Howie Kurtz: Scourge Upon American Journalism
Posted by
Kevin
This is rather revealing — infuriating, but revealing:
Gore responded to episodes like these by distancing himself from the beat reporters, which puzzled them. “Some of these reporters would write ruthlessly unfair pieces about him and then come complain to me in private, ‘Gore could’ve been friendlier to me at that cocktail party,’” recalls Gore speechwriter Eli Attie. To this day, Washington Post media columnist Howard Kurtz, who spent time traveling with both candidates, wonders why Gore remained “secluded in the front cabin [of the plane]” and didn’t engage in chitchat. “Everything is fair game in a presidential campaign,” says Kurtz, “and part of the test of any candidate is how he deals with an often skeptical press corps.… The press sets up a series of obstacle courses … and if you are Al Gore and considered to be super-smart, yet not particularly gregarious, it’s the moments of awkwardness or misstatements that are going to get media attention. If Gore had had a lighter touch, he probably could have overcome that.”
Let’s unpack that a bit, shall we? Kurtz seems to be saying that the horrible, inaccurate, and down right dishonest treatment Gore received form the press in 2000 was to be expected. Why? Because Gore wasn’t an extrovert. Because Gore didn’t suck up to reporters, because Gore did not fit their notion fo a perfect cocktail party host, he got what was coming to him. They thought he was too smart for his own good and they did not like him personally, so it was fine, in the eyes of the press “critic” Howard Kurtz, that they concentrate on his “moments of awkwardness” instead of on the plans, intelligence, and experience of Gore and his opponent.
Howard Kurtz, influential media “critic” has blessed this catty, high school derived style of journalism. What happened to Gore was perfectly acceptable because Gore was not “particularly gregarious” and gregariousness, we all know, trumps policy and experience every day of the week when it comes to Presidential timber. I think we can safely put to bed any notions that the press, as an institutions, as changed significantly since 2000. One of their own, one of their deans, a man who makes his living setting the bounds for what is an is not acceptable journalism has just told them that they did nothing wrong in 2000. You can bet you’ll see this same pattern again in 2008 — at least when it comes to Democrats.
Ten years form now, when my oldest asks me how Katrina, or Iraq, or lead painted toys from China, or the end of the 4th Amendment were allowed to happen, a large part of my answers is going to be two words: the press.
That’s right. The vast, right-wing conspiracy media. I mean, who in the media would have dared to bring something critical of Republicans, especially right before an election?!
Comment 9/4/2007
Gat
Sigh. First, please try and debunk anything in the link. Then familiarize yourself with the Daily Howler and Media Matters and try to debunk things from there. The explain to me how Rather’s mistake is the equivalent of the years of attacks on Gore by the press. And then please explain to me how Judith Miller and FOX news and Adam NAgorney and MSNBC and CNN — with its ridiculous continuation of that ratings loser Glenn Beck — are liberally biased.
To be blunt, if you still think there is a liberal bias in the media, you are either stunningly ignorant or deliberately spreading a lie.
Comment 9/4/2007
“To be blunt, if you still think there is a liberal bias in the media, you are either stunningly ignorant or deliberately spreading a lie. ”
Oops! Kevin forgot the third option… “Or telling the truth!”
If Al Gore can’t talk without saying something stupid then he is doing the correct thing by not talking at all.
Furthermore… I’m glad to see you are making progress. You apparently have gotten past the laughable notion that Bush 43 was responsible for Katrina. However, blaming it on the press does tend to indicate you have a way to go. I suppose we could argue that you are making progress and therefore this makes you a progressive. If you keep making progressive steps like this you will end up a conservative.
Comment 9/4/2007
MSNBC? The network with Keith “Bush/Cheney Should Resign” Olbermann?
I mean, Media Matters can point to Imus in the Morning and Hardball all they want, but when a registered Democrat and a Democratic ex-speech-writer are part of their beef with the system, I find it a little hard to take them seriously.
Hell, they just got a recent bit of news when Scarsbrough revealed that the newsroom booed a friggen State of the Union speech.
I’m sorry, but if you think that CNN is a steadfast conservative station — the same CNN that ran on the patently ridiculous “Operation Trailwind” and even more laughable Jordan’s accusations — there’s no point in my driving down the fallacies and patently false portions of that link.
Comment 9/4/2007
: sigh : I was going to simply remark on how this didn’t start in 2000 by recalling the comment made by cartoonist Mark Alan Stamaty during the 1988 race that “It’s clear: We have to have a reactionary Supreme Court because Michael Dukakis doesn’t like to show emotion in public.”
But apparently we have another round of the standard right-wing defense whenever evidence of conservative media bias is shown, which is to say (with an appropriately-exaggerated sneer) “Oh yeah? What about Dan Rather?”
Which means, at the top, the “responses” had nothing to do with the assertion that Kurtz declared it to be fair and proper to have trashed Gore while ignoring his positions and experience because he didn’t get all buddy-buddy with the press corps. Nothing at all. That central charge thus stands unchallenged and therefore, it appears, accepted.
But to a couple of specifics of the “responses.” In a rational world it would not be necessary to repeat this, but still: The memo in the story in “Rathergate” may well have been faked but the contents were accurate and accurately reflected Lt. Col. Killian’s view that Bush got preferential treatment. (Among the sources for that was Killian’s secretary, one Marian Carr Knox.)
And by the way, the story did not run “right before” the election but two months before. If CBS had really wanted to affect the election, the story would have run a week before the election - long enough for the charges to reverberate but not long enough for the rebuttal to settle in - not two months.
Next, that MSNBC survey is a joke. Note first that MSNBC didn’t survey 143 journalists to see to who they gave money, they could only find 143 - out of the thousands of such workers in the US - who donated. Second, a good number of those held positions like sports columnist at a local newspaper, hardly positions of influence. Third and most importantly, the results are completely irrelevant to the issue at hand: I don’t give a flying damn what candidates any journalist supports. I don’t care if they have “I [heart] Che Guevara” tattooed on their forearm or dream of soul-kissing Dick Cheney. I don’t care. I care about what they say or write as journalists - and this survey tells us nothing - nothing - about that.
As for CNN, we see here another right-wing debate tactic, this one a variation of arguing by extremes: Kevin did not declare it a “steadfast conservative station,” he denied it has a liberal bias. (Maybe he does think that, I don’t know - what matters is that it’s not what he said.) Apparently, to you denying liberal bias is that same as asserting “steadfast” conservative bias. Perhaps I shouldn’t be surprised that bias of some persistent type is the only option you can conceive, projecting your own practices onto all others, but some of us, at least, are capable of a little more nuance.
Finally, it was Operation Tailwind, not “Trailwind” and that was the name of the operation, not of the broadcast, which was called “Valley of Death.” If you’re going to falsely slam something (the show may have been controversial but it was by no means “patently ridiculous” except in the eyes of the right-wing propaganda machine), at least get the name and the spelling right.
Comment 9/5/2007
Gat:
“MSNBC? The network with Keith “Bush/Cheney Should Resign” Olbermann?
I mean, Media Matters can point to Imus in the Morning and Hardball all they want, but when a registered Democrat and a Democratic ex-speech-writer are part of their beef with the system, I find it a little hard to take them seriously.”
This is precisely what I am talking about: you refuse to lok at the facts. yes, Olbermann is on MSNBC — but he is the only slightly left fo center person with a show o the network, despite the fact that his does the best ratings. And MSNBC was the network that canceled the liberal Donahue show despite the fact that it was the best rated show on the network at the time because he was anti-Iraq war.
And your entire defense against the volumes of evidence at Media Matters is that Matthews used to be a Democrat — a fact that has zero to do with whether or not his coverage is biased in a conservative direction. That’s not an argument, that’s a smokescreen.
“Hell, they just got a recent bit of news when Scarsbrough revealed that the newsroom booed a friggen State of the Union speech.”
Which, I might add, has never been verified by anyone there and Scarsborough wont even provide names so the story can be checked out. This, however, has been verified:
Well, we’ll have to make that almost no one, because yesterday morning, our incomparable analysts came racing to our chambers quite early. Jake Tapper, Salon’s post-modern man-about-town, was lead guest on Washington Journal. Please remind us to tell C-SPAN officials that we now quote Tapper’s word, not our own. Responding to a charge of liberal bias in the media, Tapper became the third major scribe to describe what went on in that press room at Hanover:
TAPPER: Well, I can tell you that the only media bias I have detected in terms of a group media bias was, at the first debate between Bill Bradley and Al Gore, there was hissing for Gore in the media room up at Dartmouth College. The reporters were hissing Gore, and that’s the only time I’ve ever heard the press room boo or hiss any candidate of any party at any event.
Remarkable—and the public has a right to know that the press corps conducts itself so. Earlier, we have described Time’s Eric Pooley saying that the press room “erupted in jeering” during Gore’s responses that night (see THE DAILY HOWLER, 11/11/99). We have described the Hotline’s Howard Mortman saying that the scribes “groaned, laughed and howled” at almost everything Gore said (see THE DAILY HOWLER, 11/3/99). But hundreds of journalists were in the room, and no one—repeat, no one; no one at all—has complained about the press corps’ odd conduct.
And, finally: you have said nothing about the meat of the post: is or is not Kurtz approving of the treatment Gore got at the hands of the press in 2000 and beyond? And if he is, do you or do you think that is acceptable?
Comment 9/5/2007
“…Presidential timber.”
I own a timber company?…
But seriously, it is entirely fair for Gore to be slammed for his moments of awkwardness because they were of such stark contrast to his coolheaded and graceful opponent. Word to tribal sovereignty!
Comment 9/5/2007
See, this was entirely my point. As the layer 1 OSI viewpoint says, it’s impossible to communicate without some sorta medium.
Olbermann is the only “slightly left-of-center” show? Eight conservatives to every liberal on his “worst person in the world” shlock and that’s only slightly left of center? He’s the only one on MSNBC, the same network that hosts Hardball?
Jeezus christ. It’s not that I think the network is particularly liberal, or that it matters much if they were — journalists get freedom of speech, too — but if you can’t think of a better reason for Gore to have lost than the vast, right-wing conspiracy, you’re never going to get folk to get past their many flaws.
Comment 9/7/2007
Gat
Did you read the article or not? Do you deny that the reporters stated things as fact that were not true? Do you deny that they took GOP oppo and reported it without verifying tis accuracy? Do you deny that they kept brining up issues like Love canal and the internet even after it was shown that they were false?because if you don’t think that had a very real effect on the campaign then your critical thinking skills have deserted you.
And if you think Hardball is a liberal show, if you think that Olbermann whose commentary doesn’t hardly or even at all cover support for gay rights, for universal health care, for labor issues, etc as anything other than slightly center left (in his show, of course, I don’t know jack about his personal opinions) or that Hardball is liberal then you are so far to the right that you could not see reality with a telescope.
Comment 9/7/2007