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Media Commentator Paul JanenschHow should the news media handle the subject of race in this, the first presidential campaign with an African American as one of the two major-party nominees?  Media commentator Paul Janensch tells us what he thinks.

The news media should handle the subject of race very carefully. But they cannot - and should not - ignore it.  When race emerges as an issue, it must be covered.  For the past several months Barack Obama and John McCain mostly avoided direct references to the subject.  

But others involved in the campaigns were not so discreet - especially if we expand the definition of “race” to include ethnic heritage.  In battleground states, where the campaigns are fighting for the white working class vote, Republican Vice Presidential candidate Sarah Palin frequently said Obama is “not one of us” and accused him of “palling around with terrorists.”  At some Republican rallies, when Obama’s name was mentioned, members of the audience shouted “traitor,” “treason,” “terrorist,” and even “kill.”  Obama supporters contend that terms such as “terrorist” are really racial code words.   

At a Minnesota town meeting, a woman told McCain she read that Obama is “an Arab.”   “No ma’am,” replied the Republican nominee.  “He’s a decent family man.”  On hearing that, the crowd booed - not Obama, but McCain.  

The racial issue was given a boost in the news last week when Democratic Congressman John Lewis of Georgia, a veteran of the civil-rights movement, connected McCain campaign rhetoric to segregationist George Wallace and from him to the 1963 Birmingham church bombing that killed four girls.  

McCain called the comments “shocking and beyond the pale.”  An aide to Obama distanced the Democratic nominee from the statement.  Lewis later said it was not his intention to compare McCain or Palin to Wallace.  Obama is ahead in the polls, but many Democrats are concerned about what is called “the Bradley Effect” - named for one-time Los Angeles Mayor Tom Bradley, the African American who was ahead in the polls but not elected governor of California in 1982.  Some analysts concluded - without much supporting data - that white voters lied to interviewers that they would vote for a black candidate but didn’t.

Obama’s advisors pooh-pooh the Bradley Effect.  They say if Obama doesn’t win, it won’t be because of race.  They may be right.  But if Obama loses, we probably will never know, will we?

Media commentator Paul Janensch is a former newspaper editor who teaches journalism at Quinnipiac University in Hamden, Connecticut.