Australian and US elections: ridiculous media feeding frenzy season commences

Ah, elections. Such an exciting time, when the smallest mis-statement or mistake can lead to all kinds of media hysteria. Two examples have emerged in the last couple of days.

In the US, John McCain – senator, 2008 presidential candidate, and generally decent (albeit Republican) guy, is getting hammered for describing US deaths in Iraq as “wasted” during an interview on Letterman. He has hastily tried to undo the ‘damage’ from this terrible untruth:

I should have used the word, sacrificed, as I have in the past… No one appreciates and honors more than I do the selfless patriotism of American servicemen and women in the Iraq War.

As you can see, the US media isn’t holding back in it’s reporting of the Word of Doom, though of course none of the mainstream media is actually condemning its use, merely noting that it is controversial… over… and over… and over again…

Back home in Australia, meanwhile, a slightly different media feeding frenzy is underway concerning the fact that Kevin Rudd may have been present at the same meal as disgraced former WA Labor powerbroker and premier Brian Burke. According to the script set out by the pundits some months ago, Rudd’s honeymoon is well overdue to end: so that’s what they’re reporting. Never mind that there is no actual evidence yet that this has done any harm to Rudd’s image: the honeymoon is over. The Australian, of course, is leading the way in crazy over-analysis, with well-known impartial commentator Dennis Shanahan even making the ridiculous statement that:

Rudd’s race is not over…

It takes a rare kind of political insight to determine that the ‘race is not over’ for someone who is floating around a 10+ point margin in all recent polling. I particularly like the implication that this event is so phenomenally serious that we might have assumed that Rudd’s goose was cooked, but for Mr Shanahan’s gentle reassurances. Meanwhile whether there is any real long-term impact remains a question for debate, although it will at least energise the government if they smell blood or can convincingly establish that Rudd’s meetings with Burke were more than merely incidental.

All of this really brings into focus the question of just how influential the media is in modern day politics. There’s no question that the basic answer is ‘very’, but does the media really have the ability to turn a total non-issue into a major controversy? The frantic damage control from both the McCain and Rudd camps says yes.