Because there's nothing like a manufactured "catfight," complete with vile accompanying images. (Can you imagine a disagreement between male politicians being shown as a head-to-head with a male symbol in between them?!)
ABC News' headline screams Pelosi: Clinton Camp Played Gender Card, yet the content of the article and Pelosi's quotes say nothing of the sort:
Pelosi, the nation's first female House speaker, told ABCNEWS.com in an interview that she didn't agree with observers who thought Clinton was drawing particular heat because she's a woman."[Sen. Clinton] said it best: They're 'piling on' -- or whatever the words were -- 'because I'm the front-runner.' That's why they're piling on," said Pelosi. "If she was in third place, they wouldn't say, 'Let's go attack a woman.'"
"I think the campaign is trying to take advantage of another -- probably people who didn't even watch the debate, to say, 'Oh, they were really rude,' or something like that, and that has some salience," said Pelosi...
So let me get this straight. Pelosi said she didn't think Clinton was "piled on" because she was a woman and that her campaign is trying to paint the opposition as "rude," and somehow that translates into her accusing Clinton of playing the gender card?!
Contact ABC News here. (And if anyone can find reporter Rick Klein's email, leave it in comments.)
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Interesting aol article about this. Not really thrilled about all feminists being lumped together for Hillary though.
http://news.aol.com/political-machine/2007/11/05/feminists-for-hillary/?ncid=NWS00010000000001
FWIW, the reporter rarely has any input into their headlines. It's the editors who do that. Those are the assholes who need to be chastised for this stupidity.
The media just can't let us forget that individuals like hilary and Pelosi have Vagina's....apparently it needs to be commented on over and over again.
On a side not, in my newspaper today in teh short editorial section there was a horrible display of sexism. A man wrote in and said in response to a possible women president "Hillary Clinton supported the war and Nancy Pelosi (supports some bill he doesn't like, I dont remember which) yeah sure this country is ready for female leaders."
Like the fact that they are women affect their judgement...and let's ignore the fact that there are plenty of powerful men that supported the war and I doubt Pelosi is signal handly conrolling the bills in the senate without any other support...ignorant people...always gotta make it about the Vulva
The media just can't let us forget that individuals like hilary and Pelosi have Vagina's....apparently it needs to be commented on over and over again.
On a side not, in my newspaper today in teh short editorial section there was a horrible display of sexism. A man wrote in and said in response to a possible women president "Hillary Clinton supported the war and Nancy Pelosi (supports some bill he doesn't like, I dont remember which) yeah sure this country is ready for female leaders."
Like the fact that they are women affect their judgement...and let's ignore the fact that there are plenty of powerful men that supported the war and I doubt Pelosi is signal handly conrolling the bills in the senate without any other support...ignorant people...always gotta make it about the Vulva
I would just like to reiterate what Staar84 wrote. I'm not an expert in journalism, but I worked as a press assistant on a US Senate campaign so I do know a little about how this works. Please allow me to share.
The reporter writes the article. Normally, there is a separate writer/editor for headlines and someone entirely different who selects the accompanying pictures. Then, another editor looks over all the pieces together and hopefully makes sure the headline matches the article, etc. Sometimes mistakes are made, but in this case I suspect someone thought it would be more attention grabbing to be sensational rather than informative with the headline and picture.
I think there is a better way to go about talking to people at the media than sending them nasty letters, particularly if said letters are being sent to the wrong person. Part of it takes some digging into to find out who was ultimately responsible for letting the picture and headline accompany the article. The next step is to write to the editor. Chastising will likely get you ignored. That doesn't mean you shouldn't call the editor on what happened, but it needs to be constructively critical and not simply angry.
Why is Pelosi identified as a Republican? It's the very first line of the story, ABC. I guess we shouldn't blame malfeasance on the rest of the story - it's probably just widespread carelessness.
Probably.
I wrote to ABC news to complain about the misleading headline. Thank you for the link.
I think you're right and you're wrong.
You're wrong because if you read on, Pelosi does something to the effect of calling Clinton out for the message portrayed in the fundraising email.
But you're right in that the whole "playing the gender card" accusation is based on this relatively benign fundraising email.
See link: http://blogs.abcnews.com/politicalpunch/2007/11/little-miss-muf.html#comments
And excerpt: Campaign manager Patti Solis Doyle sent out a fundraising e-mail: "She is one strong woman. She came through it well. But Hillary's going to need your help."
I'm left scratching my head. There's some sort of political imperative that Clinton identify herself as "person" rather than "woman"? Otherwise Clinton's playing the gender card? What's that about?
On a side not, in my newspaper today in teh short editorial section there was a horrible display of sexism. A man wrote in and said in response to a possible women president "Hillary Clinton supported the war and Nancy Pelosi (supports some bill he doesn't like, I dont remember which) yeah sure this country is ready for female leaders."
What an ass. I don't like a lot of the positions Cheney and Shrub hold, but I don't argue the problem has anything to do with them having dicks. (The problem is that they are dicks.)