by Eddie Alexander

Created on: February 10, 2009

Inauguration Day 2009: The Media's Perspective

During the campaign, the media did its level-best to paint Barack Obama as a strange blend of rock star and (Muslim?) messiah. Perhaps it's no surprise then that his inauguration ceremony was treated in precisely the same way. One of the first eye-popping stories about the inauguration reported that the event was going to cost $160 million, nearly four times as much as Bush spent in 2005. A little fact-checking would reveal that this incredible comparison really wasn't credible at all, but the media ran with it anyways. Next, Americans heard stories about inaugural tickets selling for up to five figures online despite the fact that the government is the only true source for such tickets, and Uncle Sam gives them away. Obama's inauguration was destined to momentous from the beginninghe's the first African-American president after allbut hype from the media blew it out of proportion. The people were expecting rapture on January 20, and all they got was a pretty good speech.

After systematically raising expectations (and ratings perhaps), the media's coverage of the Inauguration was predictably nationalistic. They set the bar way too high with their unscrupulous reporting about the cost. And then on Inauguration Day, the media pretended that everything was perfect (with the exception of the oath). During the speech, the camera frequently panned over a diverse and packed crowd; every time it zoomed in, the subject in focus had glistening cheekswet from tears of joy no doubt. Even after the speech was over, commentators refrained from criticizing it too much. For example when Peter Robinson from Forbes.com said that he'd give the speech a "B", radio callers quickly denounced him as a divisive pessimist. It seems praise was a much safer route than honesty on this historic day.

The hysteria eventually died down so the media moved on to covering (and inflating) trivial scandals surrounding the event. First, there was the issue of the Presidential Oath. Chief Justice Roberts mixed up a few of the words and Obama repeated after him. This was over-analyzed so much that Obama eventually decided to retake the Oath and reinforce his legitimacy. With their first story marginalized, the media looked for another inconsequential element to scrutinize and exaggerate. This time it was the prerecorded music from the quartet. It was compared to famous lip-syncing scandals of the past, but it was actually a logical decision. The musicians

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