John Kerry, Media Critic

Is Kerry blaming the Fourth Estate for his defeat?

Or, more precisely, what he calls the "sub-media"?

Well, not exactly. But he strongly suggests that the country was badly misinformed during last year's campaign, and that the press bears much of the responsibility.

The Massachusetts senator doesn't specify the charter members of this "sub-media," but I suspect that he has Fox News, talk radio and some aggressive Internet sites in mind.

One of the striking things about the 2004 coverage (which, I'm the first to say, had many flaws) was that we in the journalism biz got slammed from both sides. Democrats felt we were too soft on Bush and Republicans thought we were determined to send Bush back to Crawford.

Major news organizations tried--not hard enough, in my view--to fact-check the charges and countercharges by both sides. Sometimes journalists were slow--as on the Swift Boat charges--to undertake this work. Most networks aired the candidates' attack ads with only a minimum of truth-squadding. The bogus Kerry Intern rumor spread like wildfire. But there was at least an attempt to hold both sides accountable.

At a recent forum at the Kennedy Library, Kerry chatted with Boston Globe columnist Tom Oliphant (and I've searched in vain for other accounts of this conversation). In the Weekly Standard, P.J. O'Rourke highlights the senator's remarks about the media, adding his own anti-Kerry jibes:

"Addressing the audience of tame Democrats, Kerry explained his defeat. 'There has been,' he said, 'a profound and negative change in the relationship of America's media with the American people. . . . If 77 percent of the people who voted for George Bush on Election Day believed weapons of mass destruction had been found in Iraq--as they did--and 77 percent of the people who voted for him believed that Saddam Hussein was responsible for 9/11--as they did--then something has happened in the way in which we are talking to each other and who is arbitrating the truth in American politics. . . . When fear is dominating the discussion and when there are false choices presented and there is no arbitrator, we have a problem.'"

Who is arbitrating the truth. Who exactly should be in such an exalted role? Isn't Kerry really saying that the press failed to blow the whistle on Bush falsehoods? Does he gloss over the fact that his campaign engaged in normal political exaggerations as well? (I've yet to see the secret plan to reinstate the draft that he warned about in the final weeks.)

Says O'Rourke: "America is not doctrinaire. It's hard for an American politician to come up with an ideological position that is permanently unforgivable. Henry Wallace never quite managed, or George Wallace either. But Kerry's done it. American free speech needs to be submitted to arbitration because Americans aren't smart enough to have a First Amendment, and you can tell this is so, because Americans weren't smart enough to vote for John Kerry.

"'We learned,' Kerry continued, 'that the mainstream media, over the course of the last year, did a pretty good job of discerning. But there's a subculture and a sub-media that talks and keeps things going for entertainment purposes rather than for the flow of information. And that has a profound impact and undermines what we call the mainstream media of the country. And so the decision-making ability of the American electorate has been profoundly impacted as a consequence of that. The question is, what are we going to do about it?'"

A sub-media that keeps things going for entertainment purposes? Wouldn't this include "Hardball" and "Crossfire" as well as O'Reilly? Al Franken as well as Rush Limbaugh? Cable networks going wild over Scott Peterson and the Jacko trial? For some reason, Kerry exonerates the mainstream media for some of the same sins he sees in other parts of the news/info world.

What's the reason? Here's Kerry: "'The corporatization of the media in America has taken away some of the willingness of the media to do the great muckraking they used to do and to be the accountability folks they used to be. And so you have so many different media outlets that are just bottom-line, and they go where the ratings tell them to go. And there's a top-down hierarchical administration of what they'll go after and what they'll do, and it's driven by the economics more than anything. I think if we were to change the economics a little bit through grassroots effort, then you might begin to see a shift.'

"Kerry did not elaborate on the nature of this grassroots effort. Do we smash the windows of Rupert Murdoch's headquarters? Do we nationalize the Drudge Report?"

Look, Kerry has some valid points. Big media corporations don't take a lot of risks, and entertainment drives a lot of today's coverage. But Kerry didn't seem to be a big fan of muckraking when it was directed toward him--whether his spending proposals added up, his tortured explanations on Iraq, even whether he left the Massachusetts media with the impression he was Irish. Besides, some of the people offering an alternative to the corporate media these days are probably charter residents of the sub-basement that Kerry derides.

Total control of the Hill isn't working out all that well for the GOP, at least based on this USA Today survey:

"Fewer Americans approve of the way Congress is handling its job than at any time since shortly after Republicans impeached President Clinton, a Gallup Poll finds.

"Only 37% of Americans gave Congress a high approval rating, down from 45% last month, the poll taken last week showed. A total of 53% disapproved, up from 48% in February."

Could any of that have to do with Tom DeLay?

"A groundswell of criticism generated by alleged ethical lapses concerning House Majority Leader Tom Delay is forcing the Texas lawmaker to seek support from GOP colleagues and is threatening to harm the Republican legislative agenda on Capitol Hill," says the Chicago Tribune.

"DeLay plans to start talking to fellow Republicans in his own defense this week, a senior aide said, as Democrats intensify their attacks on him in an effort to neutralize their longtime foe.

"While DeLay defends himself against questions about his fundraising activities and travels, as well as the dealings of lobbyists closely aligned with his office, Democrats and their supporters are sensing a rare opportunity and have launched a multipronged effort to publicize the allegations against him.

"The Democratic National Committee on Tuesday is launching 'DeLay's Dastardly Doings' on its Web site, a daily digest of charges against the Republican leader. For the GOP, a question is whether DeLay's ethics troubles will soon outweigh the benefits of his leadership."

Meanwhile, things aren't getting any better for Bush on the Social Security front, according to this WashPost survey, while his approval rating holds steady at 50 perent:

"Barely a third of the public approves of the way President Bush is dealing with Social Security and a majority says the more they hear about Bush's plan to reform the giant retirement system, the less they like it, according to a new Washington Post-ABC News poll...

"Nearly six in 10--58 percent--say they are more inclined to oppose administration's reform plans as they learn more about it. Only a third say they are more receptive to Bush's proposals as more details become available."

Jumping into the debate I've had with Jay Rosen and others over whether the Bushies are actively trying to discredit the media, LAT columnist David Shaw says:

"I don't reject the decertification argument because I think the Bush administration wouldn't like to get rid of a free press. I don't think the president welcomes an inquiring press any more than he would welcome a congressional version of the Question Time to which the British Parliament regularly subjects the prime minister.

"Nor do I resist the decertification theory because I don't think Bush is smart enough to pull off such an elaborate, sensitive campaign. The byways of American politics are littered with the bodies of those who have underestimated Bush's intelligence. He and those he's been smart enough to hire to serve him have already achieved their three major objectives -- his election to the presidency, his reelection and the ouster of Saddam Hussein.

"But Iraq remains unfinished business, and given the president's determination to Americanize Iraq (and Iran?) and to privatize Social Security -- as part of what I do see as a determined campaign to roll back the New Deal and the Great Society -- I think he has too much on his plate to spend the time and energy necessary to decertify the press. I'm just not willing to believe the administration intends to destroy the Fourth Estate, just because they don't believe in it either. . . .

"The last time I checked, President Bush didn't dictate wall-to-wall coverage of Michael Jackson, Martha Stewart, Scott Peterson and Chandra Levy."

Touche.

Newsweek's Eleanor Clift is on the Hillary bandwagon:

"At a recent informal dinner with members of Congress, a reporter declared Hillary 'the nominee in waiting.' He compared her to Ronald Reagan circa 1978, when the Eastern elite of the political press said nobody would elect an aging B-movie actor with orange hair as president.

"Today's cognoscenti think Hillary is too polarizing, that she could win the nomination but never the presidency. Still, a consensus is emerging that Hillary Clinton is the Democrats' likely candidate and that Republicans are whistling Dixie if they think she'd be a pushover. Imagine Bill Clinton once again rattling around the White House 'doing God knows what' in the words of one of the dinner attendees. But Clinton himself has become more of a beloved figure. His role in tsunami relief combined with his illness allows the American people to see him in a different light. . . .

"A presidential race eventually comes down to two people, and the Republicans don't have an obvious candidate to beat Hillary in '08."

As the Dems begin their quadrennial reexamination of the primary schedule, Daily Kos questions whether the first two states should keep that advantage:

"The less happens, the better for IA and NH. They need nothing to happen to keep the gravy train flowing. For all the high-minded talk of maintain 'retail politics', Iowa and New Hampshire couldn't give two [expletives] about 'retail politics', otherwise they'd be happy to share the wealth with a rotating calendar.

"There are other small states in which 'retail politics' could take place. But NH and IA has a cottage industry of consultants who make a killing off presidential campaigns. In Iowa, party bosses are wined and dined around the clock, without letup, by candidates seeking their support. The local economy gets a jolt every four years from traveling campaigns and media -- hotels, car rentals, dining establishments, etc.

"And aside from money -- the local political establishments fancy themselves presidential kingmakers. That sort of power is hard to surrender.

"At the end of the day, one percent of the public is now choosing each party's presidential candidate. Those states are unrepresentative of the nation's diversity -- not just ethnic and racial, but religious and regional diversity as well."

It's not shocking that former Cheney aide Mary Matalin would praise what's transpired in Afghanistan after the administration toppled the Taliban, but she uses one very strong phrase:

"The first free election in Afghanistan's history was a seminal event for that country and for our own. With their votes, Afghans risked their own personal security and advanced our national security: They implemented the first concrete act of President Bush's transformative foreign-policy strategy to replace tyranny and terrorism with liberty and opportunity. To borrow a phrase, Afghans' first step for individual freedom was a giant leap for world peace.

"Despite the significance of these events -- their potential to transform the Islamic world -- both Western and Middle Eastern media have devoted scant coverage to them. My friend Rush Limbaugh and I were both frustrated by -- and curious about -- this virtual news blackout, and were delighted when USAID gave us an opportunity to join a delegation to see the progress in Afghanistan for ourselves."

The media have largely abandoned Afghanistan for Iraq, it's true. But a "virtual news blackout"?

Here's some breaking news about ABC's big locker-room stunt, as reported by the AP

"Federal regulators ruled Monday there was nothing indecent about a steamy introductory segment to ABC's Monday Night Football featuring actress Nicollette Sheridan jumping into the arms of football player Terrell Owens. . . .

"Only the upper back of the Desperate Housewives star was exposed and no foul language was used -- in fact, the scene was no racier than what's routinely seen on soap operas. But ABC said it received complaints from viewers who thought it was inappropriate...

"The Federal Communications Commission opened an investigation after receiving many complaints. But the five-member panel unanimously ruled the segment did not violate federal indecency standards."

Of course it's not obscene. It was just an obscenely dumb thing to do before a game watched by millions of kids. And now everyone has an excuse to run the pictures again.

Blogads has some interesting numbers from a survey of online readers:

"Last year, we got 17,159 responses. This year, 30,079 blog readers responded.

"Last year, 61% of responding blog readers were over 30 years old. This year, 75% are over 30 years old.

"Last year, 40% had family incomes greater than $90,000. This year, 43% exceed that figure.

"Year over year, some figures are remarkably stable. One reader in five is a blogger. As was the case last year, exactly 1.7% are CEOs. Almost the same number (44%) spend more than $500 for air tickets. 86% purchased music online, last year and this. Last year, 79% were men. This year, 75% are men."

Which may help explain why the most popular blogs are written by people of that gender.

And speaking of blogs, Salon's Scott Rosenberg says:

"Gallup now has a poll out that tells us that 'relatively few Americans are generally familiar with the phenomenon of blogging.' Gallup wants us to stop and realize that blogs aren't so big after all. Its headline is dripping with contempt: 'Blogs Not Yet in the Media Big Leagues: Very few Americans read them with any frequency.' But really, this is a glass half-empty or half-full kind of thing. And the glass is filling up awfully quickly.

"You can tell Gallup is a little uneasy from the phrase 'relatively few'; since it appears that we are talking about nearly half of Americans, I'd like to know, relative to exactly what? Gallup's numbers say that one out of four Americans are "very or somewhat" familiar with blogs. I think that's extraordinary, but Gallup seems to thinks it's some kind of weak showing."

Finally, Josh Marshall, sounding almost apologetic for a brief break in blogging, buries the lead:

"I'm going to be stepping away from the site this week; but I'll be leaving it in the hands of an eclectic trio of guest bloggers that I think you'll really enjoy. I'll pop in here and there with a post. But I am taking a week away from the site to...well, it sounds so matter-of-fact and prosaic to just say it, but to get married. If all goes according to plan I'll be back fulltime next Monday or Tuesday."

I've got the solution: Wedding blogging!