It finally happened. News media reporters finally pinned down presidential candidate Sen. John McCain and asked him direct questions about issues. The issues that voters need to know in order to make an informed decision about who will command the last superpower on earth.

And what famous journalist asked the tough questions? Charlie Rose? Dan Rather? A wizened old news anchor with an English accent on BBC?

Of course not. McCain appeared on “The View.” Barbara Walters, Whoopi Goldberg, Joy Behar, Elisabeth Hasselbeck and Sherri Shepherd sat the senator down on a banana-yellow chair Friday, Sept. 12, and asked him the questions no other reporter in the national media has, or maybe can.

In all fairness, some reporters have asked McCain difficult questions but lacked the leverage to force an answer out of him. The five co-hosts of “The View” had McCain sandwiched between them on national television and executed a laughing, applauding, smiling interrogation.

When asked questions like, “why do you disagree with Roe v. Wade,” McCain normally responded with a sound bite, or pre-screened answer and moved on to the next question. Walters and her co-hosts refused to let McCain interrupt or respond with a quick statement. When McCain discussed the abortion issue and argued his belief in interpreting the Constitution as the writers originally intended, Goldberg asked him whether, by the same philosophy, she should worry about a return to slavery.

“Certain things happened in the Constitution that you had to change,” Goldberg said. An awkward moment was met with a smattering of applause while Goldberg fanned herself without changing expression.

Issues like Gov. Sarah Palin’s claim to reform all of Washington were questioned in depth. Walters asked what exactly Palin and McCain would reform, considering there have been almost eight years of a Republican president. When the senator said Democrats had controlled both houses of the legislature the last two years, the co-hosts asked about inconsistencies in claims about Palin’s record. “They’re lies,” Walters said. “They’re not true and you support them anyway.” McCain could only respond that they were not lies, but without explaining how.

There is little argument in the media that McCain should be answering these questions, and explaining to voters exactly why they should vote for him. The concern is why the questions are being asked on a daytime television show produced for entertainment. Why is the national, or international news media for that matter, not completely embracing their traditional role as watchdog for the U.S.?

“Broadcast and cable are covering this as if this is a popularity contest,” wrote Venise Wagner, SF State journalism department chair and instructor of Ethical Issues in Journalism this semester, in an e-mail. “More so than the usual horse race coverage we get with elections, much of what we are seeing is about the personalities of the candidates.”

Wagner’s statement is bolstered by the nearly constant analysis of lipstick-assaulted pigs and talking heads reviewing hairstyles of candidates and potential first ladies. Wagner said some of this shallow news coverage is motivated by fear.

“Many journalists are afraid of attacking a candidate too hard for fear of appearing biased,” Wagner wrote. Sometimes the press wants to avoid being perceived as liberal, and often covers liberals more aggressively than conservatives.

“Because ‘The View’ doesn’t have to worry about being objective, it was easier for them to hit McCain harder,” Wagner wrote. “They have the freedom that the mainstream press does not have.”

La Toya Tooles, an SF State journalism student, made a simpler assessment of the show’s coverage:

“I thought they attacked Sen. McCain like harpies,” Tooles said. “In a good way. I thought it was amazing.”

Tooles said she liked that the co-hosts went in for the second and third answer to a question the way journalists should. Election coverage, Tooles said, needed to dig deeper to find facts voters could use. It should not focus on a possible vice president, a position less important than presidential power.

“Stop focusing on Palin,” Tooles pleaded to the media. “She is the bottom of the ticket and there is so much more we need to know about.”