ABC Accidently Posts AP Recap of tonight's debate...

[Minnesota_Lib]

...well before the event even takes place. Notice the past-tense.

http://abcnews.go.com/wire/Politics/ap20040930_1184.htm...

CORAL GABLES, Fla. Sept. 30, 2004 — After a deluge of campaign speeches and hostile television ads, President Bush and challenger John Kerry got their chance to face each other directly Thursday night before an audience of tens of millions of voters in a high-stakes debate about terrorism, the Iraq war and the bloody aftermath.

The 90-minute encounter was particularly crucial for Kerry, trailing slightly in the polls and struggling for momentum less than five weeks before the election. The Democratic candidate faced the challenge of presenting himself as a credible commander in chief after a torrent of Republican criticism that he was prone to changing his positions.

Bush was expected to confront questions about leading the nation into war on the still-unproven premise that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction. He also has faced accusations that he lacked a strategy to deal with the violence and chaos that have left more than 1,000 Americans dead and that the Iraq war has diverted U.S. attention from al-Qaida and other terrorists.

With a record of four years in office to defend, Bush had a debate strategy of being optimistic about Iraq but acknowledging that times were tough. His stance is that Americans know he is a decisive leader even if they don't always agree with his decisions and that Kerry has taken conflicting positions on Iraq and can't be trusted to lead the nation.

Although Kerry voted to give Bush authority to invade Iraq, he says he would not have followed Bush's path to war a path that alienated allies and, the Democrat says, left Americans less secure. Kerry argues Bush is out of touch with reality, paints too rosy a picture about Iraq and lacks a strategy to end the crisis.

Kerry also says Bush has neglected other major problems like North Korea and Iran, two nations suspected of pursing nuclear weapons.

Kerry, in a taped interview on ABC's "Good Morning America" on Thursday, said, "George Bush is scaring America. He's talking terror every day, and people see terrible images of what's happening in the world, and they're real."

Bush spent the morning comforting hurricane victims on his fifth survey of Florida areas hit by storms. At the Martin County, Fla., Red Cross center, Bush thanked volunteers for showing "the true heart of America. We long to help somebody when they're hurting."

The debate's focus on Iraq was sharpened by bombings in Baghdad Thursday that killed three dozen children.

Ahead in the polls, Bush could afford to settle for a debate draw while Kerry needed something to break the status quo. Some Democrats saw the debates as the last chance for a Kerry breakout.

Thursday night's meeting at the University of Miami was the first of three Bush-Kerry debates over a two-week period. Neither side was underestimating its importance with a TV audience of 30 million to 40 million expected. Almost a third of people surveyed say the debates will be a deciding factor in how they vote.

The first debate drew the nation's attention to hurricane-battered Florida and its political importance. Florida swung the presidency to Bush in the disputed 2000 election and could determine whether he wins re-election.

The debates were staged under a rigid set of rules negotiated by the candidates' representatives to limit spontaneity and opportunities for back-and-forth exchanges.

------------

Wake me up when this bad movie is over...

[JoFerret]

1. Hilarious

First the debates have no spontenaity and now the news.

[Hard Attack]

49. Copy of the Whole Report Here ===

Here it is gang ===

http://www.hardnewsnow.com/abcnews_blunder.html

[Bossy Monkey]

82. Way to go, Hard Attack (and of course Minnesota_Lib)

And a late Welcome to DU (and of course Minnesota_Lib)

[Tom Yossarian Joad]

83. LOL!!!! This is TOO sweet.

I am now living in bizarro world.

[romantico]

2. Did they declare Bush the winner?

Or perhaps they forgot to add that. These fuckers have no shame! Liberal media my ass!

[fishnfla]

3. OMFG!! They did this exact thing last night on the daily show

a fill-in-the-blank report

too funny

[Minnesota_Lib]

4. LOL

I saw Ed Helm's "lazy reporter" recap. It is more funny now that it is true.

[johnnyrocket]

81. Sorry This content is not available. We apologize for the inconvenience.

Hmmmmmmm...ABC BUSTED!!!!

[krkaufman]

30. * * * VIDEO CLIP of TDS/Helm's bit on the debates, from Weds night * * *

See:

http://home.comcast.net/~krkweb/helms_on_debates.wmv
(3MB, 2m45s)

[JetCityLiberal]

39. I saw that last night too

unbelievable.

JetCityLiberal

[jdj]

63. That's what I was thinking, I had to actually look at the calendar!

and the date on this story. Man, they are getting so good they are getting prescientK!!

[Seabiscuit]

69. I saw it too.

It was hilarious.

But now we find ABC actually doing, it, it's kind of bone-chilling. If ABC's doing it, surely Fox, CNN and MSNBC etc. are too.

Maybe we should just cook all the media whores at a Texas-style bbq.

[johnfunk]

75. Helms piece just re-ran on the East Coast....

The Daily Show... their fake news beats AP's -- by nearly a day!

[question everything]

77. And that NY paper declared that Kerry selected Gephardt

as his running mate..

[SoCalDem]

5. ABC ripped me off......I reported on the debates YESTERDAY

SoCalDem (1000+ posts) Wed Sep-29-04 04:35 AM
Original message

Wow!!! Wasn't that debate SOMETHING????


This reporter was "shocked and awed" beyond words... The tension in the room was so think you could have cut it with a knife.. The questions were riveting..

The two men were prepared, and determined to get their message out to the people. Although he looked relaxed and tanned..(tan in a can, or did he use Gore's make-up person??)...Mr. Kerry's answers to the questions seemed a bit out of focus. There were quizzical looks on the faces of most of the audience. The kind of rhetoric that is common to Mr Kerry is very foreign to the common man. The democrat senator from Massachussets was a skilled debater in school, and he was expected to do very well in the debate, yet he seemed flat.. Instead of stating the positive things he would do, he seemed intent on criticising the president...and in war-time..

PRESIDENT BUSH, on the other hand, was his usual affable self. He certainly knows what to say, and how to say it.. His fans know that they can always count on him to talk to them in easy-to-understand terms....The plain-spoken President Bush has the "heart and soul" of America, because he is one of them.. It had to be difficult for him too, since the Democrat senator's people have been attacking Mr. Bush unrelentingly.

The few times that the two debaters looked at each other, you could almost see the hurt in Mr Bush's eyes.. At times he looked upwards, as if to confer with his lord and savior for guidance. He obviously has very pressing issues on his mind, what with the war on terrorism, yet he took time out of his busy schedule to have the debate.

His energy knows no bounds, and he will undoubtedly continue to do the hard work as president, and still honor the debate schedule..

note to staff... do not file until Friday...


www.liberalcommiepinkopress.com

[Jackpine Radical]

65. I saw your post yesterday, SoCal. I'll back your claim to

precedence over these other yahoos.

[Dem2theMax]

79. I saw it too. And I laughed my head off last night when

The Daily Show did the same thing. I had to commment that one of the DU posters beat them to it. lol. Now THIS happens?

[milkyway]

6. LOL, they've been watching the Daily Show! I can't believe the AP

let this out over the wire. Parts of stories are pre-written all the time with the background info so they can get them out quicker when an event is over, but it usually doesn't end up over the wire beforehand.

[LiberalFighter]

80. Actually...

I have come across the same thing for our local newspaper from their parent company. It isn't available via their links but running thru each address in numerical order I will find it. I forget the term that they use but something along the line that it is not to be released.

[benburch]

7. This sort of thing is pretty common.

You write the story in advance that you THINK you will be running. Then you put it on the wire, under embargo.

If events happen as you think, your story (which is very generic) goes to "press" immediately after the embargo is lifted. If not, you pull the story, and quickly re-write it to cover whatever unexpected event happened.

In a similar way, they have obituary pieces already written about just about any popular person so that they can be totally ready when they eventually pass on. They revisit the obit pieces every few months to update anything that has to change or be added.

[IA_Seth]

20. Obits..

How freakin morbid is that?!

It would be interesting to read those I bet.

[chatterboy]

40. Not as morbid as you think

Especially when you're the reporter writing an obit on deadline.

The New York Times's obit on Bob Hope was written by Vincent Camby, who was dead by the time Hope finally kicked.

Newspapers and wire services routinely write advances. Not a big deal. If this AP advance had declared Bush or Kerry the winner, that's one thing. But the story's generic.

[muriel_volestrangler]

45. TV stations in Britain do practice runs for the Royal Family

because they know they're expected to clear the whole schedule if the Queen dies. The same went for the Queen Mother - one day, Sky News were doing a practice run for her, and someone at the station, but not part of it, saw it going on, and started phoning all their relatives to tell them. The rumour got round most of the country before it was stopped.

[Brundle_Fly]

85. this is just another example

of how cable/network news and the like are so under the gun to provide the story so fast, to report first rather than correctly.

Couldn't live without my newspapers.

NYT / BOSTON GLOBE / CHRISTIAN SCIENCE MONITOR

[CornField]

50. Yes... but

If it was a shell article (to be further filled in later or for editions that must go to press prior to the event ending) it should not have been on the main wire where it was picked up. It very well could be a newbie that put it on the main instead of the 'back' folder, but that's difficult to swallow.

[sui generis]

8. We're all missing the point of this story

ABC has discovered time travel and they're not afraid to use it!

[PsN2Wind]

18. Carnac the Magnificent

is out of retirement and writing for ABC news. News so fresh it hasn't happened yet.

[autorank]

58. This is our "Dewey Defeats Truman" headline. Pound it! n/t

[wtmusic]

9. Gone...Not Found n/t

(tee-hee)

[bringbackfdr]

10. No conspiracy here

Actually, the story looks like a "plug" - something newspapers use in early editions to fill the hole where the post-debate story will go in later editions. It's pretty standard stuff for AP to do these before any deadline event.

[Child_Of_Isis]

11. I got a pop up

on that page, saying Edwards had received 15 million from trial lawyers....what do they get in return? This is the freaking twilight zone.

[splat]

12. Misplaced crowing. This is done every day for every event

It's not accidental. It's a scaffolding that they'll fill in with "write throughs" as the night progresses.

Let's not embarrass ourselves because we don't know how the wires work.

[Minnesota_Lib]

19. Yes...

I used to work in the media and I know very well how it works. This post was not about an implied conspiracy--just pointing out a humorous misstep by ABC.

[Jackpine Radical]

68. Yeah, yeah, we know.

Ain't gonna stop us from having a little fun with it, though.

[Minnesota_Lib]

73. That's the point LoL nt

[Deb]

13. "Transcript will be available at:"

The idiots, same crap, different day. Is the original source of this article AP or ABC?

[democrank]

14. Gee....I got all worked up over nothing.

Paced around all day only to find out that somehow I must have missed the so-called debate. Guess I`ll email ABC and thank them for their hard work breaking this big story.

[patcox2]

15. Its 100% background and set up, nothing wrong with it.

There is nothing wrong with this, this is all the background and set-up. It reports nothing about what occurred in the debate, speaks only of context and expectations. Then tonight they would insert a few paragraphs reporting what happened. I have seen this kind of thing frequently, before the event.

[neomonkey]

44. You're right

This is common in printed news...their screw-up was posting the damn thing on the net. Idiots.

I can't really get myself all in a blather about this...now if they had actually called the debate, I might start frothing.

[Gregorian]

16. They must be watching The Daily Show

Oh no! Could it be true? Could we really be living in the inverse of the post apocolyptic universe? Are the news outlets getting the news from the Daily Show? Is Jon Stewart god?

I"ll just go hide in my closet and cry now. This is quite upsetting. If you actually watch the news. And believe what you're watching.

[Peanut Gallery]

72. Too funny

Even if it is standard practice by the wires, it's humorous in light of the Daily Show segment last night.

[Politicub]

17. That's pretty trashy of ABC

But not unexpected. They already have the story written before the event even happens. This is the reality of newsmaking today. The networks have already decided the spin, no matter what the outcome of the debate.

With this article, even if Kerry prevails, it won't matter to the fucks at ABC.

This is an excerpt from the article:

"Ahead in the polls, Bush could afford to settle for a debate draw while Kerry needed something to break the status quo. Some Democrats saw the debates as the last chance for a Kerry breakout."

So is that how the networks are going to call it? A draw?

Sometimes I despise the networks and their power to shape public opinion. Now is one of those times.

[Mika]

21. They took it down

Here's what your link brings up now,

Sorry
This content is not available. We apologize for the inconvenience.

[markus]

22. B-Matter

should be the boilerplate that would not change unless one of them pulls out a gun and shoots the other, or Mars Attacks Miami during the debate.

You have a fairly good idea what will happen, so you write the easy part of the story in advance.

The "A-matter" comes latter, after the event.

This is standard B-matter. What can you imagine happening tonight that would change one-iota of the embargoed B-matter?

[Logansquare]

23. Here it is, by Terence Hunt...

http://www.boston.com/dailynews/274/politics/Bush_and_K...

..and his time machine

[madfloridian]

32. Got a screenshot of the Terence Hunt.

Also emailed the whole page to our DEC DFA mailing lists.

[CornField]

43. I've got a screen shot of the ABC news one

[madfloridian]

46. See the one about Dean and WI primary I posted in GD.

Same song 2nd verse.

[el_gato]

48. Save that screen shot!!!!

[papau]

35. Boston Globe posted before 2 pm and it is now after 5pm! LOL

I like the idea of a storyline or spin being set in concrete 7 hours before the event (as in "Ahead in the polls, Bush could afford to settle for a debate draw while Kerry needed something to break the status quo. Some Democrats saw the debates as the last chance for a Kerry breakout.")




http://www.boston.com/dailynews/274/politics/Bush_and_K...

Bush and Kerry meet in first of three debates with Kerry needing to make up ground
By Terence Hunt, Associated Press, 9/30/2004 13:47

CORAL GABLES, Fla. (AP) After a deluge of campaign speeches and hostile television ads, President Bush and challenger John Kerry got their chance to face each other directly Thursday night before an audience of tens of millions of voters in a high-stakes debate about terrorism, the Iraq war and the bloody aftermath.

The 90-minute encounter was particularly crucial for Kerry, trailing slightly in the polls and struggling for momentum less than five weeks before the election. The Democratic candidate faced the challenge of presenting himself as a credible commander in chief after a torrent of Republican criticism that he was prone to changing his positions.

Bush was expected to confront questions about leading the nation into war on the still-unproven premise that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction. He also has faced accusations that he lacked a strategy to deal with the violence and chaos that have left more than 1,000 Americans dead and that the Iraq war has diverted U.S. attention from al-Qaida and other terrorists.

With a record of four years in office to defend, Bush had a debate strategy of being optimistic about Iraq but acknowledging that times were tough. His stance is that Americans know he is a decisive leader even if they don't always agree with his decisions and that Kerry has taken conflicting positions on Iraq and can't be trusted to lead the nation. <snip>

On the Net:

Transcript will be available at: http://wid.ap.org/transcripts/debates/04prez.html

[papau]

42. Debate on Foreign Policy, Wide Gulf or Splitting Hairs? & "Primer"

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/09/30/politics/campaign/30d...
Debate on Foreign Policy, Wide Gulf or Splitting Hairs?

Call it character versus competence: Mr. Bush wants to present himself as a leader with the courage to go it alone, facing a rival who wavers; Mr. Kerry wants to present himself as wise and prudent, better able to judge threats and enlist allies against them."

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A60722-20...

For the Record
A Primer for Tonight's First Debate
Both Bush and Kerry Have Set the Stage With Some Misleading Claims

By Glenn Kessler and Ceci Connolly
Washington Post Staff Writers
Thursday, September 30, 2004; Page A06

Tonight's debate between President Bush and Sen. John F. Kerry marks the culmination of months of campaigning, speeches and attack ads, and the clash is likely to set the tone for the remaining five weeks of the election. <snip>


While Bush did seek U.N. approval to confront Hussein -- after sharp debate among his foreign policy advisers -- the White House very quickly gave up on the inspection process and assumed a war footing several months before the March 2003 invasion, according to administration officials. The administration rejected several compromise proposals from other nations that would have delayed an invasion and allowed inspectors to continue searching for weapons of mass destruction. No such weapons were found after the invasion, and much of the prewar intelligence the administration used to justify the invasion was later found to be wrong. <snip>

Bush has charged that Kerry has said "he prefers the stability of a dictatorship to the hope and security of democracy." But Kerry has never said that. The Bush campaign said this attack is derived from a Kerry statement that "the satisfaction that we take in downfall does not hide this fact: We have traded a dictator for a chaos that has left America less secure." Kerry prefaced that statement, however, by saying that while Hussein was "a brutal dictator who deserved his own special place in hell," that by itself was not a reason to go to war.

In a recent line of attack, Kerry has said the cost of Bush's "go-it-alone policy in Iraq is now $200 billion." This is an exaggeration, because it combines the amount already spent -- about $120 billion -- with money that is expected to be spent in the coming year or requested by the administration. In the past week, Kerry has modified his comments to say Bush "didn't tell America this would cost $200 billion." <snip>

[papau]

53. Debate Set to Sharpen Bush-Kerry Contrast

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-de...
THE RACE FOR THE WHITE HOUSE
Debate Set to Sharpen Bush-Kerry Contrast
The stakes are high as undecided potential voters look for more substance on the issues dividing the major-party presidential candidates.
By Maria L. La Ganga and Mark Z. Barabak
Times Staff Writers

September 30, 2004

ALTOONA, Iowa — With so much at stake, they don't want polemics, they want plans. Instead of dirt, they want details about how President Bush and Sen. John F. Kerry would make America stronger, safer and healthier, and how the two men vying for the nation's highest office would extricate the country from a troubling war.

Voters here and across the country want to hear all of this tonight, when the two rivals face off in the first of three presidential debates, which could go a long way toward deciding whether Bush can solidify his upper hand in the contest or Kerry can capitalize on persistent voter unease about the incumbent.

With polls showing the contest fluid, the debate has become a critical juncture in the race for the White House — the first chance for voters to hear the two men's views at length, side by side and unfiltered. And as they arrived in Coral Gables, Fla., on Wednesday, the campaigns jockeyed to lower expectations about how the men would perform.

But in nearly two dozen interviews across this Midwestern battleground state, many voters said they had little hope that a campaign pocked with nastiness could yield a debate of much substance tonight.<snip>

[Name removed]

24. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[msturgis524]

25. Who's surprised though ?

[pacalo]

26. Good observation! Of course they've taken it off the net,

but you were savvy enough to copy it before it vanished. Pathetic, isn't it?

[Minnesota_Lib]

37. No credit deserved here...

This was first found by footsniffa and posted at the great AlFrankenWeb site. http://www.alfrankenweb.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=16420

I just spread the word.

[TryingToWarnYou]

27. ABC link is now dead... God, I hope someone got a screenshot

[ParanoidPat]

36. I saved it as 'web page, complete'.....

.....heh heh heh!

[muriel_volestrangler]

38. Yep, I got one

well, 3, to get the whole story in - including a clock (though I could fake that, of course)

[OKNancy]

28. As moderator

I told you to snip in an earlier post.....I deleted that.
Don't you dare snip this. ABC has removed the story from their site.

[shraby]

60. So has the Boston Globe

[democracy eh]

29. I just gained 90 minutes tonight

no need to bother watching now

heh heh

ah, it may be standard journalistic practice, but it is still a load of CRAP, my how our standards have fallen

[goodboy]

61. LMAO...nt

[KansDem]

31. Can you believe this shit???!!!

Talk about lazy journalism. As I recall correctly after sElection2000, the media (AP) did a number of "'Today, Bush did this...' news" reports that out in the wee hours of the day Bush was supposed "to do this" The news reports were read in the evening after the day's events but the posting times for these stories had early morning times.

It was apparent the media whores were taking itineraries from the White House (Rove?) and writing them in the past tense but posting them before the events actually happened!

I didn't think they would have the nerve to do the same for the debates!

[Ilsa]

33. I'm emailing this thread out to everyone on my list.

Too bad those SOBs discovered their mistake. Even they have to admit that the debates are useless if they can predict what is going to be said.

[madfloridian]

34. Remember when they did this to Dean in WI, BEFORE the primaries?

Note the morning time. What a day we had bombarding the media about that.

[madfloridian]

52. And the Dean thingy was Knight Ridder.

Guess they all do it. I posted the pic in GD to help us remember.

[goodboy]

41. John Stewart Show last night was the harbinger of things to come...

I cannot believe this.

[msanthrope]

47. My gut tells me that this was not done "accidentially", but

by someone deliberately trying to make a point.

A mole, or a rebel from within....

Kudos to whoever did this----I owe you a drink!!!!

[UpsideDownFlag]

51. stupid sonsabitches. nt

[Tsiyu]

54. Aw just write it how you want it to read

Facts? What are those? Do college educations include studies in ethics, honesty or fairness anymore?

[Deja Q]

55. Shouldn't the debates take place before the article is WRITTEN,

never mind it being POSTED so prematurely?!

[mantis49]

56. As of now,

it's been removed from the site. Someone caught it. See if they release it word for word after the debate.

[dweller]

57. They are furiously re-writing it now

the 'earlier version' will be declared a forgery.

dp

[PROGRESSIVE1]

59. Oh Puke:

[asian_al]

62. What??

I thought the debates were live. Prepared for, but live

[Minnesota_Lib]

64. As far as the "liberal" media is concerned...

...think WWF.

[Zan_of_Texas]

66. Hey AP! You got that story ready for November 3rd yet? I wanna peek.

Come on. One of you over there at AP knows where it is. Go ahead, post that one too.

Save us some time, some blockwalking, some registering, some neighbor convincing.

Go ahead, post the post-election write-up!

[kwyjibo]

67. The Guardian posted the article too

http://www.guardian.co.uk/uslatest/story/0,1282,-452595...

[Panda1]

70. Thanks Minnesota_Lib for posting before they scrubbed it.

Very observant DUers on the job here.

[goodboy]

71. kick

[Zorra]

74. Does anyone have any more doubts about RW fascist control of the US

media?

From Buzzflash:

What Debate?

A BUZZFLASH EDITORIAL

No, it won’t be a debate.

It will be a performance.
snip----
We have entered a parallel universe, one in which media coverage of a so-called debate has nothing to do with the reality of what the candidates are discussing. Any cub reporter could debunk Bush’s statements as lies, mistruths and deceptions with a minimum of Internet research. Any debate viewer can just go on Google and assemble long lists of articles that make Bush appear a liar or a fool when he declares that everything is going just fine in Iraq, as he did last week.

In a non-corporate controlled television media universe, where “air talent” were actually practitioners of journalism, they would compare the statements of the candidates to the truth. But with Bush, who articulates a worldview that is the political version of fantasy island, the corporate-controlled “commentators” will almost completely focus on style versus substance.

We were lied into a war, given an array of ever-shifting reasons for that war, we were told it was won and hundreds of American soldiers have died since then; thousands upon thousands of Iraqis. Our intelligence agencies indicate that the war is probably lost. Iraq is split into areas where the U.S. military won’t even venture. The Israeli-Palestinian conflict has degenerated from near peace under Clinton to daily bloodshed. Terrorism is on the rise. Former Bush administration members have offered up truth after truth that expose the two-faced Bush lies, only to personally be the subjects of character assassination by the Bush Cartel and ridicule by the pro-Bush corporate press.

For the faux television pundit celebrities, politics now is just another form of entertainment. War, with its “shock and awe,” is broadcast like a fireworks display, in which there are only colorful explosions and loud booms and no dead bodies.

http://www.buzzflash.com/editorial/04/09/edi04068.html

Talk about validation before the fact

Bravo, Buzzflash, Bravo! Great call!

[VegasWolf]

76. This is nothing. They almost released the result of the ELECTION!

[0007]

78. It appears to disappeared, where did that ABC article go?

Is this the twilight zone?

[lovuian]

84. Its in Hiding so it can be issued later

during the right time LOL

[sniffa]

86. is this "top 10 idiots" worthy?

woot! thanks BR.

[RUMMYisFROSTED]

87. *cough*