Today, the Los Angeles Times gives us an inexplicable piece by Nick Anderson about the relative tone of the two campaigns’ advertisements. In the middle of the piece, the paper tell us, “Among the Bush attacks on Kerry were assertions that the senator supported higher taxes 350 times, planned ‘at least $900 billion’ in tax increases in his first 100 days as president and opposed various weapon systems the administration deems vital to the war on terror. Each of those claims has been denied by Kerry and questioned by independent fact checkers.”
All of these claims have been so thoroughly debunked that it’s absurd for anyone to be reporting them as he said/she said or as merely “questioned” by independent sources. What’s worse, Anderson knows that (or if he doesn’t, he has bigger problems than sloppy journalism).
The contention that Kerry “supported higher taxes 350 times” is based on a misleading count of Senate votes Kerry has cast, including not just votes to raise taxes, but also votes against repealing tax increases, votes to reduce the size of proposed tax cuts, and even votes in favor of tax cuts that weren’t as big as other proposals. Nor has Kerry ever proposed a $900 million tax hike, let alone in his first hundred days; that number is also calculated based on inferences about the cost of his various campaign proposals. Finally, the contention that Kerry “opposed various weapons systems” is largely based on a few votes against large defense appropriations bills, rather than individual votes against individual weapons systems.
Likewise, Anderson tells us “One of Kerry’s ads stated Bush had said exporting U.S. jobs overseas ‘makes sense’ — an assertion denied by the Bush campaign and criticized as misleading by independent analysts.” In fact, the quote is lifted from a report of the president’s Council of Economic Advisors, which itself was taken out of context.
Anderson has added a third leg — “independent fact checkers question” — to the wobbly two-legged stool of “he said, she said” journalism. And to that we say: close, but no cigar. He still doesn’t sort out the truth of the matters at hand — and consequently he does his readers no service.
It may also be, we regret to say, that he doesn’t read his own newspaper, or even remember his own prior articles. The Los Angeles Times ran a piece on March 30 debunking the “350 votes” claim, another piece on April 4 noting the distortion of the “$900 billion” assertion, and an April 27 article (co-written by Anderson) which picked apart the “opposed various weapons systems” claim. And in the last two weeks, the Washington Post and the New York Times have also run articles explaining to readers how those charges don’t hold up.
It might be a good idea for Anderson to start reading not only the competition, but also the newspaper he works for. This is one case where a little pack journalism is exactly what’s called for.
–Bryan Keefer
Bryan Keefer was CJR Daily’s deputy managing editor.