Keeping Obama "In Check?"

Gonna jump on the bandwagon and post a blog about the inauguration coverage. I actually haven't seen any evidence that this topic is the bandwagon of our class, but I'm sure it is. It definitely is the bandwagon of the media today (even Entertainment Tonight and KIIS-FM's JoJo on the Radio are constantly talking about it). Here's one for ya (if you haven't already thought of this...)

Romenesko featured a blog today showing that the LAT "pledge[s] to watch Obama, to hold him to his work, and to report back." Here's the blurb so you don't have to dig for it:

Barack Obama's victory "was welcome news to us, as it was for many millions of Americans," says the LAT editorial board. "But recent history supplies a sobering lesson in what happens when support for a president dulls the skepticism needed to ensure public accountability." || Jay Rosen: "What we should care about is not how many questions the press gets to ask at White House news conferences -- a hapless metric -- but how open to questions the Obama White House is in all the available ways."

I heard similar comments on CNN as the inauguration post-mortem coverage was playing in the background of my office in the Annenberg Digital Lab. I tried to find a clip on YouTube for y'all but I couldn't. Basically they said something like, "We'll definitely be keeping Obama IN CHECK during these next four years now that this inauguration is complete."

As I admitted in class last week, I don't know as much about the history of Journalism as others in our class, so I don't know if this is a dumb question. But, I wonder if the function of the press/media was always to keep our president "in check." Isn't the press simply supposed to keep the public informed and keep an air of objectivity? Seems to me that establishing yourself as an identity that scrutinizes for the purpose of a result does not count as objectivity.

That being said, I will be honest as I say this: I hope it doesn't make me a bad person, but I'm over the inauguration. It's time for me to look forward to the event that I was really most excited about... the season premiere of LOST tomorrow night! YEAH!!! Hopefully we'll be let out of class early so I can watch it at 9pm! :)

Cheers!