Just when the first shock of McCain’s choice for Sarah Palin as his VP has mellowed down, a new shocking fact startled the media. Journalists and paparazzi had a field day after the public announcement Palin made stating that her 17-year-old, unmarried daughter Bristol was pregnant. With coverage about her now ranging from ‘completely incompatible’ to a ‘lost of credibility’ Palin hasn’t even gotten the chance to prove herself as capable for the job. It is not that I am a fan of Palin, nor that I support McCain’s choice of making her his VP but I am shocked about the way the media has handled this situation.
I know there has already been written a lot about this subject, but I feel like everybody is overlooking the main issue; the fact that the family life of Palin should in no way be used as a political instrument. The way the media picked up this story and ran with it is exactly in line with the way the election has been covered from the beginning on: personalizing and dramatizing everything. The election and its coverage should focus on Sarah Palin, VP candidate and Governor of Alaska not on Sarah Palin, (a so called failing) mother. There should be a focus on the candidates’ political capacities, not on their parental accomplishments. By reporting how the journalists are reporting right now, objective journalism seems to me to be transforming more and more in to cheap paparazzi-like news coverage.
And even if the fact that her teenage daughter is now pregnant is not in line with traditional Republican values, making this the reason proving that Palin is not ‘the men for the job’ is completely ungrounded. If Bristol would have chosen to abort the baby I suppose the controversy would have been somewhat more justified. However, fact is that she is keeping the baby which is exactly in line with Palin’s pro-life stance. There goes the dirt.
What the media should do is congratulate Bristol with her upcoming motherhood, congratulate Palin with her upcoming new family function as a grandmother and move the focus to what really deserves attention: the Republican Convention, Gustav hitting land, just to name a few. Let them focus on the news instead of the dirt.
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