{"id":89734,"date":"2010-07-26T00:00:01","date_gmt":"2010-07-26T05:00:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/alpha.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/2010\/07\/26\/obama-administration\/"},"modified":"2024-04-14T04:12:15","modified_gmt":"2024-04-14T09:12:15","slug":"obama-administration","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/alpha.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/journalism\/2010\/07\/26\/obama-administration\/","title":{"rendered":"The Obama Administration"},"content":{"rendered":"

The nation\u2019s first African American president was the No. 2 story explicitly related in the coverage to African Americans during the year studied, a time period that coincides with Obama\u2019s first year in office. In all, 17.6% of the coverage of African Americans came through coverage of the Obama Administration. (This category does not include policy-oriented stories over such matters as health care or the environment that involved the Obama Administration generally. It includes, rather, coverage that focused on or assessed the Administration and its fortunes specifically.).<\/p>\n\n

[1]<\/p>\n\n\n

Looked at another way, how large a component was race in the press\u2019 treatment of the Obama presidency? In all, race-related themes were present in 9% of all Obama Administration coverage. <\/p>\n\n

Nor did the media generally use his presence as a news hook or basis for examining the state of Black America during his first year in office. Instead, the attention, like other African American coverage, tended to be triggered by specific news events. In this case, two such incidents stood out with roughly equal parts of the coverage: an outburst by Rep. Joe Wilson (R-SC) at a September presidential address to a joint session of Congress and Sen. Harry Reid\u2019s January 2010 apology about comments he made about Obama\u2019s skin color. \u00a0<\/p>\n\n

During the presidential address, a forum for the president to outline his new health care reform proposal, Rep. Wilson shouted \u201cYou lie!\u201d when Obama said the plan would not provide health insurance to illegal immigrants. \u00a0<\/p>\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n<\/p>\n\n

Wilson\u2019s exclamation itself did not mention race, but several observers and commentators asserted that race lay at its core.\u00a0 Most prominent among these was former president Jimmy Carter, who told a town hall meeting in Atlanta that he thought Wilson\u2019s comment was \u201cbased in racism.\u201d Carter continued, \u201cThere is an inherent feeling among many in this country that an African American should not be president.\u201d\u00a0 One day later, he also said in a speech at Emory University that the heavy anti-health-care-reform vitriol of the summer town hall meetings were fueled with racism. <\/p>\n\n

Carter\u2019s response to Wilson\u2019s quote received extensive attention in the media but still did not bring out a much deeper discussion of racism in America.\u00a0 Instead, the coverage was focused on the words of Wilson and Carter.<\/p>\n\n

While front page coverage tended to provide balanced coverage of the issue, cable news shows weighed in with their own \u2013 often alternative \u2013 opinions. <\/p>\n\n

On his September 16, 2009 radio show, conservative Sean Hannity said that disparaging Obama\u2019s critics as being racist was a \u201cclearly orchestrated campaign\u201d by the Obama Administration and on his September 18, 2009 cable television show, the anchor tied Carter\u2019s comments with Nancy Pelosi\u2019s concerns about violence, calling them desperate scare tactics. <\/p>\n\n

Anderson Cooper\u2019s September 16, 2009 show pulled together a panel to discuss the racism issue: African American singer John Legend, black conservative activist Nic Lott, white political analyst David Gergen and African American political analyst Roland Martin. <\/p>\n\n

A September 22, 2009 Good Morning America piece interviewed Bill Clinton about Carter\u2019s statement about racism, but the conversation turned more to opposition to health care reform legislation than about racism.\u00a0 Later that day, Keith Olbermann discussed Clinton and Carter\u2019s differing opinions on racism on his Countdown show.<\/p>\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n

Others argued the claims of racism were unfounded and even politically motivated.\u00a0 On a September 17 show, Fox\u2019s Sean Hannity said that Democrats were trying to silence their critics by \u201cdefining conservatism as racism.\u201d And the Fox Report With Shepard Smith turned to Joe Wilson\u2019s son, saying there is \u201cnot a racist bone\u201d in his dad\u2019s body.<\/p>\n\n

Obama himself downplayed the situation. He said he thought dislike of government was a bigger factor in criticisms of his presidency than racism. He also deflected the topic with humor: when asked in an interview on the Late Show with David Letterman about whether there was basis to Carter\u2019s charges of racism, Obama quipped, \u201cWell, first of all, I think it\u2019s important to realize that I was actually black before the election.\u201d<\/p>\n\n

Four months later, another assertion with racial angles elicited heavy media attention. This one came in published form and, while lasting just three days in the media spotlight, accounted for most of the remainder of the coverage of Obama explicitly tied to race. Mark Halperin and John Heilemann\u2019s book, Game Change, released January 2010, quoted Sen. Harry Reid as saying that Obama could win the presidency because he was \u201clight-skinned\u201d and had \u201cno Negro dialect, unless he wanted to have one.\u201d\u00a0 When the quote hit the media, Reid made a public apology as well as a phone call to the president.<\/p>\n\n

Obama accepted his apology, but not before the story grabbed media attention \u2013 particularly among cable and radio talk programs, which again focused almost solely on evaluating the actions of the two individuals (Reid and Obama) rather than taking a larger focus on how African Americans might respond to such a remark. And the evaluations came largely along party lines as Rush Limbaugh, on his January 11 radio show, pronounced Reid\u2019s apology to be fake, while MSNBC\u2019s Chris Matthews claimed it to be sincere. <\/p>\n\n

One other race-related accusation of the president came from within the media itself.\u00a0 Fox News personality Glenn Beck pronounced on July 28, 2009 that Obama \u201chates white people,\u201d prompting discussions across the media about public attitudes toward the first African American president. <\/p>\n\n

From there, cable channels aired responses to Beck\u2019s statement. On MSNBC\u2019s July 29, 2009 Hardball, Chris Matthews interviewed Kweisi Mfume, former congressman and president of the NAACP, and Joan Walsh from Salon.
Mfume said, \u201cGlenn Beck owes the president an apology.\u00a0 He owes the American people an apology.\u00a0 This is an insult to our democracy, our way of life.\u00a0 It\u2019s divisive.\u00a0 It\u2019s throwing out race and trying to find a way to divide people.\u201d <\/p>\n\n

When Matthews asked Walsh if Beck\u2019s statement was intended to \u201cde-Americanize\u201d the president, Walsh said, \u201cI do.\u00a0 I think it\u2019s related.\u00a0 It\u2019s all an attempt to dehumanize him and to delegitimize him in a very deep way.\u201d <\/p>\n\n

\n\n

Footnote:<\/strong> <\/p>\n\n

<\/a>1.<\/strong> The 134 stories about the Obama Administration that discussed race significantly were only stories about the administration itself and not any other major stories or policy controversies like health care or the environment.\u00a0 Even if the Obama Administration had a major role or was a big part of a story, it would be considered part of that category and not under the Obama Administration. <\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The nation\u2019s first African American president was the No. 2 story explicitly related in the coverage to African Americans during the year studied, a time period that coincides with Obama\u2019s first year in office. In all, 17.6% of the coverage of African Americans came through coverage of the Obama Administration. (This category does not include 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