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 Schadenfreude  |
Posted on 12/11/2003 4:35:44 PM PST by Timesink
FAIR Fairness & Accuracy In Reporting 112 W. 27th Street New York, NY 10001
ACTION ALERT:
ABC Narrows the Field:
Did Kucinich's criticism of Koppel influence decision?
December 11, 2003
A day after ABC's Ted Koppel moderated a debate between the Democratic presidential contenders, the network decided to withdraw three off-air producers from the campaigns of Dennis Kucinich, Carol Moseley Braun and Rev. Al Sharpton.
ABC's decision was attributed to the fact that these candidates are perceived to have a slim chance of winning the Democratic nomination. An ABC spokesperson explained (Boston Globe, 12/11/03) that "as we prepare for Iowa and New Hampshire, we are putting more resources toward covering those events." Appearing on CNBC with Kucinich (12/10/03), Time reporter Jay Carney suggested that the decision could be due to the fact that "all of the media organizations have limited resources. It's actually, I think, pretty impressive that they had somebody on your campaign day by day by day."
Somehow it's hard to believe that the "limited resources" of the Disney corporation (2003 revenues: $27 billion) explains ABC's call. ABC's decision does seem to mirror the opinions of Koppel, who seemed frustrated that these candidates were included in the debate at all. According to the New York Times (12/7/03), Koppel "said he would have preferred a slugfest among the six leading candidates." Koppel was quoted: "You can't have a debate among nine people.... There is no such thing. It's called a food fight."
"How did Dennis Kucinich and Al Sharpton and Carol Moseley Braun get into this thing?" Koppel was quoted in the Washington Post (12/10/03). "Nobody seems to know. Some candidates who are perceived as serious are gasping for air, and what little oxygen there is on the stage will be taken up by one-third of the people who do not have a snowball's chance in hell of winning the nomination."
Koppel's dismissive attitude towards those three candidates carried over into the debate itself, as evidenced by this question:
"This is question to Ambassador Braun, Rev. Sharpton, Congressman Kucinich. You don't have any money, at least not much. Rev. Sharpton has almost none. You don't have very much, Ambassador Braun. The question is, will there come a point when polls, money and then ultimately the actual votes that will take place here, in places like New Hampshire, the caucuses in Iowa, will there come a point when we can expect one or more of the three of you to drop out? Or are you in this as sort of a vanity candidacy?"
Kucinich's response to that question generated perhaps the most media coverage his campaign has received so far:
"Ted, you know, we started at the beginning of this evening talking about an endorsement. Well, I want the American people to see where the media takes politics in this country. To start with endorsements, to start talking about endorsements. Now we're talking about polls. And then we're talking about money. Well, you know, when you do that, you don't have to talk about what's important to the American people."Ted, I'm the only one up here that actually, on the stage, that actually voted against the Patriot Act. And voted against the war. The only one on this stage. I'm also one of the few candidates up here who's talking about taking our healthcare system from this for-profit system to a not-for-profit, single-payer, universal health care for all. I'm also the only one who has talked about getting out of NAFTA and the WTO and going back to bilateral trade conditioned on workers rights, human rights and the environment. Now, I may be inconvenient for some of those in the media, but I'm, you know, sorry about that."
One has to wonder whether Kucinich's rebuke of Koppel, and his criticism of the priorities of the media, had something to do with ABC's decision to limit coverage of these candidates. No matter what the rationale, this does raise a concern that ABC is making an early call on the election of 2004-- weeks before any votes have been cast.
For the record, before ABC's decision to cut back coverage, Kucinich, Sharpton and Moseley Braun had been mentioned a combined total of 10 times this year on ABC's World News Tonight, according to a search of the Nexis database. Only one of those mentions referred to the candidate's position on a policy.
ACTION: Contact ABC and ask them why they have decided to limit their coverage of Kucinich, Sharpton and Moseley Braun. Encourage ABC to let voters, not pundits, decide who they want to select as a presidential nominee.
CONTACT:
ABC News
World News Tonight
Phone: 212-456-4040
PeterJennings@abcnews.com
Nightline
202-222-7000
nightline@abcnews.com
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Schadenfreude |
Why would this matter?
This is a circus event and these are 3 of the biggest clowns in the tent.
ACTION: Contact ABC and ask them why they have decided to limit their coverage of Kucinich, Sharpton and Moseley Braun
I'm sorry but WHY do we care?
You shouldn't. I just didn't want to be accused of bias by chopping up a leftist screed, so I posted the whole thing.
He was great. "I came anyway", LOL.
You just made Santa's "Been Good This Year" list.
I give credit to ABC and all the news outlets for hanging in there this long with the vanity candidates.
ABC doesn't want to risk viewers going to its competitors to get news of the presidential campaign that doesn't waste their viewing time on hopeless loser candidates.
Hardball crack political correspondent David Shuster is back from New Hampshire and files this Briefing exclusive:"Given that so much has already been written about the candidates at the debate... we wanted to offer some observations about our 2nd favorite subject... the media covering the debate.
Item #1: Battle of the bus. Jamison [Christina Jamison, Shuster's producer] and I were bewildered when we arrived at the ABC News sponsored debate on the picturesque UNH campus and saw a gigantic campaign bus belonging to CNN (while the ABC version -- heavily promoted this summer -- was MIA. The CNN "Campaign 2004" logo on wheels was quite a sight... and it must have been quite embarrassing to the Disney network. Our friends at ABC told us their bus "wasn't ready yet." Hello? What are you waiting for? The debate in January sponsored by CNN? Even a few students I spoke with seemed confused as to who was broadcasting the debate and who was not. So, how did CNN manage to pull of this pr coup? A few friendly CNN competitors acknowledged that in order to get the bus on the road in time, it was rolled off the assembly line without heaters. Dom, I love politics as much as anybody... but NH was damn cold this week... and CNN's dedication seems borderline psychotic. Brrrr. NBC production note from Jamison: "It's better to be on a bus belonging to a candidate than one following behind."
Item #2. What's the entree? At the media filing center intended to "serve" 500 reporters... Jamison and I could not decide whether the entree was a plate of dried prunes or a plate of dried apricots. The choices at the media filing center (catering, courtesy ABC News) was one of the weirdest combinations we had ever seen. The debate went from 7pm to 830pm... so any food ahead of time or afterwards would normally be considered "dinner." But maybe we were missing something. In addition to the prunes and apricots, your other options included granola and potato chips. Desert was a little better with some tasty cookies and brownies. Some might argue, "you are lucky there was any food at all." Well, in this case, I think we would have preferred "nothing" compared to an effort as lame as this one. Even stranger was the fact that the UNH catering service building was about 50 feet away."
-David Shuster
SNIP---In the theater down the hall, nine college students stood at lecterns marked with paper signs for a technical run-through. "General Clark," said the woman standing in for Koppel, "can you tell us what you'd do in Iraq?"
"We cannot allow Dick Cheney to have American governments move in and just rule everything," said a short young man in a sport coat.
In Koppel's makeshift office -- darkened like the one he keeps in Washington -- he did an interview with WMUR reporter Jean Mackin. When the lights were turned on, Mackin asked if the debate would have a big impact on the campaign. "If it doesn't, it will be my fault," he said.
What was his goal in the debate, now 31/2 hours away?
"Keep people at home from dozing off," Koppel said.
From the start, the ABC team knew they would be hamstrung by the crowd onstage. "How did Dennis Kucinich and Al Sharpton and Carol Moseley Braun get into this thing?" Koppel asked. "Nobody seems to know. Some candidates who are perceived as serious are gasping for air, and what little oxygen there is on the stage will be taken up by one-third of the people who do not have a snowball's chance in hell of winning the nomination."
SNIP---For Dean, Halperin said, the question should be: "Do you regret not serving in the military?" If Koppel asked a long question about Dean flunking his physical and then going skiing, he would open the door for the former governor to just repeat his rote explanation.
For Sen. John Kerry, Halperin argued, the question should be why he voted to authorize the war in Iraq and has criticized it ever since. "Hand the candidate a rope and let him decide if he's going to hang himself with it," Halperin explained.
Because covering all 9 dims means each one has less of a chance of getting any traction on their campiagn. If ABC artifically narrows the field, this will cause some of the candiates to get stronger, and do we want that? It's better when it's all 9 and they cancel each other out and split the votes.
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