Clinton vs Obama

The Listening Post looks at how the US media covers the increasingly bitter race for the presidential nominations

This week on The Listening Post Richard Gizbert finds out how the US media has been covering the increasingly bitter race for the presidential nominations as Pennsylvania goes to the polls.

Plus, they are the news media’s eyes on the ground but sometimes they pay a high price for proximity to the action – we look at the work of cameramen in Gaza after the killing of Reuters’ Fadel Shana.

Clinton vs Obama, the race could barely be any closer.

Psephologists are reaching for their abacuses to see if it is mathematically possible for Clinton to still win; pundits are endlessly scrutinising the gossip and gaffes of the apparently hapless candidates; while the public is crying out for some substantive discussion of the issues.

After an ABC debate was generally derided as a fiasco for focussing half of it’s time on unfortunate soundbites and the absence of flag pins the Democratic voters of Pennsylvania voted in a primary that was supposed to be make or break for the candidates.

A Clinton victory was a fairly safe bet and that result means the race will extend beyond the rust belt.

But what effect will the ‘attack’ debate have on Obama, still frontrunner overall, and on the divided Democratic party?

Salah Khadr assesses the dangers faced by camera men and women in the Gaza Strip

In part two Salah Khadr assesses the dangers currently faced by cameramen working in the occupied Gaza strip.

On Wednesday, April 16 Fadel Shana, a cameraman for Reuters news agency, was killed by an Israeli tank shell.

His last piece of filming caught the moment the shell, filled with armour piercing darts, exploded mid-air a few feet from his car.

Then the camera went black at the moment of fatal impact.

That footage is a testament to the brave work done by camera men and women who work in the heat of battle to get pictures to the outside world. We ask some of Fadel’s colleagues why they do it.

They tell us why death is an almost inevitable consequence of Israeli policy – in fact, some claim it is Israeli policy.

In this week’s Newsbytes: industrial action takes Le Monde off French newsstands twice within a week; an American journalism student is arrested in Egypt and rescued by Twitter; the US announces it will televise the planned Guantanamo trial, but only to a select audience; and the gymnast and the president – the gossip that should have stayed out of the Moscow media.

American Idol, that trailblazer of cultural experimentation, has a lot to answer for. The Bulgarian version of the show is the unlikely source of our Video of the Week – a would be pop star giving her interpretation of the Harry Nilsson hit Without You. Or, as the singer dubs it, ‘Ken Lee’! Ear plugs at the ready.

Watch part one of this episode of The Listening Post on YouTube

Watch part two of this episode of The Listening Post on YouTube

This episode of The Listening Post aired on Friday, April 25, 2008