The Making of A President - AP Style

Yesterday, The Associated Press (AP) provided the consolidated video/audio feed for Barack Obama's speech in Berlin. They had "nine" cameras, at various angles, that would be able to show Obama and show, with intensity, the shots of all those cheering crowds. I'm sure the AP staff and reporters numbered in the dozens. I would guess that the AP must have thought that there would be no better time than now to get some "campaign ad" footage for "their" presumed King and, if they have anything to do about it, our next President.

I don't know what "technologies" and staff numbers AP used to cover McCain's offshore trip of a couple of months ago. But, my guess is that it wasn't nine cameras and all those reporters and staff. My educated guess is that maybe, just maybe, they sent a single Sony HandyCam and a reporter with a Blackberry! Of course, with the AP's political bias, having even one camera to cover John McCain might just be extremely presumptive of me!

Please Note: In a recent Fox News Opinion Dynamics Poll, only 6% of the respondents thought John McCain was getting "biased" coverage from the press. 46% said that Barack Obama was getting biased or unfair coverage by our national media. This comes from a poll where the self-described Democrats outnumbered the Republicans: 46% to 24%, respectively. So, it wasn't "just" Republicans who think that the coverage of Obama is more than just a "bit" much! (Click to see the full poll results as a .PDF file).