The media’s favorable coverage of Nancy Pelosi was the subject of a discussion on CNN’s Reliable Sources on Sunday among David Frum, CNN’s Andrea Koppel and The New Republic’s Michelle Cottle. Frum argued that even when journalists are saying critical things about Pelosi, all the images of Pelosi surrounded by children stand in stark contrast compared to the media’s coverage of Newt Gingrich in 1994:
FRUM: Let me just pick up something that Andrea said about is the — when we ask the question is the press covering it or not, I think we have to say that there are a lot of things that the press is covering with the sound on that it is not covering if you watch TV with the sound off. And so…
KURTZ: Is that the way you watch it?
FRUM: That’s the way a lot of people watch it while they’re making breakfast, while they’re getting the kids off to school.
So, while it is true that sometimes critical things are said about Nancy Pelosi, the images are overwhelmingly positive in a way that for Newt, for example, they were not in 1995. He was — he was — he was what — “The Gingrich Who Stole Christmas,” as “TIME” magazine said on its cover.
KURTZ: So she surrounds herself with all these children in the House chamber, and she’s about to take the gavel. I mean, that’s smart politics.
FRUM: Yes, and a normally cynical press corps swallows this gumdrop in a way that it would never swallow such a thing.
Could this be the image he’s talking about?
Video here.