it created. Some claim it’s the only thing I could come up with to illustrate my allegations; some claim _US_ isn’t mainstream media; some that because Obama/Hillary at some point were challenged by the media it means that there is no difference in the way the media presents Republicans vs. Democrats. Etc., etc. So you see, they don’t serve as proof as whenever someone wants to yell “Cite” when they know perfectly well that no definitive or probative cite exists and they obviously only want to use it to derail the discussion, I decline and will continue to do so. And btw, **tomndebb** , I had not seen the US covers at the time of the lost weekend. ---
**Author:** ![Oy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/bc8723/32.png) [@Oy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Oy)\ **Post date:** [September 4, 2008, 5:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mccain-cancels-larry-king-interview-because-campbell-brown-spanked-his-buttboy/461814/143 "2008-09-04T17:34:32Z")
How about this [one](http://newsinfo.iu.edu/news/page/normal/5535.html), from Indiana University? It’s peer-reviewed, in that it’s published and reviewed by journalism students/faculty: > [@](#): > > [ul] > [li]Fear was used in more than half (52.4 percent) of the commentaries, and O’Reilly almost never offered a resolution to the threat. For example, in a commentary on “left-wing” media unfairly criticizing Attorney Gen. Alberto Gonzales for his role in the Abu Ghraib scandal, O’Reilly considered this an example of America “slowly losing freedom and core values,” and added, “So what can be done? Unfortunately, not much.” [/li][li]The researchers identified 22 groups of people that O’Reilly referenced in his commentaries, and while all 22 were described by O’Reilly as bad at some point, the people and groups most frequently labeled bad were the political left – Americans as a group and the media (except those media considered by O’Reilly to be on the right). [/li][li]Left-leaning media (21.6 percent) made up the largest portion of bad people/groups, and media without a clear political leaning was the second largest (12.2 percent). When it came to evil people and groups, illegal aliens (26.8 percent) and terrorists (21.4 percent) were the largest groups. [/li][li]O’Reilly never presented the political left, politicians/government officials not associated with a political party, left-leaning media, illegal aliens, criminals and terrorists as victims. “Thus, politicians and media, particularly of the left-leaning persuasion, are in the company of illegal aliens, criminals, terrorists – never vulnerable to villainous forces and undeserving of empathy,” the authors concluded. [/li][li]According to O’Reilly, victims are those who were unfairly judged (40.5 percent), hurt physically (25.3 percent), undermined when they should be supported (20.3 percent) and hurt by moral violations of others (10.1 percent). Americans, the U.S. military and the Bush administration were the top victims in the data set, accounting for 68.3 percent of all victims. [/li][li]One of O’Reilly’s common responses to charges of bias is to come up with one or two examples of “proof” that he is fair to all groups. For example, in October 2005, Dallas Morning News columnist Macarena Hernandez accused O’Reilly of treating the southern border “as the birth of all American ills.” O’Reilly responded by showing a video clip in which he had called Mexican workers “good people.” He called for a boycott of the newspaper if it did not retract Hernandez’ column.[/li][/ul] ETA: THat’s a snipper, not the entire study. ETAA: You have to follow a link to get the full study. Ultimately it’s a PDF. ---
**Author:** ![Shodan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9f8e36/32.png) [@Shodan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shodan)\ **Post date:** [September 4, 2008, 5:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mccain-cancels-larry-king-interview-because-campbell-brown-spanked-his-buttboy/461814/144 "2008-09-04T17:44:12Z")
> [@Oy](#): > > In any case, [here](http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Fox_News)’s the first answer I have. A lot of it is not statistical, but rather looks to things said and people hired. However one portion is statistical: > I’ve seen this study referenced elsewhere. Footnotes can be pursued on the site. > I’ll look for more. I can’t tell - was this published in a peer-reviewed journal? On preview - O’Reilly is a commentator. We were talking about news. Would you like to include commentary? If so, fine - then Fox is biased to the right. And NBC, CBS, ABC, CNN, PBS, MSNBC, NPR, _The New York Times, The Washington Post, The LA Times, Air America_, and practically every other outlet of the traditional MSM is biased to the left. Yes? Regards, Shodan ---
**Author:** ![Oy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/bc8723/32.png) [@Oy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Oy)\ **Post date:** [September 4, 2008, 6:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mccain-cancels-larry-king-interview-because-campbell-brown-spanked-his-buttboy/461814/145 "2008-09-04T18:04:24Z")
Well, Shodan, I’m just not convinced that the study you offer is meaningful of anything. If you want to clap you hands in glee and shriek “I won, I won” all the way home, feel free, but I can find lots of cites to say that Fox News throws opinion in with its news more than any other channel, so I’m not sure where you draw the line. Scarily, more people view Bill O’Reilly as a journalis (40%) than view Bob Woodward (30%) as journalist. I think there are a lot of people who think Bill O’Reilly is giving them the news. In any case, I don’t think the fact that Russ Feingold cites the CDC 20 times a month and the fact that CBS cites the CDC 15 times a month, while FOX news only cites it ten times a month makes FOX news more or less liberal or conservative than CBS. It just doesn’t seem to me that clear cut an indicator. I mean, if it were all right wing think tanks or left wing ideology factories (are there any? I guess there must be), then obviously that would be an issue, but most of these cites are going to be fairly neutral, I would think. At least, I’d have to see more detail before I believed this study to be meaningful. I’m not saying for sure that it isn’t. I’m just saying that on the face of it, it’s not conclusive by any means, no matter how many times you folks on the right like to gloat about it. ---
**Author:** ![Shodan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9f8e36/32.png) [@Shodan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shodan)\ **Post date:** [September 4, 2008, 6:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mccain-cancels-larry-king-interview-because-campbell-brown-spanked-his-buttboy/461814/146 "2008-09-04T18:43:06Z")
OK, then, what have you got? Regards, Shodan ---
**Author:** ![dropzone](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dropzone/32/7515_2.png) [@dropzone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dropzone)\ **Post date:** [September 4, 2008, 7:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mccain-cancels-larry-king-interview-because-campbell-brown-spanked-his-buttboy/461814/147 "2008-09-04T19:07:05Z")
> [@tomndebb](#): > > …a single issue of a single celebrity scandal rag treating the Palin family as celebrities… Hold the phone! WHAT did you say the Palins are? CELEBRITIES?!?!? Obama needs to get out an ad attacking them for that right away! ---
**Author:** ![Freudian\_Slit](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/5daacb/32.png) [@Freudian\_Slit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Freudian_Slit)\ **Post date:** [September 4, 2008, 7:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mccain-cancels-larry-king-interview-because-campbell-brown-spanked-his-buttboy/461814/148 "2008-09-04T19:18:34Z")
> [@Skald\_the\_Rhymer](#): > > Sorry, she’s not on the list of people I’m allowed to screw without Kim counting it as cheating, so if she’s going to be doing the news naked, I can’t let her get THAT close. I thought your wife was called Beth? ---
**Author:** ![Euphonious\_Polemic](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/euphonious_polemic/32/3002_2.png) [@Euphonious\_Polemic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Euphonious_Polemic)\ **Post date:** [September 4, 2008, 7:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mccain-cancels-larry-king-interview-because-campbell-brown-spanked-his-buttboy/461814/149 "2008-09-04T19:18:35Z")
> [@Starving\_Artist](#): > > Simply put, had not left-wing media bias existed, the programs of Limbaugh, Hannity, O’Reilly, Fox News, etc. would not exist. So, now that the programs of Limbaugh, Hannity, O’Reilly, Fox News, etc. DO exist, left-wing media bias of the past has effectively been put to rest, correct? Whew! Glad I could solve this one! Guess you can close down this line of argument now. ---
**Author:** ![El\_Gui](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/35a633/32.png) [@El\_Gui](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/El_Gui)\ **Post date:** [September 4, 2008, 9:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mccain-cancels-larry-king-interview-because-campbell-brown-spanked-his-buttboy/461814/150 "2008-09-04T21:40:24Z")
For what it’s worth, it looks like McCain’s buttboy enjoyed the spankin’. > **[Tucker Bounds: Campbell Brown The "Consummate Professional," "We Had A Good...](https://www.huffpost.com/entry/tucker-bounds-campbell-br_n_123975)** > > Tucker Bounds: Campbell Brown The "Consummate Professional," "We Had A Good Time," "CNN Is Top Notch" And going back to that US Weekly cover, turns out, the writer for the Palin article is . . . . wait for it . . . a McCain backer! > **[I'm Voting for McCain... And Yes, I Wrote the Us Weekly Cover Story](https://www.huffpost.com/entry/im-voting-for-mccain-and_b_123904)** > > We're a magazine that thrives on babies, intriguing women and scandals. For this particular week, our potential vice president just happened to fit the bill. (Sorry, Angelina). Wacky liberals. ---
**Author:** ![Harborwolf](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/c89c15/32.png) [@Harborwolf](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Harborwolf)\ **Post date:** [September 4, 2008, 9:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mccain-cancels-larry-king-interview-because-campbell-brown-spanked-his-buttboy/461814/151 "2008-09-04T21:51:57Z")
If it makes anyone in this thread feel better, [the liberal media has apologized](http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0908/13143.html). ---
**Author:** ![tomndebb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/b9e5f3/32.png) [@tomndebb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tomndebb)\ **Post date:** [September 5, 2008, 12:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mccain-cancels-larry-king-interview-because-campbell-brown-spanked-his-buttboy/461814/152 "2008-09-05T00:18:16Z")
> [@Starving\_Artist](#): > > [Quote=Don’t Call Me Shirley] > If you don’t have a cite, or in the face of opposing cites, claim that cites don’t mean anything. That’s classic. It’s true. Subjective sites, those that go to observation and depend largely on the midset of those viewing them, are not provable and posting them only leads to hair-splitting and obfuscation. A perfect example is the two _US_ covers I posted to illustrate my previous observation that the media portrays Democrats in a positive, glowing light, and Republicans in a negative, accusatory light. Those covers were a cite that I posted voluntarily and not because someone demanded it, and yet you still see the type of response it created. Some claim it’s the only thing I could come up with to illustrate my allegations; some claim _US_ isn’t mainstream media; some that because Obama/Hillary at some point were challenged by the media it means that there is no difference in the way the media presents Republicans vs. Democrats. Etc., etc. So you see, they don’t serve as proof as whenever someone wants to yell “Cite” when they know perfectly well that no definitive or probative cite exists and they obviously only want to use it to derail the discussion, I decline and will continue to do so. And btw, **tomndebb** , I had not seen the US covers at the time of the lost weekend. [/QUOTE] Sorry about the chronology confusion. Perhaps you first posted it soon after the board came back up? My point was not that your claims began long ago, but only that you had been challenged on the silliness of calling _US_ a mainstream news organization well before you posted to this thread and you were still unable (or did not bother) to provide any better support for the fatuous claim. Now you are pretending that simply because you “voluntarily” posted the silly claim regarding _Us_ that it somehow has more weight than if you had posted it in response to challenge. Sorry. If you entered a discussion on evolution and “voluntarily” offered a citation to Genesis 1 claiming that it indicated the error of evolutionary science, the voulntary nature of your citation would not make your claim any more valid. While you are wandering around bemoaning the “liberal” media, **Diogenes the Cynic** is wandering around other threads bemoaning the ways in which “the media” “always” support the political Right. I do not find either of your claims to have much merit. There are certainly aspects of popular communications that tend to be lopsided to the Left or Right. Talk Radio leans Right. Hollywood and TV entertainment lean Left. Different editorial groups may lean Left or Right. (Actually, the views expressed in those fora do not track well onto the simplistic Left/Right axis. There are \*issues on which different groups take different positions, but those issues are all over the map and do not easily fall onto the simplistic single line continuum. More editorial viewpoints tend to be pro-choice, for example, but also more editorial viewpoints tend to be pro-military. The media hypes crime all the time (a Rightist trope) while decrying the ways that corporations make “too much” money (a Leftist Trope) at the same time. Regardless of perceived bias among those who wish that all reports favored their position, the reality is that news outlets (especially now days) are profit centers. Customers are advertisers and the actual product is readership and viewership. The news stories are simply the means they use to attract enough observers to sell advertising and they run very much on a “if it bleeds it leads” formula. If the news media was truly “Left” leaning, we would never have gone into Iraq as they would not have swallowed and then redistributed the Power-Ade that was pumped out by the Administration. (Actual leftist (as well as truly independent) organizations were identifying most of the propaganda as lies early on–none of which was ever investigated by the MSM and none of it made it onto the front pages or nightly stories presented to the public.) ---
**Author:** ![Starving\_Artist](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/aeb1de/32.png) [@Starving\_Artist](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Starving_Artist)\ **Post date:** [September 5, 2008, 2:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mccain-cancels-larry-king-interview-because-campbell-brown-spanked-his-buttboy/461814/153 "2008-09-05T02:53:19Z")
> [@tomndebb](#): > > Sorry about the chronology confusion. Perhaps you first posted it soon after the board came back up? No problem. > [@tomndebb](#): > > My point was not that your claims began long ago, but only that you had been challenged on the silliness of calling _US_ a mainstream news organization… Problem. I never called _US_ a mainstream news ORGANIZATION. However, I did and do contend that it’s a part of the mainstream media itself. MSM consists of many things: Newspapers, magazines, television, movies, etc. _US_ is clearly a member of that group, and you will never convince me that Jane Soccer Mom or Joe Sixpack, standing in line at the local Wal-Mart where these magazines are positioned, are immune to its message. > [@tomndebb](#): > > Now you are pretending that simply because you “voluntarily” posted the silly claim regarding _Us_ that it somehow has more weight than if you had posted it in response to challenge. Another problem. I’m doing nothing of the sort. My comment about posting the _US_ photos voluntarily came about in the wake of a dustup about my practice of refusing cite demands on subjective (i.e., unprovable) matters. The comment was intended to convey that even when I post cites voluntarily, as opposed to having them demanded of me, the response I described still occurs. > [@tomndebb](#): > > While you are wandering around bemoaning the “liberal” media, **Diogenes the Cynic** is wandering around other threads bemoaning the ways in which “the media” “always” support the political Right. The difference is: I’m right; he’s wrong. 😃 If he was right, left-wing talk and cable television news programs would have sprouted up 15 years ago rather than right-wing ones. But there was no need because you guys already had ABC, NBC, CBS, The Washington Post, the LA Times, the New York Times, Time magazine, Newsweek magazine, Playboy, Hollywood, etc., etc., etc. You can’t tell me that given the inherent whinginess of the left, that had they not felt the message coming from these sources were pretty much in agreement with their own POV they wouldn’t have been screaming bloody murder, just like they do now about Fox/Limbaugh/Hannity, etc. As for the rest of your post, and to be honest given some of the buzzwords I saw when skimming it, TLDR I’m afraid. I just got in and I got chit to do. ---
**Author:** ![Sitnam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/6a8cbe/32.png) [@Sitnam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sitnam)\ **Post date:** [September 5, 2008, 4:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mccain-cancels-larry-king-interview-because-campbell-brown-spanked-his-buttboy/461814/154 "2008-09-05T04:14:17Z")
All I have to say is THAT’S the guy you choose for your spokesman? ---
**Author:** ![Starving\_Artist](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/aeb1de/32.png) [@Starving\_Artist](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Starving_Artist)\ **Post date:** [September 5, 2008, 4:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mccain-cancels-larry-king-interview-because-campbell-brown-spanked-his-buttboy/461814/155 "2008-09-05T04:20:57Z")
> [@Sitnam](#): > > All I have to say is THAT’S the guy you choose for your spokesman? Nah! We didn’t choose him, he was just the guy that took the job and made it his. Having said that however, you gotta give the guy his props (though I do think he tends to be a mean-spirited asshole and I turned away in the wake of Chelseagate), he’s a smart sumbitch and knows how to play to his audience. ---
**Author:** ![askeptic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/eb9ed0/32.png) [@askeptic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/askeptic)\ **Post date:** [September 5, 2008, 4:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mccain-cancels-larry-king-interview-because-campbell-brown-spanked-his-buttboy/461814/156 "2008-09-05T04:21:46Z")
> [@Harborwolf](#): > > If it makes anyone in this thread feel better, [the liberal media has apologized](http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0908/13143.html). Great Link! ---
**Author:** ![Starving\_Artist](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/aeb1de/32.png) [@Starving\_Artist](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Starving_Artist)\ **Post date:** [September 5, 2008, 4:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mccain-cancels-larry-king-interview-because-campbell-brown-spanked-his-buttboy/461814/157 "2008-09-05T04:27:35Z")
> [@askeptic](#): > > Great Link! Yeah, it’s just too bad that that smug shmuck chose not to mention what the media has REALLY been focusing on the last week…her (PREGANT, OMG!!!) 17-year-old daughter! ---
**Author:** ![Harborwolf](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/c89c15/32.png) [@Harborwolf](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Harborwolf)\ **Post date:** [September 5, 2008, 9:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mccain-cancels-larry-king-interview-because-campbell-brown-spanked-his-buttboy/461814/158 "2008-09-05T09:51:50Z")
> [@Starving\_Artist](#): > > Yeah, it’s just too bad that that smug shmuck chose not to mention what the media has REALLY been focusing on the last week…her (PREGANT, OMG!!!) 17-year-old daughter! Ya know scooter, there’s a thread [discussing the media attention here](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=481685). We’re having a bit of trouble finding all of the negative press. Maybe you could pitch in. Unless of course you’re talking about them simply discussing it. You’re right there. What gives them the right to discuss something the McCain/Palin camp disclosed on their own?:eek::mad: When will the abuses of the left wing press ever end?☹ ---
**Author:** ![askeptic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/eb9ed0/32.png) [@askeptic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/askeptic)\ **Post date:** [September 5, 2008, 2:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mccain-cancels-larry-king-interview-because-campbell-brown-spanked-his-buttboy/461814/159 "2008-09-05T14:36:43Z")
> [@Starving\_Artist](#): > > Yeah, it’s just too bad that that smug shmuck chose not to mention what the media has REALLY been focusing on the last week…her (PREGANT, OMG!!!) 17-year-old daughter! Can you read? [QUOTE=from the linked article] Fifth, we should stop reporting on the families of the candidates. Unless the candidates want us to. Sarah Palin wanted the media to report on her teenage son, Track, who enlisted in the Army on Sept. 11, 2007, and soon will deploy to Iraq. Sarah Palin did not want the media to report on her teenage daughter, Bristol, who is pregnant and unmarried. Sarah Palin thinks that one is good for her campaign and one is not, and that the media should report only on what is good for her campaign. That is our job, and that is our duty. If that is not actually in the Constitution, it should be. (And someday may be.) [/QUOTE] Looks like he chose to mention the issue. ---
**Author:** ![Starving\_Artist](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/aeb1de/32.png) [@Starving\_Artist](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Starving_Artist)\ **Post date:** [September 5, 2008, 4:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mccain-cancels-larry-king-interview-because-campbell-brown-spanked-his-buttboy/461814/160 "2008-09-05T16:33:17Z")
> [@askeptic](#): > > Can you read? > > Looks like he chose to mention the issue. I stand corrected. Somehow I missed that little gloss-over of his justification of the media’s contemptible behavior regarding that young girl. He also gives no weight at all to the fact that McCain’s camp pretty much had to release the info as the press would have found out about it pretty soon anyway, nor does he even hint at the tremendous amount of attention the media has been giving it. Funny how when the Clintons wanted to use Chelsea to help Hillary’s campaign but for the media to lay off, the media complied. When the Republican candidate wants the media to lay off her daughter, she doesn’t get to choose only what benefits her campaign. Once again, media bias at work, my friends. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mccain-cancels-larry-king-interview-because-campbell-brown-spanked-his-buttboy/461814.md?page=7) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mccain-cancels-larry-king-interview-because-campbell-brown-spanked-his-buttboy/461814.md?page=9)