Media failed Swift boat mission

[scarletlib]

Great article in Palm Beach Post today about the failure of the media in the SBVT controvery. Bottom line according to Mr. Hanif is that the media failed to do its job.


After weeks of covering the controversy, "the media" finally got around to covering the facts.

It took news organizations that long to advance from he-said, she-said reporting to Wednesday's unqualified dismissal by The New York Times of allegations against Sen. John Kerry, the Democratic presidential nominee, by a group of President Bush's supporters calling themselves the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth.

Mr. Rove, President Bush's chief political strategist, "has brilliantly judged how much and how long the media can be relied on to run with a story until it plays itself out. It doesn't matter if the revisionist Swifties are discredited as long as a touch of virus enters the voter bloodstream to flow through the veins and arteries of blogs and cable and talk radio and Op-Ed columns and contradicting ads. The war record becomes 'the disputed war record.' "

... Mr. Loomis summed up what too many news organizations took too long to conclude, and despite the reporting in the Times, Washington Post, Boston Globe and elsewhere, still won't say: "John Kerry's war record is the truth; the attack on it is a lie." The suggestion "that there are two sides to this story is Goebbels-like in its dishonesty," Mr. Loomis said, referring to Joseph Goebbels, the Nazi Party's propagandist.

http://www.palmbeachpost.com/opinion/content/opinion/epaper/2004/08/29/m2e_lp_0829.html

[wurzel]

1. Media did not fail. It was "Mission Accomplished"!

They did exactly what the Republicans wanted them to do.

[scarletlib]

2. Well actually I have to say that I agree with you

when it comes to cable news, and certain newspapers ala the New York Post. As for the others, such as the Palm Beach Post, I think Mr. Hanif is right. They just go along for the ride. Don't do a real search for the 'truth' and think that to be fair they have to tell both sides -- even if one side is clearly a big lie.

I don't think the media is on our side at all, but not all within are corrupt.

[Keirsey]

3. media of the 70's

Still looking for media like NYT and WP that had the guts to investigate/go after the stories of the Pentagon Papers and Watergate.

[wurzel]

6. After the Clinton "impeachment" , the Gore "liar", the Kerry "war record".

I think our major news networks are thoroughly corrupt. They are not merely "not on our side". They are embedded with the RNC.

[ixion]

7. not all, but most

are corrupt. As in politics, it's extremely difficult to foster a career in broadcast news while remaining uncorrupted.

Keep in mind the the mainstream media is about pulling the status quo. As long as that is the primary motivator, corruption will reign.

[Catt03]

4. I don't know if it has been a disaster but

the ads appear to have made an impact.

I don;t know who to blame. Certainly the media deserves much of the condemnation but I also understand that most people are getting their news bites from cable and talk radio, not by reading the news print.
Television may again decide this election, and that will be near death to the Democratic Party.

Democrats do not have the resources; money, corporate ownership nor the ability to go for the throat. I think we have to remember that the Republican game plan of search and destroy both outright and subtly has been honed to almost perfection over the years.

I used to write for print WHEN you really had to research every word you wrote.We were constantly reminded that we were writing for a majority of readership at a 6th grade level of comprehension. It appears that cable and radio took that rule and they have been very successful using it.

I honestly think Kerry and Edwards are the right choice for leadership and that they will govern for all Americans. And I sincerely hope the old 6th grade rule has moved up a few notches.

[mhollis]

5. Media Bias Alert

(Surely this will begin to be seen as an over-used title.)

We're not covering the facts, we're covering a "debate" that has been effectively sidetracked off the issues (which Bush cannot convincingly run on) to issues of personality and allegations of character flaws.

We're also actively pandering to the Republican propaganda machine.

Here's another forinstance:

Producer required to find anti-environmentalists

I wandered into one of our Avid editing rooms and saw a piece being produced by our news organization on the result of Bush placing timber and mining lobbyists in charge of our National Parks. One helicopter shot shows the results of clear-cutting a mountainside -- not a single tree left standing for miles. I asked the producer how things were going and she told me that the executive producers of this highly-rated television news program (not magazine) were requiring her to find a pro-Bush viewpoint. She had pretty much (and reasonably so) concluded, based on the footage, the results of the interviews and the research she had done, that the Bush record is indefensible.

We are told to find an opposing point of view because that is now considered "balanced reporting." What?!

So, does this mean we need to seek out Chechen rebels to explain why they bombed two airliners in Russia last week? You know, to make the report "balanced."

It's our job to report the news, not try to allow someone to spin it.