CNN Finally Admits 'Saturday Night Live Skit' Changed Its Election Coverage

 

Friday, August 08, 2008

 

Saturday Night Live is not all about fun and games.  Inadvertently or not, the long-running NBC variety show made news network giant CNN rethink the way it handled its coverage of the hotly contested Democratic primaries and soon the national elections.  While adamant at admitting that a gag show has influenced its reportage, CNN kind of just euphemized what happened.

"I think the skit on Saturday Night Live made us take a look at ourselves," CNN political analyst Gloria Borger said.

The skit in question, featuring Fred Armisen as Barack Obama and Amy Poehler as Hillary Clinton, depicted a debate where Clinton was asked tough, unfair questions while Obama was thrown easy ones, like "Are you mad at me?" or "Are you comfortable?"  The moderator in the skit even opened the debate with, “Like nearly everyone in the news media, the three of us are totally in the tank for Senator Obama.”

Borger would later argue that Obama didn't get as soft coverage “as everybody thought.”

“I think, however, you took a look at that skit and you started asking some questions about being fair to both candidates," she concluded.

Some other CNN reporters, though, have found ways to justify the unfair treatment.  According to them, because the Clinton camp presented itself as the “powerhouse,” that made it OK to give that side of the campaign a tougher treatment.

"So, we covered them as the fortress Clinton.  And it does bring tougher questions.  It does bring a more skeptical coverage."

When people started to take Obama more seriously, however, they argued that it has become a level playing field.

For his part, despite saying that the tone of the coverage was all but “natural,” Anchorman John King believed that the Saturday Night Live sketch was “a wake-up call.”

In an MSNBC debate, Clinton even mentioned the skit in question and asked if Obama was “comfortable” and “needs another pillow,” while pointing out that she found it “curious” how she always seemed to get the first question during the last few debates.

As a comedy gag show, SNL has been known to poke fun at political and media issues before.


-Glenn L. Diaz, BuddyTV Staff Columnist
Source: Deseret News