Keating Five Scandal - True or False?

Analysis of Media Coverage:

CNN posted an article about McCain’s connection to the Keating scandal on Oct. 6 illustrates the kind of journalism all reporters and news organizations should strive for. Check and double check the facts to help voters make informed choices about the candidates. With all the mudslinging and smearing in the political ad campaigns, the line between fact and exaggerated fact or the partial truth can be blurry.

When Sen. Barack Obama’s campaign released a 13-minute video titled “Keating Economics: John McCain and the Making of a Financial Crisis,” America was exposed to the twenty-year-old scandal once again.



McCain, along with five other senators, had been investigated for his meeting with regulators on behalf of Charles Keating, the owner of an Arizona savings and loan. Keating was convicted of fraud while he controlled Lincoln Savings & Loan. Keating gave $112,000 in contributions to McCain’s campaign, which McCain later turned over to the U.S. Treasury. McCain was later cleared by the Senate Ethics Committee.

In response, McCain said he has been open about his relationship to Keating.

The McCain campaign has attacked Obama for his ties to Bill Ayers, who is part of the radical Weather Underground, a group that bombed Pentagon and the Capitol in the 1970s. They had worked together on volunteer charity projects. CNN reported that its review “found nothing to suggest anything inappropriate in the volunteer projects.”



CNN seemed to have understood that many viewers might be tired of hearing all this negativity. This kind of back-and-forth dirt from both campaigns can be bypassed through straightforward investigative reporting. On the website, CNN posts several links throughout the article: “Fact Check,” videos on Obama’s response, and photos of the Keating documentary.

On the Fact Check page, CNN reporters reiterated the supposed accusation, and then proceeded to give the facts straight, without an opinion. At the end of the analysis, CNN writes a “verdict,” which concludes whether the accusation from the political ad was true or false. This kind of fact check is needed in an era of anything-goes on the Internet. A trusted news source like CNN upholds its credibility when it takes neither candidate’s side and instead lays the facts bare for the public.

Too many times, fact errors slip past the lines of editors and copy editors into publication or on air. Journalists should adhere to the strict rule of accuracy and make confusing statements transparent to the public.

In this case, CNN investigated the root of the ad and found that the Obama campaign’s statement of McCain as a key player in the “Keating Five” scandal was indeed true.



The story:
http://www.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/10/06/campaign.wrap/index.html?eref=ib_topstories

True or False:
http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/category/charles-keating/

Commentary: