"Media Malpractice... How Obama Got Elected,"

Did the media dumb down the American public in order to get their man, Barack Obama elected President? A documentary takes on that question in Media Malpractice: How Obama Got Elected.You might do well to check out this documentary if you wonder whether or not there was media bias in the election of Barack Obama for President. A lot of people have talked about the apparent media bias, even media malpractice, in dumbing down the voting public. Many feel that’s how Obama got elected. Others think that the American public doesn’t need dumbing down because we are already there.

A documentary by www.HowObamaGotElected.com takes a hard look at the 2008 election coverage by the main stream media and whether or not that coverage had an impact on what Obama voters knew, or thought they knew, about the man they were voting for.

Obama supporters are asked a series of questions, along the lines of Jay Leno’s Jay Walking segment on The Tonight Show. The results are interesting but hardly unexpected. They were asked questions like who has been in control of Congress for the past two years and about key members of Congress. They were asked about gaffs made by different candidates. Interestingly, almost all attributed all gaffs to Sarah Palin even though most were made by Barack Obama and Joe Biden.


Of course, that’s just the tip of the iceberg. The upcoming documentary explores what information about which candidates was put out by the media, how it was portrayed and how it impacted voters.Check out the results of this Zogby poll on what Obama voters knew and didn’t know about their candidate.

512 Obama Voters 11/13/08-11/15/08 MOE +/- 4.4 points

97.1% High School Graduate or higher, 55% College Graduates

Results to 12 simple Multiple Choice Questions

57.4% could NOT correctly say which party controls congress (50/50 shot just by guessing)

81.8% could NOT correctly say Joe Biden quit a previous campaign because of plagiarism (25% chance by guessing)

82.6% could NOT correctly say that Barack Obama won his first election by getting opponents kicked off the ballot (25% chance by guessing)

88.4% could NOT correctly say that Obama said his policies would likely bankrupt the coal industry and make energy rates skyrocket (25% chance by guessing)

56.1% could NOT correctly say Obama started his political career at the home of two former members of the Weather Underground (25% chance by guessing).

And yet…..

Only 13.7% failed to identify Sarah Palin as the person on which their party spent $150,000 in clothes

Only 6.2% failed to identify Palin as the one with a pregnant teenage daughter

And 86.9 % thought that Palin said that she could see Russia from her “house,” even though that was Tina Fey who said that!!

Only 2.4% got at least 11 correct.

Only .5% got all of them correct. (And we “gave” one answer that was technically not Palin, but actually Tina Fey)

I realize that I pay much closer attention to these things than the average person does. Still, its amazing sometimes that people would bother to go to the polls to vote when they know so little about who they are voting for or against. It makes me think that they might not really understand the magnanimity of casting a vote. Perhaps they don’t understand what a privilege it is to be able to vote and take it for granted in a country that has had that right for so many years. I don’t know. Sometimes I think we should have to pass a competency test in order to be allowed the PRIVILEGE of voting.