From a comment over at Sgt. Stryker's place:
I'd like to see an ad during this campaign with the camera panning slowly across the names on the Vietnam Memorial with the tape recording of Kerry's testimony telling the Senate how these men were mostly war criminals.
That's gotta hurt! But, is it ugly?
On my way in to work today, I was listening to Morning Edition when I heard a brief interview with Theresa Heinz-Kerry. The interviewer, Renee Montaigne asked the following question: (about 1:00 in)
Now that George W. Bush is poised to pour millions into his re-election effort, I asked her if she expected the campaign to get ugly?
Say Uncle was asking for help in documenting liberal bias on NPR for the folks over at lean left. Well, here's a prime example. The question clearly demonstrates a bias to the left as it automatically links campaign spending by Bush with an "ugly" campaign. This is one case where the audio format of NPR's archives actually comes in handy, as you can hear Montaigne lean all over the phrase "pour millions." Given the connection betwen money and political corruption, Montaigne cannot be unaware that by stressing how much Bush is going to spend, she creates a negative impression about Bush with her listeners, who, to be sure, are already leaning in that direction anyway. But why not mention the "millions" raised and spent by Howard Dean on his unabashedly negative campaign? Or the "millions" raised by Kerry and Edwards? As for the campaign "getting" ugly, isn't it already? Let's not forget the Kerry-trollop trolling by folks from Wes Clark's camp as evidence that this campaign hit the gutter before the primaries were even over. How about the patently false AWOL accusations thrown at the President by Kerry, Dean, and Terry McAuliffe as evidence that the campaign has already gotten ugly?
Yet Renee Montaigne blithely disregards this, intimating that any ugliness in the campaign will be solely due to President Bush spending millions. The bias is egregious, and obvious to anyone who isn't similarly biased.
So the correct answer to her question is that the campaign has already gotten ugly. If the republicans should begin to fire back, it won't mark the beginning of the ugliness.
It'll just make it bi-partisan.
Isn't bi-partisanship wonderful?
Posted by Rich at February 27, 2004 12:52 PM | TrackBackRich:
That logic is thin, and I think you know it. "Given the connection betwen money and political corruption," I would think that the several follow-up questions that the reporter asks Heinz-Kerry direct questions about her own personal fortune, about her involvement with the environmental lobby, and about her actions possibly undermining campaign finance reform, would balance out possible bias implied (and not explicit) in the opening question.
Posted by: tgirsch on February 27, 2004 3:50 PMI'd like to see an ad during this campaign with the camera panning slowly across the names on the Vietnam Memorial with the tape recording of Kerry's testimony telling the Senate how these men were mostly war criminals.
I'm sure he'd like to see it, but he'd have a hard time finding a recording, since Kerry never testified as such.
Posted by: Chris Wage on February 27, 2004 4:55 PMConsidering that up until now the re-election campaign has trotted out Saxby Chambliss to criticize Kerry's voting record over the last 32 years (even though he's only been in the Senate for 19, but that's besides the point), created an attack ad against Kerry that's been shown on the internet, is it a stretch to believe that Bush pouring his millions into the campaign might portend the campaign getting ugly?
And quite frankly, from the question that you highlighted, it doesn't imply that its just Bush who will get negative, he asked if the campaign in general would get ugly (i.e. both sides). Your being way too sensitive.
Posted by: Manish on February 27, 2004 5:31 PMIf it's the campaign in general that's being questioned, why is the lead in to the question solely concerned with Bush pouring millions into the campaign?
Posted by: rich on February 27, 2004 5:42 PMYou know what, Rich. Never mind all of that. Let's just humor you, and "concede" for a moment that the question was indeed biased. You're still -1 on the bias-o-meter, because in my original post, I give an example of a rightist bias on NPR (therefore canceling out your purported leftist bias story), and Uncle inadvertently found another case of rightist bias on NPR (see the FAIR link...)
Posted by: tgirsch on February 28, 2004 4:17 AMYour challenge was to find evidence of a liberal bias on NPR, not find more liberal bias than conservative bias, so I met the conditions of challenge.
And as is typical, having lost your challenge, you want to move the goal posts.
I could decline the new challenge, but since I do listen to NPR on a regular basis, I'll document as many examples of liberal bias as I can over the next week.
Posted by: rich on March 1, 2004 12:27 PM
Rich:
Your challenge was to find evidence of a liberal bias on NPR, not find more liberal bias than conservative bias, so I met the conditions of challenge.
If that was your understanding of the terms of the challenge, then your understanding differs from that of pretty much everyone else in the blogosphere. I specifically talked about "pervasive leftist bias," and I think I was pretty clear about more left than right, particularly where I said:
Show me how NPR unfairly slants stories to the left, and how NPR's slant would impair the ability of its listeners to make impartial judgments on the stories it reports, and how their reporting is prejudicial and unfair. Or show me a news source that is less biased (in either direction) than NPR is.At best, if you stretch it really far, you've met only the first prong of the challenge. And that, by itself, isn't particularly impressive; it certainly does nothing to establish NPR News as being a "leftist" organization. Posted by: tgirsch on March 8, 2004 1:31 PM
Yow. Y'all got nothing else to do? Get over this liberal vs. conservative bs and listen to the issue, then make up your mind. However NPR reporters say it and however you hear it NPR gives you more story than any other radio program. It is virtually impossible to not see bias if you are looking for it. It is very extraordinary to report without bias unless you just leave out all the adjectives.
Posted by: on April 12, 2004 5:09 PM