President, Over-Exposed? PDF Print E-mail

 

In this media-driven age, Presidentalt Obama and his family are in a no win situation. On the one hand he’s being accused of too much exposure, while at the same time the newsmedia is clamoring for coverage on anything and everything in which the President and his wife are involved. The media gets to have it both ways.  

The media is imposing microscopic scrutiny on the first family, consider the article headlined in the Huffington Post last week, “Michelle Obama’s Facial Expressions: A Barometer of The Administration.” Good God!

First it was First Lady Obama’s bared “muscular” arms that caused the media folk to twist and twitter. Now we are directed to observe and analyze her facial expressions.  As for the President, columnist and cable news shows alike are posing the question. “Is the President over exposed, being on the Tonight Show, these town-hall meetings, and press conferences,” asked Wolf Blitzer on his afternoon show the day after Obama’s “Leno” appearance.

The exposure question is a debate which started during the campaign season as a partisan issue. When Time magazine published its seventh cover story on Obama in 2008 compared to only two for Republican rival John McCain, many right wing bloggers complained. "Time magazine has once again placed the Obamessiah on its cover," said the Web site NewsBusters, which states its mission is devoted to "exposing and combating liberal media bias."

A book published during the election period by the editors of Slate magazine coined the word "Baracksploitation" for "the practice among editors of putting only Barack Obama on the cover of their magazines."

Since becoming President, we have a convergence of the enormous media interest in the President, and his apparent strategy of making himself available to everyone everywhere, a peoples President selling his charm and charisma. However, what some find troubling is the question of whether he is demystifying the office of the Presidency by being the “everywhere” President? There are those who contend that part of the mystique of the oval office is the sense of distance which is now in danger of being compromised.

The President often talks about getting out of the bubble. But the obvious danger is that the people get so use to seeing and hearing the President so much so that they start taking his appearances for granted, the “no-big-thing” factor kicks in.
If the economy is topic A with the chattering class and political reporters alike, the subject of the President being overexposed has become Topic A1this week., no doubt urged on by his series of town hall meetings, daily photo ops, interviews, and his appearance on “Leno.”  Everybody has an opinion on the subject.

Dee Dee Myers former White House press secretary is quoted in Yahoo News as saying  “When a president is in the public eye too often,  at some point, people stop listening. And right now, Obama’s ubiquity may also remind the public that he’s got a shallow bench: It underscores that he doesn’t have the team of surrogates that he needs yet.”

Politico reports, "as a communication’s strategy, the idea seems to be that Obama is the Oprah of politics: People will buy his policies because he is on the cover. But a personality-driven presidency does have its risks.""

There are at least two schools of thought Josh Greenman, for the Daily News website, writes  “Overexposure of a President, especially in trivial settings, breeds familiarity. And that kind of familiarity, especially in a time of crisis, can breed contempt. The key word is "can." This President, gifted as he is, just might be a special case.

Politics is as much a contest of personalities as it is a contest of ideas. It's one of the reasons JFK beat Richard Nixon and why Bill Clinton often got the best of Newt Gingrich. It's quite possible that, the better Americans get to know and like him, the more clout Obama will gain." Only time will tell.

This is where the mainstream newsmedia has had a free for all with no countering newsmedia force to put them in check or raise the question of mainstream newsmedia indulgence and contradictions. This new in vogue mainstream newsmedia generated question as to whether the President is over exposed as they pursue him with paparazzi like zeal is like a guy going to a strip show claiming the girls are exposing too much.  
 

 
 


 

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