Why the Media Hates John Edwards

[JohnLocke]

Why the Media Hates John Edwards
By Larry Sakin
Sunday, June 3, 2007
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In every presidential campaign, there seems to be one particular candidate the media sours on. Back in the race for the 2004 Democratic nomination, former Vermont governor Howard Dean was the favorite dog to kick. Dean, who successfully added some very progressive ideas to the steady diet of moderate wonkiness expressed by his fellow candidates, just couldn't get an even break from the press even though he polled effectively in a number of states. In 2000, the media was all over former Vice-President Al Gore, who the media portrayed as a policy stiff unable to generate enough human warmth to make himself visible to the electorate.

This time around, the media is aiming their big guns at former Senator John Edwards. In an excellent Common Dreams piece entitled Are Media Out to Get John Edwards? Author Jeff Cohen shows the media disdain for candidates addressing economic class issues and those that criticize the politics reaping major profits for media owners.

But that's just a small part of the story. What the media disdains are candidates who speak intelligently and pointedly about policy which affect Americans everyday. The reason: the job of the media is to sell you hairdryers, snow blowers, and pre-packaged political fear.

Fear is an effective emotional key to controlling our perceptions. It motivates us to buy things we don't really need and to believe in things that aren't necessarily true. If our perception is that all Muslims are terrorists, it makes the ubiquitous 'war on terror' more palatable. So when General Electric, the parent company of NBC, wins a multi-billion dollar government contract to build antiquated military equipment, we're not going to question the need for such equipment.
(...)
In the meantime, the media became less reflective of the consumers' perceptions- and instead, attempts to form them. All too often, newspapers and electronic media are inclined to represent the opinions of its owners. This is why media mogul Rupert Murdoch's bid to buy out the Wall Street Journal is so controversial. Murdoch is well known in both the US and the UK for using his chain of newspapers as a megaphone for his own opinions. What Murdoch and other media owners know is more people will adopt the views of business titans the more they are inundated by such opinion.

What does all of this have to do with John Edwards? Like Dean and Gore before him, Edwards is a threat because he has the personal wealth to run a fairly well-oiled campaign, speaking directly to voters, while criticizing corporate-drafted trade agreements, workers rights, the poor and higher taxes on the rich, all of which are anathema to the ownership classes. He and other candidates like him have the ability to damage the perceptions the ownership class has tried so hard to form in the minds of the electorate.

It doesn't really matter if you are for or against Edwards' candidacy. The media will attack any candidate that make people think about the issues affecting them. If Barack Obama or Hillary Clinton addressed similar policies in their campaigns, the media would attack them as well. The media has no interest in presenting maverick ideas- its main purpose is to maintain the status quo.

Should John Edwards remain popular up through the primaries, you can count on a smear job similar to the one they gave to Dean in 2004. Edwards will appear a bit too enthusiastic at some rally or flub some small part of a speech, and the media will punish him for it, over and over again making him look inept and out of touch. Because no candidate is allowed to interfere with the campaign wishes and caviar dreams of the media elite.
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Read the rest here.

[question everything]

1. I disagree

I supported Edwards in 2004, donated and voted in my caucus.. he came first there.

But I am not sure about him now and I think that the media really really would like him to win. He is such a "safe" bet - a white man who would not turn any one off..

But I was disappointed by his attack on Clinton, by his demands that she drops to her knees, pound on her chest and say "mea culpa." I think that it is petty. And if this is the only item he can differentiate himself from her, then he is in big problem. He may win the candidacy but I am not sure he can win in the general elections with these attitudes.

[THUNDER HANDS]

2. personally, if the media doesn't want him to win

it's because he's the least interesting candidate out of the top three.

What's a more interesting story?

A former first lady and first woman running for president?

A fresh-faced black man with a legit shot at winning?

A guy who ran last time.

[saracat]

4. I think it is pathetic to claim a candidates is less "interestying " because of race or gender.

I would NEVER consider voting for a candidate based on either fact.

[THUNDER HANDS]

6. that's not the point

whether their worthy or not is immaterial. I'm talking about their value as a story.

Hillary and Obama are better stories than Edwards is.

[Bucky]

8. Son who died; wife has recurring breast cancer; talks passionately about the poor. That's boring?

I'm leaning toward Obama right now, but frankly I found him to be the boring one up there. Dodd spoke more convincingly than Obama.

[Nederland]

25. Not boring, just a re-run

We've heard it all before--4 years ago.

[saracat]

29. Elizabeth was not fighting for her life in 2004.She was NOT diagnosed till the end of the race.

This is NOT a rerun!

[Nederland]

33. Yup

Let's leverage that personal tragedy to the MAX!!!

[saracat]

35. Wow, kind of cynical and nasty don't cha think? I don't think anyone is "leveraging"anything!

[k8conant]

15. Hillary's certainly not the "first woman running for president'...

Where'd you get that?

[Phredicles]

3. "the media disdain... candidates who speak intelligently"

Boy, that's the truth.

[illinoisprogressive]

5. Get real.. they don't hate Edwards. they are pushing for Hillary and trying to influence

[loudsue]

17. It is SO obvious the media wants Hillary for the candidate. They will CRUCIFY her in the general

election. It is just about the ONLY way the media will be able to maintain their stolen, contrived republican "majority", because she is so very divisive, and is HATED by so many people in the U.S. .... and I don't like her myself.

Having said that, the republican/corporate American media has crucified (or impeached) ALL Democratic presidents since Kennedy. Democrats are a huge threat to the little scam that the "powers that be" have been pulling over on Americans for generations (since FDR). Whoever gets the nod as the Dem candidate will get hammered FAR MORE than the republican candidate, and we all already know that. But Hillary will make it 100% easier for them. That is why all we hear from the media is "Hillary, Hillary, Hillary". I'm sick to death of her and all her rightwing corporate campaign finance money. If she was a TRUE patriot, and really did have a CLUE what is going on in this country, she wouldn't even be running. She would realize WHY they want her to run.

:kick::kick::kick:

[FrenchieCat]

7. If the Media "hated" Edwards, the guy would not have a big spread in People Magazine

coming up That was written to make one shed tears.

If the Media "hated" Edwards, CNN wouldn't have had a Practically GOP Focus group on the television loving everything he said for the "after-Debate" propaganda public opinion spin put out by CNN, a large part of the Corporate media.

If the Media "hated" Edwards, He would'nt have been pushed as hard by the media for VP in 2004.

If the Media "hated" Edwards, he would simply NOT be included in the Pundit talk.

If the Media "hated" Edwards, they would be harping on his co-sponsorship of the IWR, and his conflicting statements on the NIE.

If the Media "hated" Edwards, they wouldn't have sat him down next to Hillary at the debate.

If the Media "hated" Edwards, We would have heard way more about the Hedgefunds.

If the Media "hated" Edwards, They would be mentioning that his poverty Center appeared to have been set up just for him.

In other words, you are putting up smoking mirrors, and I ain't buying this bullshit about the Media "hatin'" on Edwards because it is simply not true. Give it up now, before it backfires....

We've got months to go, and the media has positioned Edwards exactly just right; just Watch and see.

[edwardsfeingold08]

12. What about Dean in 2004?

They didn't show flat out bias against him throughout the entire campaign. Dean received a lot of positive press leading up to Iowa. He got magazine covers and was basically called the nominee. They made a few references to his anger, but they never excluded him from shows, etc. Then, when push came to shove, they took him out with their coverage of the scream.

The story on Edwards in 2008 isn't finished. But, the media put some early hit pieces out with the story of his house and haircut. If they take him out later in the campaign, I don't think it will be a surprise.

[FrenchieCat]

13. What about Howard Dean? He was the only candidate talked about

for months, and yet, when the media decided to deep six him, that's what happened.

That proves my case in point; that the media isn't easily pigeonholed, in reference to what they will end up doing when it counts. I wouldn't be at all surprised if Obama AND Hillary end up as the Howard Dean of 2008, and Edwards ends up as the nominee (cause he certainly got excellent press in 2004).

The Media is like a rear-view mirror; Where things appear is not always were things really are.

[MGKrebs]

20. Dean had already finished third in Iowa, BEFORE the scream.

The media didn't take him out, a poorly run campaign and a deal between Kucinich and Edwards took him out.
He was leading the polls and fundraising too, so it was quite a blow to finish third. At that point, the media smelled blood and moved in, but the campaign was already deeply wounded.

[FrenchieCat]

21. You must not have watched the media's take down of Dean prior to Iowa

There were the Vermont locked Governor Papers controversy, the Commercial dealing with Dean not experienced in National Security (Gephard), the Canadian Iowa Caucus comment tapes, and the "he's gonna raise taxes" maneuver, the he went skiing during Vietnam, and he's simply not in control of his emotions campaign.....all done right after Gore endorsed Howard Dean......starting very late in December and going through all the way until the night before Iowa.

The Iowa results proved that the media assault worked.

The "scream" was only the nail on the coffin, but not the coffin itself.

Where were you, and what were you doing during that time? :shrug:


Vermont to fight bid to unseal Dean papers
http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qn4176/is_20031224/ai_n14560388
12/23/03

Politics: What’s in Howard Dean’s Secret Vermont Files?
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/3606100/

The caucuses can stretch on all night, Dean noted, and he expressed wonderment that average people would even bother with them: "I can't stand there and listen to everyone else's opinion for eight hours about how to fix the world."
But he did, and Iowa returned the favor. Since making those comments — unearthed last week by NBC News (part of a mountain of Dean's earlier television appearances that the Bush-Cheney campaign has also been poring over)
http://www.time.com/time/election2004/article/0,18471,574914,00.html

There's more on each subject I mentioned.....I just don't have the time to dig them all up for you.

[MGKrebs]

22. Whatever. They way I remember it was that

Dean was LEADING the polls right up to caucus day. Dean was the media darling. The media pretty much loved the novelty of the internet/grassroots drama.

- Their campaign fucked up by knocking on the same doors and calling the same phone numbers too many times. That's not "the media".
- Dean and Gephardt got into an ugly last minute slugfest of negative TV ads. That's not the "the media".
- Kucinich and Edwards made a deal to try to keep their caucus votes among themselves. That's not the "the media".
- Kerry and Gephardt collaborated on ads against Dean. That's not "the media".

I assume your blame of "the media" doesn't include paid advertisements. That wouldn't really be a media bias unless they were only selling ad time to some and not others, and I haven't heard anything like that.


I'm not disputing that the media picks and chooses the stories it wants to tell, but I don't think Howard Dean prior to Iowa is a good example of negative media targeting. And I'm not sure Edwards is getting any rougher treatment than anybody else at this point, especially considering HE CHOSE to put his entire detailed platform out there for everyone to scrutinize months ago. There are reasons why campaigns don't usually do that.

[Egnever]

24. The media turned on Dean

immediately after his appearance on hardball where he said he would work to break up the media monopolies. The second he said that it was over.

You are right all of the other events you listed also contributed but you cant ignore the change in the medias tone starting immediately after his hardball appearance.

[FrenchieCat]

26. December 8th cover of Newsweek....

[MGKrebs]

28. What am I supposed to say, that there was no negative press for Dean?

Of course there was... as there was for all the candidates. It is indicative of nothing.

It's unlikely you can prove that the media turned on Dean and as a result "took him out" of the election. You can believe it if you want, but I don't think it was that simple. I believe there were other factors that were more important to the campaigns' demise than that, Joe Trippi's ineptness at that level being one of them.

Even so, what's the solution? Have "the media" stay out of politics? Make sure they are equally negative to everybody? Blaming the success and failure of candidates on "the media" sounds too much like deus ex machina to me; An easy scapegoat for losing candidates; A reason for supporters to rationalize a loss without having to recognize that their candidate maybe ran a bad campaign; An easy essay for writers, who can just plug in new names from last cycle's story; A pre-emptive prognostication that creates a win-win for the prognosticator- either their candidate wins, or they get to pretend for a moment that they are the next Nostradamus.

Maybe the media is pretty f*ed up sometimes, but there's got to be better examples than this. This was a poorly run campaign (once it got to the big time), with a virtually unknown candidate who was going against the party establishment in a couple of ways, whose wife was unsure she would even live in Washington (in other words, not too committed). We don't need a magic media bullet to kill that one off.

I would say that Obama's the one who has to watch out for the "Dean effect". He's a got a lot of young and energetic support early, but it won't necessarily be the media that will be the hurdle, it will be translating that energy into actual votes.

There's no excuses in this league. People scream all the time that "Gore won", but Gore is not in the White House signing legislation, so he DIDN'T win. His team came up short somewhere or chose to step aside. If the media is going to be a problem for Edwards, they have plenty of time to figure out some brilliant strategy to fix that problem. They have to take responsibility for it and deal with it.

Finally, just think about what this means...The writer can see that Edwards can't possibly win with the message his campaign is using, but the Edwards campaign can't see that? Or maybe they are not really in this to win? Are we supposed to think that Edwards' team has deluded themselves into thinking that they can defy the media elite and win anyway? If it's true that the media will be against them, and they haven't seen that yet and devoted resources to overcoming it, they will likely lose. If they are going to challenge the establishment by going populist, they better have a non-mainstream-corporate-media strategy if they are going to succeed.

It's the same thing every friggin' cycle; we scream that the corporate media is choosing the candidates for us, but we support the anti-corporate candidate. What do we expect? Is John Edwards charismatic enough to get enough voters to throw off their corporate shackles and join the revolution? I guess we'll see.

[FrenchieCat]

31. But see, I don't believe that Edwards is leading the "revolution"....

I just think the man wants to be President.

Mr. Handsome HedgeFund definitely ain't no radical now. Please don't think I'm falling for that one! :rofl:

You go and follow him....Me, I'll just wait right here and wait for the leaders that are gonna really change things, not just change stance to suit the times! :hi:

[StudentProgressive]

9. Kucinich is obviously worst off, but Edwards is starting to get shafted

The further left you go, the more the media axes you.

[draft_mario_cuomo]

10. You're right. The netroots are the only place where Edwards can get his progressive message out nt

[Clark2008]

23. Progressive?

:rofl:

[OHdem10]

11. No Populism allowed by Corporate Media.

It upsets their Republican friends.

[rpannier]

14. The media hates populism because it shows they really have no idea what ordinary people really

are thinking.

They like to paint themselves as being in touch with the 'Everyman'. When in reality they are as elitist (not elite) as they come.

Most of the media supported NAFTA.
Most of the media supported scrubbies tax cuts.
Most of the media supported the Iraq war.

The litany goes on...

[sojourner]

16. i figured this out, too. watch the pundits...they diminish any positive thing he does and play up

negatives. of course it's all about perception management --- just because the blogosphere's fearless reporting has led to a little crack in the MSM goosestep toward fascism doesn't mean they don't still love and give fealty to the corporate masters. and the corporations don't want ANYBODY who will promise real change, especially if they might really do it!

i haven't made up my mind about who to support so don't take this as a "they are beating up MY guy" post. i've just noticed the pattern, as with howard dean (too angry, out of control, the "yell") and with al gore (stiff, no different than bush) --- and now edwards (hypocrite, insincere, wealthy so he can't be trusted).......thanks for posting the article because i didn't know anyone else had noticed.

[Egnever]

18. Woa John

Wasnt this the same thing you went with last time with Kucinich?

[cascadiance]

19. This is precisely why Gore hasn't entered the race yet!

And I COMPLETELY agree with that strategy!

[KurtNYC]

27. I think there is a shorter answer -- Edwards has a (D) after his name. eom

[calteacherguy]

30. Poor Johnny.

:eyes:

Give it a rest. The problem with John Edwards is not issues. It's John Edwards. He doesn't exude either the realistic grasp of policy of Clinton, or the pragmatic vision of Obama, and in the most recent debate he came across as abrasive, petty, and hypocritical. Those are not strong leadership qualities.

He's a lightweight...which is not meant to be disrespectful. A one-term, out of office, defeated VP trying to play in the big leagues...that's not disrespect, just the facts. Hell, any one of the candidates would make a better President than Bush, and it's an accomplishment (a great one) just to be on that stage. That said, it's clear to me that the nominee is going to be either Obama or Clinton (inevitable unless Gore or Clark enters the race), because they are the best leaders.

[Colobo]

32. Good post.

[Cameron27]

34. Great post.

[w4rma]

36. Hillary is corrupt and Obama is lightweight. (nt)