Media Trademark Obama

7:21 PM: Barack Obama appears on screen, the Victory Column in the background. He waves, laughs, waves, waves, waves, waves, laughs, waves, laughs, waves, waves, laughs. In that order.

7:22 PM: He says, “Thank you. Thank you. Thank you so much. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you to the citizens of Berlin. And thank you to the people of Germany.” Then his speech begins.

ARD, ZDF, ZDFinfo, Eins Extra, Phoenix – all public broadcasters – and the private news broadcasters N24 and n-tv carried his appearance live on Thursday. The station RBB (Rundfunk Berlin-Brandenburg) not only carried it, they tacked on a special afterwards. One is tempted to ask, isn’t anything else happening?

No, there really isn’t anything else happening, not even in the United States. Except that John McCain, Obama’s Republican opponent, is still around. Obama went on tour with a baggage load of 200 selected American journalists. McCain remained a manageable left over. Because of this, McCain sought refuge in media criticism camouflaged as irony: his staff distributed press passes to the journalists covering him marked “B-league Journalist” and put Obama’s picture on McCain’s website with the caption, “The Media is in Love.”

What McCain characterized as unequal treatment, the think-tank “Project for Excellence in Journalism” expressed in numbers: Obama was the main subject in 78 percent of print media, radio and television reports covering the campaign while McCain was the main subject in only 51 percent of them. CNN, MSNBC and even Fox News Channel, part of the media empire owned by the politically conservative Rupert Murdoch, gave only brief coverage to a McCain campaign stop in Pennsylvania, preferring to switch to coverage of Obama’s press conference in Israel instead.

The director of the project, Tom Rosenstiel, suspects it’s because of the “historic character of Obama’s candidacy.” Perhaps ratings figures and sales data – the usual currency of the publicity world – are responsible for the difference in interest levels. The Democratic debates had a high number of viewers; magazine titles, whether Time, Men’s Vogue or Newsweek which included Obama’s name drew many customers. Another thing about publicity strategy: the campaigns constantly look for the most effective pictures. On Obama’s Afghanistan trip, only shaky pictures taken with cell phone cameras were broadcast. Obama’s team thus created the impression better than any commentary could have that this man was putting himself in danger, a place the Vietnam veteran McCain claimed was his middle name.

The media strategies of both candidates was also the subject of German television reports – that was probably because the it was the only practical way to take a break from the celebration surrounding Obama. ZDF showed McCain flying with a few journalists and speaking of private matters as he made an issue of his discontent with the lack of attention he was getting. The RBB, on the other hand, reported that Obama’s media strategy was to avoid off the cuff remarks. Spiegel-online ran a banner during Obama’s Berlin visit claiming Obama’s media strategy consisted of using unusually effective imaging: “In T-shirt, sweat pants and white athletic shoes, Obama entered the luxury hotel Ritz-Carlton – obviously he intends to work out in their fitness room.”

That’s how Obama, with clever staging and promises to journalists, was able to make himself into an international media trademark before the political campaign had even begun. Obama is someone “who demands an audience,” N24’s Dieter Kronzucker concluded. The Obama team’s attention to detail was apparent in Berlin. Even the cameras were positioned so viewers could see the Brandenburg Gate in the background.

Most broadcasters consciously took the approach that they were covering a campaign event one-on-one, at least in their aloof and benign analyses. After viewers heard “O-ba-ma” cheers and saw tens of thousands of people – “half rock concert, half holy day,” as U.S. ex-ambassador John Kornblum called it in ZDF’s report – ZDF anchor Claus Kleber closed with the words, “We got to know a candidate who decided to have his great speech not in London or Paris and not in the Middle East, but in Berlin. That’s what happened, no more, no less.” Quite a bit of hoopla for such a thing, but there’s a lot more nonsense than that broadcast on television.

It remains to be seen what will happen if John McCain makes a visit here. As the US President, for example.