February 18, 2004
NewsHour Misses Point
I watched the NewsHour With Jim Lehrer tonight and was disappointed to hear that the media still doesn't get it. The topic, why the Dean campaign fell short, was analyzed at length amongst several guests from the "establishment media" as they called themselves. One after the other, they expressed in learned tones various "stumbles" he made along the way: His rumor about the Saudis having tipped off Bush prior to 9/11; mentioning the rebel flag; stating that the US wasn't any safer after the capture of Saddam Hussein; the scream in Iowa. For good measure, they tossed in a statement he made four years ago disparaging Iowans for having an undue influence on the election process. As if any of the voters remembered comments Dean made years ago when the press was clobbering them with their own "reasons" the front-runner was "unelectable". Only Mark Shields said, as an afterthought, that Dean's status as a front-runner since August had put a target on his back for four months. A target that both the media and the Republican party used to his detriment.
None of the talking heads were willing to mention the fact that since Dean's announcement in November that he'd break up the media conglomerates, news reports criticizing him outnumbered those complimentary of him (48% positive), while at the same time reports on his opponents were running 78 - 100% positive, depending on the candidate. For better or for worse, people tend to go with the crowd. They buy what the media sells. If you have any doubts, ask why Coca-cola and Pepsi spend so much on advertising. Four months of target practice was bound to take its toll. So if the NewsHour had been seriously trying to discover what happened to Dean's momentum, we should have heard more about the media's own roll in shaping voters' views about the candidates. More on this topic later.
I watched the same News Hour transmission, to the same conclusion. The commentators' response was a variant of "He who lives by the sword..." pointing out that it was the same media coverage that gave Dean his initial punch, and while there's a measure of fairness in that observation, I was disheartened that no commentator focused on the underlying truth: Dean's message was too urgent, too right-on, too powerful, to be adopted by a compliant press, even by a compliant citizenry responding thereto. Dean was (is) a man before his time.
Posted by: Erik on February 18, 2004 11:52 PMDean did make a few bad remarks. Since he was the front runner, these thoughtless comments hurt him. In addition, he spent almost all of his time attacking everyone.
Sure, he helped bring down Bush's approval ratings. This was great. But he did not present us with a vision.
Too bad. If he really understood the Internet, he would have used all his followers to help him define a vision the average guy would like.
If he were really trying to start a new movement he would not have sought endorsements from members of the establishment.
Maybe Dean has learned from all this. Maybe he will start a long-run movement. I will know for sure only if he is making speeches after election day.
Posted by: Paul Siegel on February 19, 2004 08:23 PM