more bad election coverage

Must-read: FAIR looks at the post-election coverage.

The media went way out of their way to continue their ever-insistent storyline that Democrats must be centrists to succeed. They innacurately portrayed the victorious Democrats in every way possible to help this cause.

This all would have been worse, perhaps, if Harold Ford had won. He was their ultimate poster child (see, i.e. Time's piece on him). So far, they have failed to come up with someone else to highlight.

For more on what the media have done with this in the last few days, see Tom Schaller, and also his second piece, where he notes:

Though it is sometimes worth reporting counter-trend and unusual stories, such as those of winning pro-life Democrats like Casey or Shuler, anecdotal exceptions and man-bites-dog storylines misrepresent the larger picture. Any suggestion that Democrats are winning by acting like conservatives or “Republican lite” candidates is simply false. Indeed, the big irony of this election is that the more conservative elements of the Republican congressional caucuses will survive, while GOP moderates pay for their party’s rightward shift.

And see Ezra Klein.