Another veteran Ohio journalist, Jack Torry, was not critical of the media coverage of the Swift Boat controversy. Like some other journalists here, he faulted the Kerry campaign for not responding more aggressively.
But Torry, the Washington, D.C., bureau chief for The Columbus Dispatch, had a suggestion for campaign coverage that might give reporters more time—and that he said would shift attention to the “issues,” and away from the horse race.
“If I had my way, I would ban reporters from traveling on the candidates’ planes,” Torry said. “Instead, larger newspapers should do more zone coverage—putting people in the key states of Ohio, Florida, Missouri, Pennsylvania, etc.”
Newspaper campaign coverage here has shifted notably in at least one way since 2004: major papers have become more aggressive with “ad watch” stories, which many journalists see as an effective tool in blunting mud-slinging campaigns. Some Ohio political reporters would like to see newspapers go even further and run ad watches on the front page.
But others are more skeptical. Newspapers are no match for the power of television ad campaigns, said Brent Larkin, retired editorial director and now a weekly columnist for The Plain Dealer of Cleveland.
“The TV message matters more than anything else,” said Larkin. “Sure, newspaper coverage on this stuff matters, but the fact is that readership declines means it matters less than a decade ago… The sad truth is a story on Page B-1 of a major metropolitan newspaper hardly has the impact of a $500,000 television buy.”
It’s a fair point. Which means that the task of scrutinizing the campaigns’ claims can’t fall only on print journalists, and also that reporters of all types will need to be not just careful and dogged, but also creative, in helping voters uncover the truth—especially considering that, as Larkin said, “nothing that happens in 2012 will surprise me.”
“People are throwing stuff against the wall to see what sticks. It’s not like that is new, but it is more amplified,” says Hallett. “It’s more difficult for readers to sift through what is real and not real.”
Like fake beards.
Correction: This post originally misspelled the names of William Hershey and Joe Hallett. The errors have been fixed. CJR regrets the errors.
I guess if you mean, as example, by "inconsistency" the fact, say, that Kerry lied his ass off about Nixon sending him on a Super Secret "mission" to Cambodia in December of 68 (during the Johnson administration)... Then yeah... There's that little "inconsistency"...
It's pitiful that the ONLY "journalist" who even came close to putting Kerry on the spot over his silly Cambodian lie was Jon Stewart.
But there's no bias afoot, of course..
#1 Posted by padikiller, CJR on Fri 20 Jan 2012 at 02:37 PM
The last comment reminds me of a joke from Late Night:
"Have you folks been following the controversy with John Kerry and his service in Vietnam and the Swift Boat campaign? It all took place in Vietnam and now it just won't go away. I was thinking about this: If John Kerry had just ducked the war like everybody else he wouldn't have this trouble." -- David Letterman
#2 Posted by Ella, CJR on Fri 20 Jan 2012 at 08:02 PM
Kerry did duck the war, as a matter of fact....
Three purple hearts (miraculously earned without a single trip to any hospital or doctor's office in his three months of "combat" during which he, by his own admission, committed war crimes and completed his mythological "mission" to Cambodia) bought him a cushy stateside post in Manhattan .... And the rest is, as they say, history.
Kind of like those two Boston Marathons he claimed to have run... Or his "Irish" ancestry.
All the things that the hard-hitting "professional journalists" of the world probed at length... Remember?
The only trouble with Kerry is that he's a compulsive liar.
#3 Posted by padikiller, CJR on Fri 20 Jan 2012 at 08:44 PM
Likely you a warehouse of this sort of information, all about liars on the Democratic side. What about defenses of people on the Republican side? Let's give it a shot:
George Bush and:
a. Drunk driving
b. AWOL from National Guard
Wind up turnkey on back of last commenter, and.....go!
#4 Posted by Ella, CJR on Fri 20 Jan 2012 at 11:26 PM
Padkiller is where old ratfucks go to die.
The reason why the Swift Boat ads worked was because no one at the time was challenging republican narratives. To do so got you labeled as shrill, got your bosses threatened, got angry rednecks making phone calls and writing letters, got your access threatened and potentially your phone tapped.
Back then, Fox was Fox, msnbc was trying to be Fox, CNN was trying to be neutral (which is different from balanced) and the most politically informative news program on tv was the daily show. We watched as bush screwed up 9-11 and its investigation, manipulated intelligence to get into Iraq, instituted policies of indefinite detention and torture on people they had no grounds to hold, screwed up Afghanistan, screwed up Iraq by firing the army and not securing military caches like Al Qa'qaa, etc etc and none of those scandals penetrated because everyone, democrats and the press, were scared to bring them up. Other than knight ridder, now mcclatchy, and the blogs, everyone backed away from substantively criticizing republicans. That's why Kerry lost, not Swift boats, but systemic cowardice by democrats and press institutions.
These days, we do have fact checkers who do good work(most of the time) and tv personalities who aren't afraid to call out retard conservatives. Futhermore, Americans have lived through a horrible republican era where a hurricane destroyed a city and almost let the banking system (and the world economy) collapse. Republicans have blown a lot of their trust.
People see the Elizabeth Warren ads where they claim she's close to the banks and laugh. Sarah Palin doesn't get to coast to political success based on her talk radio popularity. There's the brain dead 30% who will follow whatever Shawn Hanitty say regardless how often he said the opposite the day before, but most people are aware that one of the major political parties in America is a nut job receptical. The problem is the press will only allow that kind of criticism to go into the mainstream when it's safe, not when it matters. We have seen a case study of what happens to the press when coverage really matters and it resulted in the election of an utter incompetent twice.
We shouldn't have to wait for billions of dollars to disappear in the country we fraudulently invaded and a major city to be sunk under water for it to be safe to voice criticism.
And if the president was a big coward who couldn't show up to a 9-11 inquiry without roping in his big brother vice president - nevermind show up to his cush cush military duty during Vietnam, journalists shouldn't allow him to hide behind his political groups which were questioning his opponent's valor.
Is journalism supposed to help citizens make informed choices or assist in making stupid ones?
#5 Posted by Thimbles, CJR on Sat 21 Jan 2012 at 03:36 AM
Thimbles, I don't know where you were in 2004, but I was following the campaign, and the 'Swift Boat' ads were constantly being challenged - not only by the Democrats, who had considerable media resources, but by mainstream journalists. The dominant media narrative long before Election Day was that the 'Swift Boat' ads were unfair. I don't think the outcome would have been different in any event. Very few people saw the ads.
The mainstream media, as it will do, constructed a narrative that avoids pinning the causes for any Democratic loss in a presidential campaign on actual issues, preferring the inside-baseball stuff with which political reporters are obsessed. Kerry lost because he just seemed too much like a Ted Kennedy, Massachusetts liberal to a majority of swing voters in the year 2004. He had chosen the sleazy John Edwards, knowing he was sleazy, as his running mate - maybe voters saw Kerry's opportunism at work overriding his judgement. Kerry was unable to persuade voters otherwise. There was also a trace of opportunism in Kerry's two marriages to extremely wealthy women. I don't know if it has quite penetrated the minds of some journalists stuck in frozen left-right narratives, but quite a lot of people identify liberals and Democrats with wealth, self-interest, and power. Kerry's policy prescriptions apparently filtered through the lenses of a majority of swing voters as 'capitalism and wealth for me and my Hollywood/Malibu friends, social programs for you masses'. Just enough of a majority to lose the election.
Focusing on extraneous campaign events means American political journalism spends a lot of time being surprised by election outcomes. I'd like to see better predictive capacity, but don't. There's where ideological slants do hurt good journalism.
#6 Posted by Mark Richard, CJR on Tue 24 Jan 2012 at 01:05 PM
None of your gnashing of teeth is going to transform Kerry's mythological trip to Cambodia into historical reality.
And sure... Bush's 35 year-old DUI (if it existed) is fair game...But so is Obama's cocaine abuse.
So WHY do we see the AP sending a busload of reporters to Maine to track down a 35 year old misdemeanor that may or may not have existed, but nary a single AP reporter tracking down Obama's admitted felonious use of cocaine?
HUH?
Why do we see the AP sending a dozen reporters to fact-check Palin's tome... But nary a single reporter to fact-check Obama's ghost-written book?
HUH?
The press hounded Bush to release his Yale transcripts (until it was proven that he got better grades than Kerry did, that is)...But WHY isn't the press asking Obama to release his transcripts?
HUH?
You people have me wrong. I'm no George Bush cheerleader. I called for his impeachment here in this forum, as a matter of fact.
The REALITY, however, is the plain ideological bias among so-called "professional journalists" and I use this bit of Swift Boat reality as an example.
Kerry lied his ass off about his military service... PERIOD.
That's just the way it is.
#7 Posted by padikiller, CJR on Tue 24 Jan 2012 at 01:21 PM
"Thimbles, I don't know where you were in 2004, but I was following the campaign, and the 'Swift Boat' ads were constantly being challenged - not only by the Democrats, who had considerable media resources, but by mainstream journalists."
Yes, I was there and yes they did challenge, late and weakly.
I was there when Kerry followed the advice of perennial loser, Bob Shrum, and 'floated above' the attacks until they became entrenched in the public eye.
The media said little to nothing about the false nature of the lies until the Kerry campaign started belatedly hitting back because, in the words of David Gregory, "if we did not stand up and say, this is bogus, and you‘re a liar, and why are you doing this, that we didn‘t do our job. And I respectfully disagree. It‘s not our role." The media role is to report controversy, to instigate it by calling a liar a liar would be 'biased'. The media couldn't debunk before the Kerry campaign started making charges, because they were cowards, and the Kerry campaign wouldn't debunk because their leaders were stupid and weak.
This lead to a bitch slap political victory.
http://talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/003295.php
"The mainstream media, as it will do, constructed a narrative that avoids pinning the causes for any Democratic loss in a presidential campaign on actual issues, preferring the inside-baseball stuff with which political reporters are obsessed."
Avoiding the issues gives the advantage to republicans, who run on crap like likability and have-a-beerability while avoiding issues like "Do you know who's in charge of Pakistan?" or "How to you plan to balance a budget and cut taxes?" Gore tried to run on issues and the press concluded he was a boring robot.
"He had chosen the sleazy John Edwards, knowing he was sleazy, as his running mate "
As a conservative southern democrat.. that's what he was back then. Then we later found out he was sleazy after he had an affair on his cancer stricken wi... wait a sec.. Sorry, I just had to confirm I wasn't just talking about Newt Gingrich. I get these names confused sometimes.
more in a bit
#8 Posted by Thimbles, CJR on Tue 24 Jan 2012 at 11:11 PM
Ah fussbucket, I'm getting called away. More later.
#9 Posted by Thimbles, CJR on Wed 25 Jan 2012 at 12:06 AM