It's the Media, Stupid.
Peter Hart, www.fair.org: "Like a caged hamster,
Senator John Kerry is restless on the road," wrote the
New York Times' Jodi Wilgoren (6/13/04), beginning a
piece that promised "authentic insights" into the
Democratic presidential candidate. Aside from the
banalities (Kerry dislikes wearing suits on hot, humid
days, and uses a cellphone more than John Glenn did
when he ran for president in 1984), what's most
striking about the piece is how closely it mirrors the
Republican caricature of Kerry, portraying him as an
elitist with "a prep-school cultivated competitive
sensibility," whose speeches "are filled with
multisyllabic upper-crust phrasing," and as a
"contradictory" character who "is anything but simple
and straightforward." Even his playing a musical
instrument is portrayed as somehow weird and
un-American: "And where former President Bill Clinton
plays cards and President Bush turns to the treadmill,
Senator Kerry strums his Spanish classical guitar in a
kind of musical meditation."
Break the Corporatis Stranglehold on the "US
Mainstream News Media," Show Up for Democracy in 2004:
Defeat Bush (again!)
http://www.fair.org/extra/0407/caged-hamster.html
Extra!, August 2004
Covering the "Caged Hamster"
Media's picture of Kerry based on RNC distortions
By Peter Hart
"Like a caged hamster, Senator John Kerry is restless
on the road," wrote the New York Times' Jodi Wilgoren
(6/13/04), beginning a piece that promised "authentic
insights" into the Democratic presidential candidate.
Aside from the banalities (Kerry dislikes wearing
suits on hot, humid days, and uses a cellphone more
than John Glenn did when he ran for president in
1984), what's most striking about the piece is how
closely it mirrors the Republican caricature of Kerry,
portraying him as an elitist with "a prep-school
cultivated competitive sensibility," whose speeches
"are filled with multisyllabic upper-crust phrasing,"
and as a "contradictory" character who "is anything
but simple and straightforward." Even his playing a
musical instrument is portrayed as somehow weird and
un-American: "And where former President Bill Clinton
plays cards and President Bush turns to the treadmill,
Senator Kerry strums his Spanish classical guitar in a
kind of musical meditation."
Wilgoren's piece, with its effect of amplifying Bush
campaign allegations about Kerry, is typical of 2004
presidential campaign coverage. This phenomenon is
seen not only in the media's frequent forays into
trivia, but also in their attempts to cover
substantive issues—as in February, when the Republican
National Committee (2/22/04) released a list of
weapons systems that Kerry allegedly "voted against."
Partisan TV pundits like Fox News Channel's Sean
Hannity (3/1/04) quickly echoed these charges,
claiming, "He's voting against every major weapons
system we now use in our military." The partisan
Hannity's participation in the RNC's attack was
perhaps to be expected, but he was not the only media
figure to pass along the Republican allegations
without examination. CNN anchor Judy Woodruff
(2/25/04) framed the issue this way in an interview
with Rep. Norm Dicks (D.-Wash.): "The Republicans list
something like 13 different weapons systems that they
say the record shows Senator Kerry voted against. The
Patriot missile, the B-1 bomber, the Trident missile
and on and on and on."
Embarrassingly, Dicks had to explain to Woodruff that
most of the weapons "votes" weren't individual votes
at all, but a single vote on the Pentagon's 1991
appropriations bill. Woodruff responded to this
information with surprise: "Are you saying that all
these weapons systems were part of one defense
appropriations bill in 1991?"
But Woodruff wasn't alone. When Bush/Cheney campaign
strategist Ralph Reed explained to CNN anchor Wolf
Blitzer (2/3/04) that Kerry's record was one of
"voting to dismantle 27 weapons systems," Blitzer
responded to Reed's deceptive spin by turning to guest
Ann Lewis of the Democratic National Committee and
saying, "I think it's fair to say, Ann, that there's
been some opposition research done."
One of the few reporters to take a serious look at the
RNC's list—on which 10 of the 13 items refer to the
single 1991 vote on an appropriations bill—was Slate's
Fred Kaplan (2/25/04). Kaplan noted that 16 senators,
including five Republicans, voted against the bill,
and concluded that the claim against Kerry "reeks of
rank dishonesty." Kaplan also pointed out that at the
time of the 1991 vote, deeper cuts in military
spending were being advocated by some prominent
Republicans—including then-President George H.W. Bush
and Dick Cheney, who was secretary of defense at the
time.
As Kaplan noted, Cheney appealed for more cuts from
Congress: "You've squabbled and sometimes bickered and
horse-traded and ended up forcing me to spend money on
weapons that don't fill a vital need in these times of
tight budgets and new requirements." Cheney went on to
name the M-1 tank and the F-14 and F-16 fighters—all
of which would later appear on the RNC's list—as
systems that "we have enough of."
For many reporters, though, such facts weren't allowed
to get in the way of what they seemed to consider the
standard back-and-forth of a political campaign. Fox
News Channel's Carl Cameron (2/27/04) was typical:
"With the GOP attacking John Kerry's votes to cut
defense over the years, the Democratic frontrunner,
once again, counter-attacked what he calls the
president's 'mishandling' of the war on terror."
Associated Press reporter Nedra Pickler (2/27/04)
likewise noted that "the Bush campaign has criticized
Kerry in recent days for voting against some increases
in defense spending and military weapons programs
during his 19-year congressional career." NBC anchor
Tom Brokaw (3/2/04, MSNBC) also seemed to accept the
charges at face value, noting that "the vice president
just today was talking about [Kerry's] votes against
the CIA budget, for example, intelligence budgets and
also weapons systems. Isn't [Kerry] going to be very
vulnerable come the fall when national security is
such a big issue in this country?"
"Kerry propaganda"
Brokaw alluded to a new allegation against Kerry that
emerged in March: According to the Bush campaign, Sen.
Kerry had tried to cut $1.5 billion from the
intelligence budget, a move Bush called a "gutting."
Though you wouldn't have known it from most of the
coverage, the Washington Post noted on March 12 that
Kerry's proposed cut was actually smaller than the
eventual $3.8 billion cut passed by the Republican-led
Congress, which focused on a mismanaged intelligence
program that had accumulated excess funds. But some
outlets aren't interested in such nuance. Later that
day, on Fox News Channel's Special Report, panelist
Juan Williams seemed to have read the Post article,
arguing that Republicans had pushed the same kinds of
cuts. Fellow Fox panelist Mort Kondracke cut him off:
"That's Kerry propaganda."
It's good to see that pundits recognize the concept of
propaganda; that might have helped them to interpret
the Bush campaign's claim that Kerry has voted "for
higher taxes" more than 350 times. This number, as
commentators like Michael Kinsley pointed out
(Washington Post, 3/24/04), is deeply misleading,
counting votes to keep tax rates the same, or even to
lower them by less than Republicans wanted, as votes
for "higher taxes." Even with this dubious definition,
the Republican list counts the same votes multiple
times.
Nonetheless, some journalists allowed the charge to be
repeated without correction. CBS reporter Byron Pitts
(3/5/04), for example, announced a Republican claim
that the Bush tax cuts would be in jeopardy under a
Kerry administration, then turned to Commerce
Secretary Don Evans, who stated, "Senator Kerry has
voted for tax increases over 350 times." While Evans
exaggerated an already misleading claim, CBS viewers
were not told that there was anything questionable
about the 350 figure.
On rare occasions, some outlets do step back and take
a look at the big picture on truth in campaign
advertising. A Washington Post report (5/31/04) on
Bush and Kerry ads used rather blunt language in
concluding that many of the claims made about Kerry by
the Bush campaign—on issues like the Patriot Act, No
Child Left Behind and gasoline taxes—are simply false.
According to the Post, the ads "distort Kerry's record
and words to undermine the candidate or reinforce
negative perceptions of him," with some ads amounting
to a "torrent of misstatements."
When NBC Nightly News (4/6/04) invited Brooks Jackson
of Factcheck.org to debunk misleading campaign ads,
Jackson called the taxes allegation "so bogus," and
dismissed another anti-Kerry ad about his alleged
support for a gas tax increase. But anchor Brian
Williams neutralized this attempt to set the record
straight: "It is hard to tell fact from fiction," he
concluded.
French connection?
CNN's Inside Edition took this practice of amplifying
GOP talking points to a new low with a segment
(5/25/04) devoted to the notion that John Kerry seems,
well, French. "He caught flak early in the campaign
for his French connections," explained anchor Judy
Woodruff. The "flak" seemed to consist of Republicans
making fun of Kerry for either "looking French" or
speaking the French language fluently. Anchor Wolf
Blitzer got the ball rolling by announcing that "the
French, of course, among other things helped to strain
the alliance between the United States and its
European allies over the war in Iraq." CNN then
explained that Kerry has French family, and has
summered in that country.
Then CNN turned the microphones on the American
public. Random people interviewed on the street
offered negative impressions of the French; they're
uppity, arrogant, and even "international." That last
word is trouble, at least to Woodruff: "A tricky word
to be saddled with if you're running to lead a
war-time White House and your relatives across the
pond have not embraced the war."
Viewers may have been left wondering what to make of
such a story: Various Republicans and right-wing
pundits have done their best to turn a bigoted view of
French people into a campaign issue. CNN took that
bigotry and, rather than denouncing or criticizing it,
decided to expand on it, connecting Kerry to various
negative stereotypes about French people. Ironically,
near the end of the piece Woodruff remarks that
connecting Kerry to these negative feelings about the
French might be dirty politics: "Some accused the GOP
of speaking in code." The same charge could be made
against CNN.
Kerry's "Missteps"
When not amplifying Bush talking points, media were
focusing on Kerry's alleged gaffes or misstatements,
ranging from convoluted explanations of his Senate
voting record to whether or not he owns a sports
utility vehicle. But while these relatively trivial
aspects of John Kerry's record have come under intense
and prolonged media scrutiny, journalists have shown a
reluctance to highlight much more significant
falsehoods by Kerry's main rival, George W. Bush (FAIR
Media Advisory, 5/20/04).
Time magazine's May 10 story, "What Kerry Means to
Say," is a typical example of recent Kerry coverage.
After noting Kerry's opportunities to score points
against a White House besieged by questions about
Iraq, the September 11 commission and the Supreme
Court, reporter Karen Tumulty asks, "But what did the
challenger find himself talking about for three days?
The answer is whether or not Kerry threw away his
medals or his ribbons in the early 1970s."
Tumulty attributes this story line to a personal flaw
in Kerry: The campaign has often been about the "traps
that the Bush campaign is adept at setting for Kerry,
and the personality trait that makes Kerry walk right
into them." Of course, Kerry "found himself" talking
about the distinctions between ribbons and medals
because these were the topics that journalists were
asking him about. And on occasions like the "medals"
flap, the press corps seemed to smell blood, latching
on to stories of dubious importance that seem to
portray Kerry as faltering or changing course.
Thus, before the medals "controversy," media interest
was centered on claims about Kerry's medical records
from Vietnam. After Kerry pledged on NBC's Meet the
Press to release medical records from his service in
Vietnam, ABC World News Tonight (4/21/04) reported
that Kerry's service "has become the subject of
controversy" because some of his critics were raising
doubts about his first Purple Heart. When the medical
records did little to bolster their case, the press
corps switched to another GOP spin point: Kerry didn't
get the records out fast enough. ABC's report included
a soundbite from RNC chair Ed Gillespie: "When
President Bush committed to release all his military
records on the same program, he kept his word. John
Kerry should do the same." The fact that Bush took
five days after his Meet the Press appearance to get
his records out while Kerry took three did not deter
media outlets from doing stories on this nonexistent
issue. (Bush has yet to release his pay records or his
final personnel evaluation, claiming that they are no
longer available—Salon, 2/18/04—surely an issue of
greater weight than how many days a document release
took.)
Throughout the various reports of Kerry "missteps" is
the sense that the Kerry campaign is in a state of
disarray, and unable to deal with such problems: "Bad
Timing as Kerry Slips Out of Picture," claimed one New
York Times headline (4/1/04); "Kerry Struggling to
Find a Theme, Democrats Fear," claimed another piece a
month later (5/2/04).
The microscopic scrutiny the press corps pays to
Kerry's statements is jarring, considering the
obviously lenient attitude journalists takes when it
comes to Bush's much more important "flip-flops." A
Time magazine piece (4/12/04) wondered why Kerry's
alleged inconsistencies were more important than
Bush's. The magazine offered one explanation: "How
tight the label sticks depends a lot on the impression
voters have already formed, which means that a less
well-known candidate can be vulnerable in ways a
familiar one may not be." Not mentioned was the rather
significant role played by the press corps in
determining whether such a label "sticks."
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