Two articles point out the war between The Media and John Kerry

[whometense]

Two words here: FAIRNESS DOCTRINE

How the GOP spun John Kerry's failed joke. by Jonathan Chait
http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/la-op-chait5nov05,0,1583243.column?coll=la-opinion-rightrail

wrote in this space a week ago that the Republicans were desperate to avoid having Tuesday's election be a referendum on President Bush, Congress, or even a comparison between the Republicans and the Democrats. Well, now we can see what they want the election to be: a referendum on John Kerry. When you go to cast your ballot Tuesday, the primary question Karl Rove wants you to have in mind is how much you dislike the guy who ran for president two years ago and lost.

There is no greater testament to the power of the Republican message machine than the fact that, for two days last week, the political news cycle came to be dominated by a bungled Kerry joke...

...The point here isn't that Republicans are liars. Both parties are perfectly willing to shade the truth. The difference is that Republicans have a network of partisan outlets that can create a news story out of thin air. The fact that numerous Democrats have had to denounce Kerry is tribute to the power of this machine.

Consider a point of contrast. J. Dennis Hastert, the Republican who runs the House of Representatives, railroaded through Congress an "earmark" that increased the value of property he owns by several million dollars. Unless you live in Chicago, you probably haven't heard about this story.

But of course not only is Hastert's land deal vastly worse than Kerry's joke (and would be even if Kerry had intended to demean the troops), the more relevant fact is that Hastert, unlike Kerry, is on the ballot this week. And every Republican in the House is going to vote for him for speaker. Yet Kerry is the one dominating the news.

And at NewsBusters (right wing hack site):
NPR Complains About John Kerry Coverage, Post Political Editor Boasts He Buried It
http://newsbusters.org/node/8972

Excerpt of a Brooke Gladstone interview of John (writing partner of Mark Halperin) Harris

On the weekend before the election, the NPR show "On The Media" brought their usual liberal criticism of the media to bear, with co-host Brooke Gladstone complaining how the national media was somehow an over-enthusiastic puppy in coverage of Kerry's don't-be-stupid-and-get-stuck-in-Iraq comment: "But the media can't stop masticating on this latest liberal gaffe like a Washington Monument-sized Snausage." (As in "scrumptious" doggie treat.)

Her guest was Washington Post national political editor John F. Harris, who boasted he succeeded in burying the Kerry story inside the paper, at least on the first day. But NPR's Gladstone hammered him for "playing right into the Administration's hands" by covering it, when Kerry wasn't even running...

...BROOKE GLADSTONE: But what it is, I think you would agree, is, according to your own definition, a classic campaign freak show.

JOHN HARRIS: The "freak show" is a term that we use to describe extreme rhetoric, flamboyant attacks, a brand of debate which is not really even aimed at illuminating an issue, much less resolving it, but branding your opponent as fundamentally unacceptable and unworthy and beyond consideration.

BROOKE GLADSTONE: Isn't the point of every freak show to depict the candidate as a phony?

JOHN HARRIS: That's one of the most consistent themes. John Kerry was a victim of the freak show, Al Gore was a victim of the freak show, in that they allowed the opposition, in concert with media allies, to tell the story on the opposition's terms, and in the process of that, they completely lost control of their public story and their public image.

BROOKE GLADSTONE: But why is this freak show happening now around John Kerry? He's not even running.

JOHN HARRIS: Brooke, the word I think that's central is "incentives." The people at the White House and in the Republican Party claiming to be offended by this and saddened by this, of course (Laughs) weren't offended and saddened. They were delighted. They thought they had a great opportunity to make the election about John Kerry.

BROOKE GLADSTONE: He's an easy target, like shooting fish in a barrel.

JOHN HARRIS: Yeah. In The Way to Win the metaphor we use is actually a little bit more raw than that- he's like clubbing a harp seal on the ice.

BROOKE GLADSTONE: (Laughs)

JOHN HARRIS: And that is what they did to him in 2004, and that is what they would like to do and have done to him in 2006.

BROOKE GLADSTONE: But by covering every back-and-forth bicker over this misplaced pronoun in Kerry's joke, aren't you playing right into the Administration's hands? And don't you think there is a role that discretion can play in how the story is placed and where it's placed?

JOHN HARRIS: Yes, I think both those things. We can cover a story, we hope, with skepticism, by trying to illuminate what the motives of various political actors are. I don't want there to be any ambiguity. This is not the world as it should be. Unfortunately, it is the world as it is. The freak show, we try to describe it clinically in the book, but we're not neutral about it. We're (LAUGHS) roundly opposed to it. It is a corruption of our democracy.

Note the way the NPR "liberal" laughs along, as if the media's role in this is a big, funny game.

[wisteria]

1. Maybe it is time to slap down the media. Get back at them where it

hurts the most- their pocketbooks. You know, I consider what they did to be careless, inept reporting and character assassination. They should be sued. I don't know how many "inside sources" reports I heard.

And, if the intent of the Rove was to make this election about Kerry, they lost miserably. It would seem he isn't dislike as much as the media and the Republicans would have you think.