Critiquing the Press

Howard Kurtz has been The Washington Post's media reporter since 1990. He is also the host of CNN's "Reliable Sources" and the author of "Reality Show: Insider the Last Great Television News War," "Media Circus," "Hot Air," "Spin Cycle" and "The Fortune Tellers: Inside Wall Street's Game of Money, Media and Manipulation." Kurtz talks about the press and the stories of the day in "Media Backtalk."

The transcript follows.

Media Backtalk transcripts archive

____________________

Washington: No question, no comment. Just wanted to say thanks for a generally intelligent and insightful chat.

Howard Kurtz: If only all my chats could start off like this!

_______________________

Manhattan, Kan.: In any number of your columns, you've suggested that Barack Obama has received more favorable coverage from the press than has Hillary Clinton. Of course, these kinds of judgments are always subjective. On the other hand, reporting the percentage of the vote captured by each candidate in each primary should be a purely objective matter -- for example, Hillary Clinton won Pennsylvania by 9.2 percent, but nearly every report I saw rounded that up to 10 percent, so it could be said that she won a double-digit victory. In Indiana, she won by 14,000 votes, which was about 1 percent of the total vote cast; nonetheless, newspapers and networks continue to report a two-percentage-point victory for her. If the media are so enthralled with Obama, why are Hillary's victories exaggerated, or are journalists just mathematically challenged?

Howard Kurtz: I wouldn't rule out the last possibility. Journalists like round numbers, especially on television, so Hillary's 9.4 percent win in Pennsylvania was often rounded up to 10 percent. I thought she won Indiana by 1.4 percent, and that was often referred to as 2 percent, in part because of late returns that made the final margin unclear (the cable nets didn't call the race until after 1 a.m.).

Subjective judgments can creep in, but the fact that Hillary Clinton received tougher coverage than Barack Obama for most of the campaign is, I believe, well-documented. The one exception was during the month when Jeremiah Wright, the "bitter" comments and other controversies made for a very rough month of coverage for Obama.

_______________________

Chewelah, Wash.: Hi Howie. The Los Angeles Times article you mentioned this morning is spot on. I live in an area with 70 percent Republican registration, and most are displeased with their choices: a man with a temper problem, a woman who is divisive, and a man that is inexperienced. As to Obama's inexperience, most lower-income folks have had bosses who push for change and totally disrupt the company, sometimes leading to the business failing. I suspect that is the primary reason for their support of Clinton over Obama -- they know what they will get with her and have no idea what we will get with him. If he can show them he is for main-line policies and not radical change, he will win their votes in November. I'm not an Obama supporter, but have been pleased at how steady he has been for the past couple of months.

Howard Kurtz: Well, everyone has to make up his or her own mind about not just the candidates' policies, but their characters. Objectively speaking, Obama has less experience at the national level than his two rivals, but he nonetheless has come to the brink of upsetting a world-famous former first lady who began with formidable advantages. That's the thing about elections -- however they look on paper, they sometimes turn out differently when the candidates hit the trail and the airwaves.

_______________________

Baltimore: Howard, what did you think of what my friends and I call the "Russert Declaration" last Tuesday? I'm of course speaking of his delphic utterance that "we have a nominee." In seems as if the media collectively is throwing in the towel and declaring the whole race over. Now, it's one thing to report that Hillary would have a very tough time winning the nomination, but to declare the race over? Or stating that "we're not going to West Virginia"? By saying such things that affected the course of events, Russert and others weren't merely acting as observers, they were acting as participants -- which I find troubling.

Howard Kurtz: Welcome to the world of punditry. Tim Russert is paid to be a political analyst, so if he wants to offer his judgment (as did Bob Schieffer, George Stephanopoulos and numerous others) that there is no way for Hillary Clinton to overtake Barack Obama, I have no quarrel with that. What I do have difficulty with is straight-news journalists rendering the same judgment when the primaries aren't over and there is at least the possibility that unexpected events could prompt the superdelegates to decide this thing in Hillary's favor. What some of these organizations have done is not so much declare Obama the nominee but simply move on to long profiles of him, analyses of how he will match up against McCain in the fall, speculation about who he'll pick as his running mate--all effectively signaling to readers and viewers that the primaries are no longer worth paying attention to.

_______________________

Milwaukee: Hi Howard. I'm wondering why the media isn't pressing harder to see John McCain's full medical records. A doctor friend of mine says the kind of melanoma he has frequently recurs, and that the side of his face (almost never shown in photographs) looks deadly. Your thoughts?

Howard Kurtz: The McCain camp has said it will put out the records in about two weeks, so that has defused any controversy for now.

_______________________

Boston: Going back to the Pentagon's PR "Pay for Play" scandal -- through the past few years, I have seen reporters bristle at the suggestion from readers that some of their reporting seemed illogical or strained. The Post's Iraq correspondents have done great work, but the other paper 200 miles north has had some reporters who have done a great deal of reportage indicting Iran for just about everything. Every time the reporter got called on it, he told us that he had impeccable sources. Now that we know the Pentagon was asking people to make up stories on the record, how much storytelling took place off the record?

Howard Kurtz: As someone who repeatedly has written and spoken about the TV military analysts, and thinks it's one of the great undercovered stories, I have to point out that you're conflating two things. The TV analysts all are retired military officers, and thus wouldn't be very good sources for reporters except as occasional on-the-record commentators. And for those who were still on active duty during the opening years of the war, at that time they wouldn't have been TV analysts. So while journalists may have been misled by their military sources, by and large they wouldn't be the TV talking heads.

_______________________

Avon Park, Fla.: Why is the press covering Barack Obama as the presumptive nominee now? He was expected to win North Carolina and he didn't win Indiana, which was seen as a toss-up.

Howard Kurtz: Because Hillary committed the all-important sin of failing to meet media expectations. She got blown out in North Carolina (after some rumblings that she might be competitive), and while she was expected to carry Indiana by about 5 points, she won with just over 1 percent. More important -- and I'm explaining this, not defending it -- reporters and pundits saw last Tuesday as her final chance to change the chemistry of a race in which the delegate math increasingly works against her. So the media floodgates were opened.

In fact, one poll shows Hillary with a 36-point lead in West Virginia, which votes tomorrow. But the media doesn't seem to care, because West Virginia has relatively few delegates and therefore can't change the overall math.

_______________________

Richmond, Va.: I was able to catch your show yesterday for the first time. I usually miss it because it conflicts with church, but because of an early service yesterday I was able to watch. What great guests! They actually let each other talk without interrupting or talking over each other. You also did a great job of directing the conversations. Will you please pass this training on to other commentators and interviewers? Is the tone you had yesterday one you set, or does it depend on the guests? Either way bravo, bravo, bravo and thank you from a viewer who tunes in to actually learn something, not just to see a slugfest.

Howard Kurtz: Many thanks. What I try to do on "Reliable Sources" is not fall into the old "Crossfire" trap of just having guests shout talking points at each other. I'm tired of those programs, and I suspect much of the audience is too. The show works best when we have a conversation about how the media are or aren't doing their jobs without people slapping each other around.

_______________________

Boston: The Wall Street Journal did a report on the candidates' real estate deals, and it seems the McCains are prodigious but not very astute real estate speculators (five purchases in Phoenix and San Diego at market peak). My question is, why did we get so much coverage of John Kerry's homes, but so little on the eight homes the McCain's own?

Howard Kurtz: Kerry's real estate holdings came into play because he mortgaged his town house to loan himself money when his campaign for the Democratic nomination was faltering. McCain hasn't put a dime into his campaign. At the same time, there was a media fascination with Teresa Heinz Kerry's wealth, and so there was too much chatter about her various fabulous homes.

_______________________

Clinton Media Coverage: Why is it unreasonable for Clinton to have more negative coverage? She claims 35 years of experience, which gives a lot of material to cover. I'd like to see some reporting on the previous instances of wives succeeding husbands in high office, both domestic and international, and get some feel for how it usually works out. Clinton has claimed executive experience based on being the spouse of a former president. Has any other world leader gained office with the same claim? How well did he or she lead?

Howard Kurtz: Of course her claims of "experience" by virtue of being the president's wife should be tested -- and were, in many media accounts. (Her unfortunate tale of Bosnian sniper fire followed a debate about whether her many foreign trips as first lady were substantive or largely ceremonial.) And yes, her long public record gave journalists more targets to shoot at than Obama's thinner resume. But none of that excuses the media from responsibility to provide a rough balance in the scrutiny of competing candidates.

_______________________

Boston: On the NPR show "On the Media" Rachel Maddow said that she actively was campaigning for an MSNBC show of her own. Do you think it is possible for an unabashedly liberal voice to get a program on cable television? Olbermann may be disgusted with the Bush regime, but he wasn't a card-carrying liberal before that. Matthews understood the folly of Iraq from early on, but he got his start as a Clinton-basher. Donahue was fired not for ratings, but for being "too liberal."

Howard Kurtz: I don't know. Rachel is on MSNBC so often these days it seems like she has her own show (and she has guest-hosted once or twice). If a former Republican congressman can have a show, I guess an Air America host isn't out of the question. But I think cable networks have a special responsibility when the host has a clearly defined point of view to book some guests from the other side of the ideological divide. Sometimes, though, that doesn't happen.

_______________________

What I do have difficulty with is straight-news journalists rendering the same judgment when the primaries aren't over and there is at least the possibility that unexpected events could prompt the superdelegates to decide this thing in Hillary's favor. : This is preposterous. If a basketball team in the NCAA tournament is leading by eight points with less than a minute to go, yes, there is an extreme scenario when the trailing team can come back and win. Of course, they almost never do that. So the announcers begin talking about how the team in the lead won this game and who they will play in the next round. That's what's been happening since North Carolina, and there's nothing wrong with that.

Howard Kurtz: But sometimes there are comebacks, in politics as well as sports. And here's the difference: no matter what the TV announcers say in the NCAA playoffs, the trailing team is either going to mount a comeback or lose. The chatter doesn't affect what happens on the court. But in political coverage, whether it's Hillary or Huckabee or any other trailing candidate, a media declaration that the race is over, or a dramatic scaling back of coverage, impacts the contest by making it harder for the trailing candidate to raise money, get out a message and convince supporters that his or her effort is still viable.

_______________________

Rochester, N.Y.: You mention that certain segments of the media seem to be directly or indirectly signaling that the primary season is over. What amazes me is that the media's staunch objectivity seems to have lengthened the Democratic race much longer than it needed. Has anything really changed since, say, the Texas caucus/primary? The "Russert Declaration" should have come then.

Howard Kurtz: Well, since the earlier round of media obituaries, Hillary won Ohio, Texas and Pennsylvania -- all big and important states.

Look, I can remember certain pundits urging John Kerry to drop out in late 2003 to spare himself the humiliation of certain defeat. He went on to win the Democratic nomination. And it was the brilliant commentators who practically buried John McCain in the summer of 2007. So sometimes the wise guys are wrong.

_______________________

Washington: I don't want to appear uncaring or flippant, but for all the stories about how we (the U.S. or the U.N.) simply should go into Burma (Myanmar) and take care of people's needs because the government is unresponsive, it's awfully hard to think how many people believe our government wasn't responsive. And because it's a sovereign country, like ours, how would we feel if "foreigners" simply came in and did the job?

Don't I remember correctly that we didn't allow people and foreign ships or aircraft to simply come in after Katrina, and didn't we simply stockpile supplies donated from around the world under the guise of "the food doesn't meet USDA or other specifications and therefore can't be distributed"? And didn't a lot of donated supplies simply stay at warehouses? I'm not justifying Burma's or their general's actions, but like it or not, it's their country. Would we similarly plan on simply "entering and helping" North Korea despite their repeated famines?

Howard Kurtz: But the U.S. clearly has the resources to respond to a major catastrophe (whether it does effectively is another question) -- and just as clearly, Myanmar does not. I don't think it is too much to say that tens of thousands of people may die of starvation and disease because of the military regime's refusal to allow much outside aid. Plus, the Burmese rulers have tried to ban journalists -- only a couple of Western correspondents have gotten in, and reporters for the BBC and CNN were deported -- which has meant a dearth of pictures and first-hand accounts of this almost unimaginable tragedy. That is one reason why it seems more remote than, say, the Asian tsunami.

_______________________

Alexandria, Va.: I think even President Bush's most strident opponents should give him credit that he resisted temptation to make his daughter's wedding a media circus. With his popularity polls in the toilet, it must have been a great temptation to him and his aides to have held the ceremony in the White House, or at least thrown it open to the press. We are a sentimental people and video of the wedding and the beautiful bride and handsome groom and the president delivering a sentimental toast to the couple surely would have raised his favorability ratings by a few points. He is to be commended for his decision to keep what is a family affair private. There is at least one former president I can think of who could have been counted on to squeeze every ounce of positive publicity out of the event.

Howard Kurtz: I agree. I tipped my hat to the family on the show yesterday. I was puzzled why it took so many hours to release a few photos, and it wouldn't have spoiled the party to at least allow a pool reporter in. But the Bush family passed up the idea of a spectacular White House wedding for a private affair near Crawford, and that was their decision to make.

_______________________

Boston on Maddow: She mentioned she is allover the MSNBC lineup, but she would like her own show so that she could decide what topics would receive coverage and wouldn't be stuck in week-long reviews of Rev. Wright-like freak shows.

Howard Kurtz: Fair enough. I used to enjoy having Rachel on my show before she became an MSNBC analyst. She always was paired with a conservative and seemed to enjoy a spirited debate.

_______________________

Washington: Re: Rachel Maddow's own show, your colleague Lisa de Moraes has said that it comes down to money. Basically, it's easier for a conservative show to attract viewers than it is for a liberal show. Conservatives are just more likely to watch a cable news show. So, most of the networks are loathe to take the risk on a liberal host. That said, this is one moderate who would like to see Rachel get her own show. It would balance out all the white guys on MSNBC.

Howard Kurtz: It is rather amazing that MSNBC has no woman hosting a program in prime time (after previous programs with Deborah Norville and Rita Cosby fizzled). As for the conservative tilt of the audience, MSNBC certainly seems in its opinion programming to be playing to the left, as is evident in prime time. That may be a factor in the recent decision to drop Tucker Carlson's show.

_______________________

Boston: Why is the "Saturday Night Live" "3 a.m. call" skit more newsworthy than the much more substantial (in my opinion of course) than this weekend's Hillary skit? None of the Sunday talk shows had clips of this great "SNL" skit -- were they afraid of alienating the Clinton campaign, or viewers who support Hillary, or of influencing the race? Thanks.

Howard Kurtz: I almost used it on yesterday's show -- I did mention it, though -- but it was hard to edit down to a usable 20 seconds because Amy Poehler did a long, involved speech by Hillary, rather than individual punch lines.

_______________________

Alexandria, Va.: Republican here: John Kerry and John McCain were written off before the Iowa caucuses, not after almost every single primary had been completed. It's possible that Obama could lose, but that doesn't mean that that chance is even remotely high.

Howard Kurtz: Yes, I was simply noting that the confident-sounding commentators on television are sometimes flat wrong. After Iowa, virtually every pundit on the planet predicted that Hillary Clinton would lose New Hampshire, with many saying there would then be pressure on her to bow out of the race. She of course won New Hampshire. Never mind.

_______________________

Suburban Cincinnati: Hello, Howard -- one Howard to another. This is not a political question, so it may be a nice change of topic: When I watch the evening news on ABC, CBS or NBC, I feel as if I am watching the "disease-of-the-month" in the advertising that runs. Almost every spot on every network is for a drug to cure an illness -- name the ailment. I find it annoying -- give me an auto ad, please (and the mute button)!

Does the audience skew so old that advertisers of other products see no need to appeal to this audience? I just turned, ahem, 57 last week, and I feel 35. I'm blessed with terrific health, so I don't need any of this. Besides, many of us Baby Boomers have more disposable income and than the "desirable" 18-49 audience.

Howard Kurtz: The average age of evening news watchers is about 60, and it really shows in the advertising. In fact, I've heard network journalists grumble that the commercials may be a factor in driving away younger viewers who might feel they've wandered into a senior citizen development.

_______________________

Leonardtown, Md.: Howard, I regularly watch your CNN show, "Reliable Sources." The network describes your show as "one of television's only regular programs to examine how journalists do their jobs and how the media affect the stories they cover." But it seems that almost all of your guests come from the same media you claim to cover. (Possibly a conflict of interest?)

For example, here is your lineup of guests from yesterday's show: Karen Tumulty, national correspondent, Time; Roger Simon, chief political correspondent, politico.com; Kate Zernike, national correspondent, New York Times; Clarence Page, Chicago Tribune; Amanda Carpenter, national political reporter, Townhall.com; Dan Rivers, CNN correspondent.

Why are there almost never any actual media critics on your show? I could give you the names of a few. Jon Stewart would be a welcome addition. Don't get me wrong, I want to hear from journalists and get their points of view, but I also think it would be good for journalists to answer actual criticisms from their critics.

Howard Kurtz: First of all, dude, I've had Jon Stewart, and wish he'd come back. He's as sharp a media critic as anyone out there.

Second, there's a long list of media and television critics we have on regularly, including Steve Roberts, Eric Deggans, David Folkenflik, Mark Feldstein, Brooke Gladstone, Matthew Felling, David Carr and others. We also have bloggers who provide an outside perspective. But in the middle of a campaign, there's great value in having on the journalists who cover that campaign, and pressing them about their work. I was able yesterday to turn to Time's Karen Tumulty and ask why her magazine had run a cover declaring Obama the nominee, to ask Kate Zernike of the New York Times why her newspaper's lead story was about an Obama/McCain matchup in the fall, and to ask Politico's Roger Simon why he wrote a column calling Hillary "a dead woman walking."

_______________________

Richmond, Va.: What makes a politician powerful? If the media keeps saying a politician is powerful, then it appears they are. Case in point. Throughout this campaign, it has been alleged by the media that Bill and Hillary Clinton are very powerful (and in some cases, superdelegates are fearful of coming straight out to support Obama to avoid offending the Clintons). But at this time -- because it is 2008 and not the 1990s -- and in this campaign, the Clintons have lost not only some of their influence (time will do that), but absolutely some of their luster, given the negative incidences. Yet the mainstream media still insists this is a very powerful couple. When does the reality catch up with the MSM rhetoric? In other words, if the MSM said that Bill and Hillary were no longer powerful, they wouldn't be, right?

Howard Kurtz: There's a reality here that transcends media coverage. Bill Clinton is a former president, he and his wife had a vast fundraising network and were able to line up all kinds of members of Congress, governors and mayors to support Hillary's candidacy. But as those advantages faded (because Obama, incredibly, raised more money and began picking up his own political support), and as Bill increasingly made mistakes on the campaign trail, I think the coverage reflected that too. It's a moving target, not a snapshot.

Thanks for the chat, folks.

_______________________

Editor's Note: washingtonpost.com moderators retain editorial control over Discussions and choose the most relevant questions for guests and hosts; guests and hosts can decline to answer questions. washingtonpost.com is not responsible for any content posted by third parties.