Biden is still whinning.... WFTV anchor Barbara West stirs frenzy with Joe Biden interview
Hal Boedeker
Sentinel Television Critic
October 28, 2008
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Nothing Barbara West has done in her 22 years at WFTV-Channel 9 has generated the attention of her interview last week with Sen. Joe Biden, Barack Obama's running mate. The contentious chat has become an Internet sensation -- 1.2 million hits on YouTube during the weekend and more than 500,000 on WFTV.com -- and generated controversy about how journalists question their subjects.
"The thing that stuns me is that this has become about me," said anchor West, 60. She appeared Monday night on The O'Reilly Factor on Fox News Channel and Larry King Live on CNN and plans to be on three more national shows today.
"It's not a good thing. I am not trying to seek the limelight in any way," she said. "I did not do the interview to make headlines, but to get answers that people in the street want to know. When I'm doing fundraisers, I see vast numbers of people. My questions were reflective of what they're asking about."
In the Biden interview, West quoted Karl Marx and asked, "How is Senator Obama not being a Marxist if he intends to spread the wealth around?"
"Are you joking?" said Biden.
"No," West said.
West later asked Biden about his comments that Obama could be tested early on as president. She wondered whether the Delaware senator was saying America's days as the world's leading power were over.
"I don't know who's writing your questions," Biden shot back.
Sentinel readers described the interview as the best or the worst they have seen. "Barbara must be the last honest reporter in America," wrote one.
"West was asking the most idiotic questions I've seen from a professional reporter," countered another.
"I was trying to get to the heart of things, not lob softballs," West said. "We are a hard-breaking news station. Our job is to challenge people and ask probing questions."
Jill Geisler, who teaches ethics and management at the Poynter Institute journalism school, said West has a right to ask any question she wants. "Depending on where you sit, you may say, 'Somebody finally asked the question I had,' " Geisler said. "Others would say it's loaded language."
Geisler found some of West's language hyperbolic and described the anchor as coming from a point of view similar to those of talk-radio hosts Sean Hannity or Rush Limbaugh.
"I can ask you, 'Have you stopped beating your wife?' and say it's just a question, but there's an assumption embedded in it," Geisler said. "There was a world view in those questions."
WFTV news director Bob Jordan supported West's approach. "I'd rather be known as aggressive than pulling punches," he said. "We ask questions on behalf of viewers."
West received 10,000 e-mails about the Biden interview -- she estimated they were 9-to-1 positive.
After the Biden interview, West's bio was the next most-requested item, Jordan said.
The station posted West's Monday interview with Sen. John McCain on the Web before evening newscasts.
"I think I asked just as tough questions of him," West said.
Obama's campaign was critical of West. "Let's be clear: This station's interview with Joe Biden wasn't tough -- it was just absurd," said Adrianne Marsh, Florida spokeswoman for the campaign. "Republicans and their allies are looking for any excuse they can find to change the subject because, by their own admission, if they keep talking about the economy, they're 'going to lose.' "
In a release, McCain's campaign noted: "Senator McCain sat down with Barbara West today, the same reporter that Biden is now criticizing."Several readers questioned how objective West could be because her husband, Wade West, was a Republican strategist who contributed $2,250 to Republican candidates from 2000 to 2006. Barbara West said he was no longer a strategist and instead runs America Fundraising Auctions, which stages charity auctions.
"That's his business, his full-time business and his only business," West said.
Asked her political affiliation, West said, "I don't think I should say." Voting registration records show she is a Republican.
West's questions to John McCain on Monday
*There are reports now on in-fighting between her [ Sarah Palin's] staff and your staff and that she's now stepping away from your campaign's talking points this close to the election. Is that indicative that she believes your ticket is not going to win, that she's positioning herself for the future?
*Now there's no question that Sen. Obama has put together a well-coordinated campaign team here in Florida and across the country, yet your campaign still seems to be trying to get itself organized. The presidency is the top executive job in the land. How can you convince the American public that you are ready to lead when the thing you're in charge of, your campaign, appears to be lacking the same fine-tuned coordination as Sen. Obama's?
*You've made Joe the Plumber the centerpiece of your campaign in the past week, yet independent analysis shows that he would do better under Obama's tax plan. How do you respond to that?
*Sen. Obama wants to grow personal wealth from the bottom up. But your plan has tax cuts for the wealthy. Do the wealthy really need tax cuts?
*Just today, [Congressman] Barney Frank has proposed a 25 percent reduction in defense spending. What do you think about that?
*Let's get back to that radio interview that Sen. Obama did several years ago in Chicago when he debated not whether or not it was right to spread the wealth but what was the best way to achieve that: legislatively or through the judicial system. What does this tell you about how long he has been thinking about this?
Barbara West's questions to Joe Biden
*Aren't you embarrassed by the blatant attempts to register phony voters by ACORN, an organization that Barack Obama has been tied to in the past?
*In the past Sen. Obama was a community organizer for ACORN. He was an attorney for ACORN and certainly in the Senate he has been a benefactor for ACORN?
*Sen. Obama now famously told Joe the Plumber he wanted to spread his wealth around. A Gallup Poll shows 84 percent of Americans prefer government focus on improving economic conditions and creating more jobs in the U.S. as opposed to taking steps to distribute wealth. Isn't Sen. Obama's comment a potentially crushing political blunder?
*You may recognize this famous quote. From each according to his abilities, to each according to his needs. That's from Karl Marx. How is Sen. Obama not being a Marxist if he intends to spread the wealth around?
*You recently said, "Mark my words; it will not be six months before the world tests Barack Obama." But what worries many people is your caveat asking them to stand with him, because it's not going to be apparent initially that he's right. Are you forewarning Americans that nothing will be done and that America's days as the world's leading power are over?
*Getting back to the spreading the wealth question, what do you say to the people who are concerned that Barack Obama will want to turn America into a socialist country much like Sweden?
Hal Boedeker can be reached at 407-420-5756 or hboedeker@orlandosentinel.com. Read Hal's TV Guy blog at OrlandoSentinel.com/tvguy.
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