by Randy Shaw‚ Jul. 08‚ 2008
As the nation’s most influential newspaper, the
New York Times often frames the coverage for television news and other media. When the Times becomes fixated on a false story line--such as Judith Miller’s infamous cheerleading for the Bush Administration’s claim of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq--it can shape the entire U.S. media coverage. From July 3-7, the
Times ran three stories and a lead editorial claiming that Barack Obama is wavering in his plans to remove troops from Iraq. The paper did not cite text from Obama’s speeches to back its claims, and has blamed any uncertainty over Obama’s Iraq position on the candidate’s inartful language rather than its own inaccurate reporting. Unfortunately, this misreporting appears part of a larger “frame” that requires equivalencies between Obama and John McCain. This means that McCain’s constant changing of positions must be matched by Obama’s alleged “flip-flop” on Iraq, and that McCain’s other real vulnerabilities must also find their Obama corollary, regardless of how inapplicable.
The media loves a horserace, and its efforts to downplay Barack Obama’s growing advantage over John McCain are understandable. But misrepresenting facts is a different matter, and is most troubling when it occurs in the influential
New York Times.
On July 3, the
Times ran a
front-page story claiming that Obama had generated “ambiguity” about his Iraq plans by asserting that he might “refine” his plans after meeting with military commanders. Although the story cited an Obama press conference disputing the media account of such ambiguity, the
Times repeated its assertion in stories on July 4, July 5, July 6, and in its July 7 lead editorial.
Two facts are striking about the
Times’ effort to misrepresent Obama’s position.
First, the original piece acknowledged that Obama “has long spoken of consulting with commanders in the field as part of his plan for a phased withdrawal from Iraq.” Nevertheless, reporters Michael Cooper and Jeff Zeleny claimed that Obama had made a “shift in emphasis in the way he spoke”--a “shift” whose factual basis was not explained.
Second, even after Obama insisted that there was no shift, and that he had been consistently using the same language about Iraq throughout his campaign,
reporters Zeleny and Kate Phillips continued to write stories
insisting that Obama had shifted his views due to the “success” of the surge--even though the candidate had expressly rejected such a perception.
As a result of this misleading news coverage, the
Times editorialized on July 7 that “after promising to immediately begin drawing down troops by one or two brigades a month, he {Obama} is now giving himself wiggle room by suggesting he will let military commanders set the pace.” The fact that the
Times admitted that this has always been Obama’s position was ignored, as the paper instead bolstered the Republican view that the Democratic candidate was “flip-flopping” on Iraq.
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As John Kerry pointed out this past weekend, John McCain has changed positions on so many major issues--coastal oil drilling, the Bush tax cuts, immigration reform, torture, to name a few--that it makes a mockery of Republican claims about Kerry’s “flip-flopping” in 2004. Yet the
Times and other media seem determined to also label Obama a “flip-flopper,” the lack of evidence notwithstanding.
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