YOU can run but you can’t hide from Barack Obama. America’s next president smiles from countless magazine covers, peers at you from 2009 calendars sold on sidewalks, and gazes from commemorative coins advertised on TV.
The US media has showered him with love, so far. Tabloids searched for superlatives to describe their 44th president who will take office on Jan 20, while lifestyle magazines put his wife Michelle on their cover.
“Fit For Office”, said the New York Post three weeks ago, showing a frontpage photo of a shirtless Obama, lean and mean during his Hawaii holiday. “Buff Bam is Hawaii Hunk”, said the tabloid, concluding that “he looks more like the next James Bond than the 44th president”.
Another newspaper attributed his calm demeanour to the Aloha spirit.
By now, people know more about him than their next door neighbour of five years.
Obama’s early years have been well-documented. “Barry” back then, he connected with his non-black schoolmates through basketball. Barry listened to jazz. Barry was a cool 20-year-old college kid, wearing leather jackets.
These days, the president-elect is known to eat healthily, preferring fish instead of meat. He snacks on Planters Trail Mix, drinks organic Black Forest Berry Honest Tea and exercises at least 45 minutes a day.
His attempts to quit smoking has not escaped media attention, either. He reportedly smokes three cigarettes a day, but sometimes goes up to seven.
Small wonder then that Republican rival John McCain, at one point during their bruising campaign, called Obama “the biggest cele-brity in the world”, bigger than the likes of Britney Spears, Paris Hilton and Lindsay Lohan.
“I would definitely describe this as a honeymoon period for him,” said Quill managing editor Amy Guyer of the Society of Professional Journalists, explaining the rosy reports.
“He hasn’t had a chance to do anything wrong yet, so the press will be favourable,” she said.
But she personally believed that the press would soon get more critical once Obama was in office “because he will be making policy decisions then”.
However, Guyer did not share the view that Obama was a mega-celebrity, so to speak.
“I don’t think he is any more of a celebrity than George W. Bush or Bill Clinton, or Sarah Palin or even McCain,” she said. “They all appeared on talk shows during the election (like The Daily Show or Saturday Night Live). They were all viewed in the same critical eye as celebrities.”
Obama, she said, was getting more coverage right now because he won the election.
There is also another obvious point – Obama has made history in the United States. He is the poster boy of what had always been dismissed as an impossible American Dream.
If Princess Diana was the world’s most photographed woman, then Obama must surely be the man whose face appears most frequently on magazines now.
“Another week, another magazine cover devoted to Democratic presidential hopeful Barack Obama,” Reuters said in August last year, back when he had not even clinched the presidency yet.
Rolling Stones, Men’s Vogue, GQ, People, Us Weekly, Time (seven times last year, not counting those in which he appeared along with somebody else); that’s just among the handful of big publications which had featured him on their cover.
That’s not even counting those magazines devoted to the black community. Ebony, one of the oldest African-American magazines, named Obama Person of the Year.
ASIS (artists, street, info, style) put him on the cover this month, Sister 2 Sister featured Obama and Michelle while Black Hair and Black Style magazines opted for the next First Lady.
Obama topped the list of Google’s fastest-rising search terms last year. Books written by him, or about him, are on the bestsellers list. In Washington these days, everybody wants him over for dinner.
Obama spells money, naturally. Newspapers sell photographs and reprints of the historical day. “Own a piece of history,” said Chicago Tribune in its marketing of the front-page story and photographs from that momentous night in Grant Park.
As for political analyst Juan H., he shares McCain’s view of the Hollywood factor in Obama.
“McCain was right,” he said. “But the blame is not Obama’s alone. The mainstream media, owned and run by liberals, prefer such a leader anyway.”
He recalled that the US press had shown similar affection to Clinton when he won the White House though “they hated Bush from day one. They also hated Bush Sr”.
“Basically, the media will protect Obama they way they had protected Clinton,” he said.
“Media rules in the US are simple. They like you if you are ‘black’, ‘women’, ‘pro-abortion’ or at least dislike anti-abortion groups’, etc etc,” he said.
NewsBusters, a blog dedicated to exposing liberal media bias, quoted a recent write-up which exemplified how the press was star-struck, fawning over Obama:
“President-elect Barack Obama radiates a certain stylistic sophistication that’s at once Kennedyesque in its reverence for the clean-cut, American style, and modern in its confident embrace of a look that’s both effortless and urbane.”
That story, taken from Myrtle Beach Online of the The McClatchy Company was most frivolous, NewsBusters said, citing also other examples to show how most publications would protect Obama when his transition phase hit choppy waters.
“The Old Media is standing ever ready to prop up their messiah. And this is the sort of ‘news’ we can expect for the next four years,” NewsBusters concluded.
The US media has showered him with love, so far. Tabloids searched for superlatives to describe their 44th president who will take office on Jan 20, while lifestyle magazines put his wife Michelle on their cover.
“Fit For Office”, said the New York Post three weeks ago, showing a frontpage photo of a shirtless Obama, lean and mean during his Hawaii holiday. “Buff Bam is Hawaii Hunk”, said the tabloid, concluding that “he looks more like the next James Bond than the 44th president”.
Another newspaper attributed his calm demeanour to the Aloha spirit.
By now, people know more about him than their next door neighbour of five years.
Obama’s early years have been well-documented. “Barry” back then, he connected with his non-black schoolmates through basketball. Barry listened to jazz. Barry was a cool 20-year-old college kid, wearing leather jackets.
These days, the president-elect is known to eat healthily, preferring fish instead of meat. He snacks on Planters Trail Mix, drinks organic Black Forest Berry Honest Tea and exercises at least 45 minutes a day.
His attempts to quit smoking has not escaped media attention, either. He reportedly smokes three cigarettes a day, but sometimes goes up to seven.
Small wonder then that Republican rival John McCain, at one point during their bruising campaign, called Obama “the biggest cele-brity in the world”, bigger than the likes of Britney Spears, Paris Hilton and Lindsay Lohan.
“I would definitely describe this as a honeymoon period for him,” said Quill managing editor Amy Guyer of the Society of Professional Journalists, explaining the rosy reports.
“He hasn’t had a chance to do anything wrong yet, so the press will be favourable,” she said.
But she personally believed that the press would soon get more critical once Obama was in office “because he will be making policy decisions then”.
However, Guyer did not share the view that Obama was a mega-celebrity, so to speak.
“I don’t think he is any more of a celebrity than George W. Bush or Bill Clinton, or Sarah Palin or even McCain,” she said. “They all appeared on talk shows during the election (like The Daily Show or Saturday Night Live). They were all viewed in the same critical eye as celebrities.”
Obama, she said, was getting more coverage right now because he won the election.
There is also another obvious point – Obama has made history in the United States. He is the poster boy of what had always been dismissed as an impossible American Dream.
If Princess Diana was the world’s most photographed woman, then Obama must surely be the man whose face appears most frequently on magazines now.
“Another week, another magazine cover devoted to Democratic presidential hopeful Barack Obama,” Reuters said in August last year, back when he had not even clinched the presidency yet.
Rolling Stones, Men’s Vogue, GQ, People, Us Weekly, Time (seven times last year, not counting those in which he appeared along with somebody else); that’s just among the handful of big publications which had featured him on their cover.
That’s not even counting those magazines devoted to the black community. Ebony, one of the oldest African-American magazines, named Obama Person of the Year.
ASIS (artists, street, info, style) put him on the cover this month, Sister 2 Sister featured Obama and Michelle while Black Hair and Black Style magazines opted for the next First Lady.
Obama topped the list of Google’s fastest-rising search terms last year. Books written by him, or about him, are on the bestsellers list. In Washington these days, everybody wants him over for dinner.
Obama spells money, naturally. Newspapers sell photographs and reprints of the historical day. “Own a piece of history,” said Chicago Tribune in its marketing of the front-page story and photographs from that momentous night in Grant Park.
As for political analyst Juan H., he shares McCain’s view of the Hollywood factor in Obama.
“McCain was right,” he said. “But the blame is not Obama’s alone. The mainstream media, owned and run by liberals, prefer such a leader anyway.”
He recalled that the US press had shown similar affection to Clinton when he won the White House though “they hated Bush from day one. They also hated Bush Sr”.
“Basically, the media will protect Obama they way they had protected Clinton,” he said.
“Media rules in the US are simple. They like you if you are ‘black’, ‘women’, ‘pro-abortion’ or at least dislike anti-abortion groups’, etc etc,” he said.
NewsBusters, a blog dedicated to exposing liberal media bias, quoted a recent write-up which exemplified how the press was star-struck, fawning over Obama:
“President-elect Barack Obama radiates a certain stylistic sophistication that’s at once Kennedyesque in its reverence for the clean-cut, American style, and modern in its confident embrace of a look that’s both effortless and urbane.”
That story, taken from Myrtle Beach Online of the The McClatchy Company was most frivolous, NewsBusters said, citing also other examples to show how most publications would protect Obama when his transition phase hit choppy waters.
“The Old Media is standing ever ready to prop up their messiah. And this is the sort of ‘news’ we can expect for the next four years,” NewsBusters concluded.
