-Caveat Lector-
That's just Kurtz for you. Check out http://www.mrc.org and you'll see who
the media has been helping.
-A
----- Original Message -----
From: MICHAEL SPITZER <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Sent: Monday, November 06, 2000 06:06 PM
Subject: [CTRL] WP: Is the Press Helping Bush
> -Caveat Lector-
>
> http://washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A20127-2000Nov5.html
>
> Is the Press Helping Bush?
>
> By Howard Kurtz
> Washington Post Staff Writer
> Monday, November 6, 2000; Page C01
>
> If George W. Bush wins the White House tomorrow, some liberal
> pundits have already figured out whom to blame: the press.
>
> If only journalists had been as tough on Bush as on Al Gore, the
> argument goes, the governor's weaknesses would have been exposed
> for all the world to see, and the vice president wouldn't have
> been forced on the defensive over trivial exaggerations.
>
> One flaw in this theory is that the media are not as all-powerful
> as some of their practitioners like to think. While journalists
> play a crucial role in framing issues and fanning controversies,
> the voters also have been exposed to eight days of conventions,
> 41Z2 hours of candidate debates and thousands of hours of paid
> ads.
>
> Bush spokesman Ari Fleischer, not surprisingly, sees the coverage
> tilted the other way. "How many stories have we seen in the press
> about the Texas record, and how few about Gore's record?" he
> asks. "There has been ongoing scrutiny of every piece of news and
> data coming out of Texas, as if George W. Bush can be blamed for
> everything bad in Texas. The governor has been judged very
> harshly every time he flubs a word. The vice president has
> received no such scrutiny. He confused 'mammogram' and 'sonogram'
> and there was barely a peep."
>
> Here's the indictment delivered by three commentators on the
> left. Washington Monthly Editor Charlie Peters: "The media's
> approach to George Bush's misrepresentations, as opposed to those
> of Al Gore, has been notably sotto voce, even though it seems to
> me that Bush's have been a good deal more substantial than
> Gore's. . . . The unfortunate result of all this is that Gore's
> credibility rating in the polls has plummeted. If Bush wins this
> could be the first election decided by the press and the irony is
> that I'm sure most reporters will finally cast their own votes
> for Gore."
>
> Salon's Jake Tapper: "With the media curiously refusing to shine
> a light on the things Bush doesn't seem to know or understand . .
> . Bush's stylistic superiority during the debates furthered his
> momentum. Call it the 'soft bigotry of lowered expectations.' He
> faked his way through it. . . . Raising questions about his
> fundamental competence seems partisan in a way that tweaking his
> candlepower does not."
>
> The Nation's Eric Alterman: "The media have given George Bush a
> pass on pretty much everything that matters in a president. . . .
> Reporters have simply assumed the enormous policy differences
> between Gore and Bush . . . to be of trivial importance . . . For
> while [the media] was focusing on 'Bush the dummy' and 'Gore the
> liar,' reporters did not notice that Bush had a far more serious
> credibility problem than the vice president."
>
> To be sure, if Gore had said, as Bush did in the second debate,
> that the Europeans should put troops in the Balkans (they already
> provide most of the peacekeeping forces), it would have been a
> far bigger story. And hardly anyone focused on Bush holding just
> one news conference in two months, although Gore was chided for
> doing the same thing earlier. The media simply created different
> narratives for Gore (the exaggerator) and Bush (the lightweight);
> the governor was covered harshly in some respects but not in
> others.
>
> Still, as Tapper observes: "If he's so dumb, how come he's on the
> brink of becoming the next president of the United States?"
>
> Going Negative
>
> Those who believe the media were easier on Bush will find some
> support in a new Project for Excellence in Journalism study.
> Examining television, newspaper and Internet coverage from the
> last week in September through the third week in October, the
> report says Bush got nearly twice as many positive stories as
> Gore. The majority of all stories were negative, and in the
> period during the debates, fewer than one in 10 pieces considered
> the candidates' policy differences. Two thirds, by contrast, were
> about the candidates' performances, strategy and tactics. Not
> only were 24 percent of Bush stories positive, compared to 13
> percent for Gore, but Bush stories were more likely to be related
> to issues, while Gore's coverage focused more on his campaign's
> internal politics.
>
> Television framed half its stories around political strategy, the
> project says, while newspapers were most likely to write about
> issues that affect readers (32 percent), in part because of
> editorials and columns. Regional newspapers, meanwhile, were
> three times less likely than national papers to write about
> Bush's character.
>
> Battle of the Advocates
>
> Washington writer Andrew Sullivan has picked a very public fight
> with the Advocate magazine that has led to a trial separation, if
> not a divorce.
>
> Sullivan, who is HIV-positive, has written for the gay magazine
> over the years, but he denounced the Advocate after it published
> what Sullivan dismissed as a very soft interview with President
> Clinton.
>
> Unloading on the Advocate's Chris Bull, he wrote on
> AndrewSullivan.com that Bull's interview with the president
> "reads as if Bull was on his knees, polishing Clinton's shoes
> with his tongue. . . . If anyone needs proof that the gay press
> is still not ready for prime-time, this interview is Exhibit A.
> Next time, the Advocate should just get a Democratic Party
> activist to interview Clinton and be done with it."
>
> A harsh critic of Clinton, the former New Republic editor was
> outraged at the president's attempt to equate his impeachment
> with discrimination against gays.
>
> Advocate Editor Judy Wieder says Sullivan "had taken it upon
> himself to viciously attack the magazine because we didn't handle
> Clinton the way he would have." While she is "a great fan of
> Andrew Sullivan," she says, "I was understandably confronted with
> a pretty furious staff. The temperature in the office was quite
> heated. Why would he want to write for a magazine he doesn't
> think is ready for prime time?"
>
> Wieder says she withdrew a pending assignment and suggested that
> they "let things calm down" before Sullivan writes for the
> magazine again. But Sullivan proclaimed himself banned: "Poor
> Judy, who has worked wonders with the magazine, gets mau-maued by
> the Stalinists for even asking me to write." Sullivan adds in an
> interview: "What does it tell you about a magazine that it spikes
> writers for ideological reasons in an election campaign?"
>
> But Wieder notes that she published Sullivan's anti-Clinton views
> during the impeachment saga and says he's welcome to write again
> � down the road.
>
>
>
> =================================================================
> Kadosh, Kadosh, Kadosh, YHVH, TZEVAOT
>
> FROM THE DESK OF:
> *Michael Spitzer* <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
> The Best Way To Destroy Enemies Is To Change Them To Friends
> =================================================================
>
> <A HREF="http://www.ctrl.org/">www.ctrl.org</A>
> DECLARATION & DISCLAIMER
> ==========
> CTRL is a discussion & informational exchange list. Proselytizing
propagandic
> screeds are unwelcomed. Substance-not soap-boxing-please! These are
> sordid matters and 'conspiracy theory'-with its many half-truths, mis-
> directions and outright frauds-is used politically by different groups
with
> major and minor effects spread throughout the spectrum of time and
thought.
> That being said, CTRLgives no endorsement to the validity of posts, and
> always suggests to readers; be wary of what you read. CTRL gives no
> credence to Holocaust denial and nazi's need not apply.
>
> Let us please be civil and as always, Caveat Lector.
> ========================================================================
> Archives Available at:
> http://peach.ease.lsoft.com/archives/ctrl.html
> <A HREF="http://peach.ease.lsoft.com/archives/ctrl.html">Archives of
> [EMAIL PROTECTED]</A>
>
> http:[EMAIL PROTECTED]/
> <A HREF="http:[EMAIL PROTECTED]/">ctrl</A>
> ========================================================================
> To subscribe to Conspiracy Theory Research List[CTRL] send email:
> SUBSCRIBE CTRL [to:] [EMAIL PROTECTED]
>
> To UNsubscribe to Conspiracy Theory Research List[CTRL] send email:
> SIGNOFF CTRL [to:] [EMAIL PROTECTED]
>
> Om
<A HREF="http://www.ctrl.org/">www.ctrl.org</A>
DECLARATION & DISCLAIMER
==========
CTRL is a discussion & informational exchange list. Proselytizing propagandic
screeds are unwelcomed. Substance�not soap-boxing�please! These are
sordid matters and 'conspiracy theory'�with its many half-truths, mis-
directions and outright frauds�is used politically by different groups with
major and minor effects spread throughout the spectrum of time and thought.
That being said, CTRLgives no endorsement to the validity of posts, and
always suggests to readers; be wary of what you read. CTRL gives no
credence to Holocaust denial and nazi's need not apply.
Let us please be civil and as always, Caveat Lector.
========================================================================
Archives Available at:
http://peach.ease.lsoft.com/archives/ctrl.html
<A HREF="http://peach.ease.lsoft.com/archives/ctrl.html">Archives of
[EMAIL PROTECTED]</A>
http:[EMAIL PROTECTED]/
<A HREF="http:[EMAIL PROTECTED]/">ctrl</A>
========================================================================
To subscribe to Conspiracy Theory Research List[CTRL] send email:
SUBSCRIBE CTRL [to:] [EMAIL PROTECTED]
To UNsubscribe to Conspiracy Theory Research List[CTRL] send email:
SIGNOFF CTRL [to:] [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Om
