With the help of ?Saturday Night Live,? Hillary Clinton is
finally debating Barack Obama on her own terms. As the Democratic presidential
primary winds toward either its end or seven more weeks of wall-to-wall
campaigning until the Pennsylvania primary, the new storyline has become ripe ?
the media has been grossly unfair to Ms. Clinton. And it may well be because
she is a woman.

So does she have a point? The fact of the matter is it
doesn?t matter anymore electorally. Campaigns are about story lines, and for
the first time since her win in New Hampshire, the Clinton campaign has created
one organically: The media has always had it out for Ms. Clinton, and the Obama
phenomenon is little more than a deftly manipulated weapon intended to send the
New York senator to a political graveyard of also-rans.

Even though more analysis won?t shift any votes, Ms.
Clinton?s argument is worth exploring. Her gripe is primarily with the
broadcast media. Print outlets have been writing critical stories about both Obama
and Clinton since the beginning of the campaign, but cable news networks pick
up precious few stories. These have primarily been juicy tales of discord and
strategic blunders within her staff. Only since the Clinton campaign
successfully pushed its cries of foul center stage by piggybacking an SNL skit
have we seen a flurry of negative Obama stories on TV.

Of course, TV news boasts competing theories about the
disparity in coverage of the candidates. MSNBC?s Tucker Carlson essentially
believes the Clinton camp treats the media like annoying panhandlers begging
for loose change, so of course she gets bad coverage. Others, including me
until recently, have said it?s just the nature of this race ? a young
challenger battling the ?inevitable? frontrunner and a press corps trained to
tell the most compelling story.

As the professional media and online amateurs investigate,
much has been made of attempts to answer the bias question scientifically.
Among these is a survey from the Center for Media and Public Affairs published
late December. Even before Iowa, Ms. Clinton received 42 percent positive
coverage from national media and 58 percent negative. Meanwhile, 61 percent of
Mr. Obama?s coverage was positive.

While Clinton backers frequently point to studies like this
one, they don?t tell the whole story. After all, it?s likely there are simply
more negative things to say about Ms. Clinton given her lengthy public record
while the press was introducing Mr. Obama to the nation. What casual observers
often miss is that reporters aren?t supposed to provide perfect balance on
every issue but get as close as possible to the truth of every issue. If Mr.
Obama?s land deals and his alleged 2004 backtrack on war opposition don?t hold
weight, reporters can?t tell the stories anyway in the interest of some twisted
vision of fairness.

Extra scrutiny is the price you pay for entering a race with
name recognition. Ms. Clinton?s task was to build a fervent base of support
based on her progressive reputation, and Mr. Obama?s was to answer: Who the
heck are you? Mr. Obama completed his task, and Ms. Clinton left it incomplete.
That basic undercurrent of this campaign is undeniable and immunizes Obama from
the charge that he?s strictly a media darling.

Putting aside all the conspiracy talk of a media plot to
anoint Obama golden boy as some sort of final retaliation against the hated
Clintons (a theory disproved by a cursory study of impeachment trial coverage),
the obvious answer is demographics. College graduates with relatively high
salaries are trending heavily toward Mr. Obama, and guess who makes up the
national media?

The protracted debate over the media?s treatment of Ms.
Clinton has distracted us from the larger issue: No women host the primetime
cable programs that serve as editorial pages for the networks. The last two
prominent women to host these shows were Rita Cosby and Nancy Grace (who I like
to pretend isn?t on TV anymore). Each ran low-rent tabloids that every night
sought to answer: Where did the young attractive missing white woman go, and
how tastelessly should we exploit her family?

Of course women would be more sensitive to the sexist
undertones of political debates in much the same way many black men like Eugene
Kane of The Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel are adept at decoding racial politics.

The lack of serious women in prime time isn?t for a lack of
qualified options, including NBC?s Mika Brzezinski
and CNN?s Amy Holmes. Instead it?s the battle for ratings, in which each
network is terrified to try something new and probably institutionally
convinced that men hold a near monopoly on entertaining, bombastic and
enlightening political opinion.

Logistically, the major networks can?t appoint primetime
female hosts now (at least until Glenn Beck?s contract runs out). But until
more women gain prominent roles in political opinion, the allegations of sexism
will persist. Without strong voices who are intimately familiar with the subtle
pangs of discrimination, the media crimes or the exploitative whining will last
until the end of this race and go unanswered by the men too intimidated and
uninformed to confront the charges.

Bassey Etim ([email protected])
is a senior majoring in political science and journalism.