Mainstream Media’s Cold Cold Heart

Political reporters for the main streammedia seem to have cold, cold hearts. They interpret everything the candidates say, not as honest and sincere statements of their principles, beliefs and intentions, but as cynical campaign ploys and attacks on their rivals. The candidates must feel like Hank Williams, complaining that these reporters think "each thing I do is just some evil scheme."

For example, Jim Kuhnhenn of the Associated Press explains John Edwards focus on corporations and lobbyists, rarely mentioning other candidates, this way:

On his current bus tour of Iowa, with the caucuses only three weeks away, Edwards rarely mentions his rivals. …
On the campaign trail, his antagonists now are the corporations and special interests themselves. The Clinton and Obama references are merely implied, hidden in a populist message he calls "America Rising." For the former trial lawyer, it's a closing argument to break away from a virtual three-way tie in Iowa and rise above the fray engulfing his main opponents.

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If a reporter on the campaign trail does not hear what he expects to hear in a campaign speech, attacks on the other candidates, hypocritical posturing and cynical pandering, then he claims those things are implied and hidden in the message. The idea that the candidate might be expressing his/her sincere beliefs and intentions apparently never occurs to the reporter.