Jeff Cohen: Are Media Out to Get John Edwards? (Buzzflash)

[JohnLocke]

Jeff Cohen: Are Media Out to Get John Edwards?
A BUZZFLASH GUEST CONTRIBUTION
by Jeff Cohen
----
Give me a break about John Edwards' pricey haircut, mansion, lecture fees, and the rest. The focus on these topics tells us two things about corporate media. One we've long known -- that they elevate personal stuff above issues. The other is now becoming clear -- that they have a special animosity toward Edwards.

Is it hypocritical for the former Senator to base a presidential campaign on alleviating poverty while building himself a sprawling mansion? Perhaps. But isn't that preferable to all the millionaire candidates who neither talk about nor care about the poor? Elite media seem more comfortable with millionaire politicians who identify with their class - and half of all U.S. senators are millionaires.

Trust me when I say I don't know many millionaires. Of course I don't know many presidential candidates either (except my friend Dennis Kucinich, whose net worth in 2004 was reported to be below $32,000.)

But I'm growing quite suspicious about the media barrage against Edwards, who got his wealth as a trial lawyer suing hospitals and corporations. Among "top-tier" presidential candidates, Edwards is alone in convincingly criticizing corporate-drafted trade treaties and talking about workers' rights and the poor and higher taxes on the rich. He's the candidate who set up a university research center on poverty. Of the front-runners in presidential polls, he's pushing the hardest to withdraw from Iraq, and pushing the hardest on Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama to follow suit.

Given a national media elite that worships "free trade" and disparages Democrats for catering to "extremists" such as MoveOn.org on Iraq withdrawal, the media's rather obsessive focus on Edwards' alleged hypocrisy should not surprise us.

Nor should it surprise us that we've been shown aerial pictures of Edwards' mansion in North Carolina, but not of the mansions of the other well-off candidates.

Or that a snob such as Brit Hume of Fox News is chortling: "What Would Jesus Do With John Edwards' Mansion?"

Or that we've heard so much about Edwards' connection to one Wall Street firm, but relatively little about the fact that other candidates, including Democrats, are so heavily funded by Wall Street interests.

Or that Juan Williams and NPR this weekend teed off on Edwards for saying he's "so concerned about poverty" while pocketing hedge fund profits and $55,000 for a lecture at University of California, Davis. NPR emphasized that the Davis fee was for a "speech on poverty" -- but didn't mention that Davis paid other politicians the same or more for lectures. Or that Rudy Giuliani gets many times as much for speeches.
(...)
Indeed, current media coverage of Edwards bears an eerie resemblance to the scary reporting on the Democratic frontrunner four years ago, Howard Dean. If Edwards is still ahead as the Iowa balloting nears, expect coverage to get far nastier. The media barrage against Dean in the weeks before Iowa -- "too far left" and "unelectable" with a high "unfavorable" rating -- helped defeat him. (I write those words as someone who was with Kucinich at the time.)

Today, elite media are doing their best to raise Edwards' unfavorable rating. But the independent media and the Netroots are four years stronger -- and have more clout vis-a-vis corporate media -- than during Dean's rise and fall.

And it's hard for mainstream pundits to paint Edwards as "unelectable." Polls suggest he has wide appeal to non-liberals and swing voters.


----
Jeff Cohen is a media critic, recovering TV pundit, a consultant for Progressive Democrats of America, and author of "Cable News Confidential: My Misadventures in Corporate Media." He was communications director of the Kucinich for President Campaign in 2003./i]

[IndyOp]

1. FYI - This is already on the greatest page with 15 recs... (n/t)