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Departments Election Issues The weak slat under the bed of democracy Back then, beaming out a signal of 250 mighty watts, WCGR (announcers said it stood for "Watch Canandaigua Grow Rapidly"), broadcast music, news and farm reports to a radius extending about as far as you could throw a rock. Nonetheless, I thought it was a wondrous and glamorous place – show business! -- and often climbed the stairs to their dusty studio, up above a Main Street storefront. The twin sons of the station’s owner were schoolmates and my father bought on the air advertising time for his drugstore, so no one paid much attention to my hanging out. One day, I came across some promotional 45 rpm records. They were interviews with celebrities – with spaces left for any given announcer at any given station to ask the pertinent questions, which were conveniently provided by the record company. In an instant, you could make it appear as if your local DJ was actually interviewing Nat King Cole or Bobby Vinton or Carol Channing. "Carol, this is Seth Cathode at WCGR. Congratulations on 'Hello, Dolly!'" "Why, THANK youuu!! It's the biggest thrill of my career." Beat. Next fake question. And so on. All of which came to mind last week when it was revealed that FEMA, the Federal Emergency Management Agency, held a phony briefing on the California wildfires. FEMA staffers posed as reporters, pitching softball questions to deputy administrator Harvey Johnson. Parts of it were carried live by Fox News and MSNBC. You can chalk this up to blatant stupidity on the part of those in charge, and given FEMA's recent track record, you wouldn't be far off the mark. You also could point to the fake press conference as metaphor, one more example of the suspension of reality and blatant disregard of truth this administration has fostered on a seemingly daily basis. Just a day or two before the FEMA gaffe, the White House admitted that it had heavily edited Senate testimony by Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Director Julie Gerberding on the impact of climate change on global health. Presidential press secretary Dana Perino claimed Gerberding's statement didn't gibe with a report by the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), the group that's sharing the Nobel Peace prize with Al Gore. The lead author of the IPCC report said Perino's claim was "nonsense," and that Gerberding's planned remarks were totally accurate. They were eviscerated for political motives. Still, it'd be unfair to place all the blame on the government for such transgressions against the truth. The press itself has to take some responsibility. Compare, for example, the questions at the fake FEMA presser with the recent admission by New York Times Magazine Editor Gerald Marzorati and reporter Deborah Solomon that Solomon had from time to time rewritten questions published in her magazine interviews after the interview took place or inserted new ones "retroactively" to better match an answer. Small potatoes, perhaps, but we in the media too often have surrendered our responsibility to tell the truth squarely and give the public what it needs to know. A free republic depends on journalism, but too often, as the great reporter A.J. Liebling once said, the press is "the weak slat under the bed of democracy." Monday's New York Times reported a study on coverage of domestic political news during the first half of this year, conducted by the Project for Excellence in Journalism, the Pew Research Center and the Joan Shorenstein Center on the Press, Politics and Public Policy at Harvard's Kennedy School. The study found that two-thirds of all political stories, in print, on-line, and via TV and radio, concentrated on the campaign horse races but only one percent examined candidates' public records. The Times noted, "Only 12 percent of stories seemed relevant to voters' decision making; the rest were more about tactics and strategy... "The campaign coverage has been sharply at odds with what the public says it wants, the study found, with voters eager to know more about the candidates’ positions on issues and their personal backgrounds, more about lesser-known candidates and more about debates." Granted, what the public tells a pollster it wants and the reality can be two quite different things -- witness the obsession with Hillary Clinton's laugh or Rudy Giuliani's choice of high heels. And, too, the first priority of media in a capitalist society is to print, or show and tell, what sells. Nonetheless, we have a duty too easily forgotten or misplaced, one made clear with remarkable prescience by the late Walter Lippmann, the ultimate Washington inside reporter who famously described journalism as the last refuge of the vaguely talented (Exhibit A: you're looking at him). Princeton University Press has just reprinted Lippmann's 1920 book "Liberty and the News," with an afterword by journalist (and former Bill Clinton advisor) Sidney Blumenthal. Lippmann wrote, "In an exact sense the present crisis of western democracy is a crisis of journalism... Everywhere day, men are conscious that somehow they must deal with questions more intricate than any that church or school had prepared them to understand. Increasingly they know that they cannot understand them if the facts are not quickly and steadily available... "All that the sharpest critics of democracy have alleged is true, if there is no steady supply of trustworthy and relevant news. Incompetence and aimlessness, corruption and disloyalty, panic and ultimate disaster, must come to any people which is denied an assured access to the facts." We've been denied too long. The results are painfully clear to see. |
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Recent Election Issues Articles Nonviolent resisters put Senator Clinton on notice In-depth, post-EVEREST interview with Ohio's Secretary of State The phrase that could defeat Hillary Clinton Ohio will likely face big vote-counting problems in 2008 "Critical security failures" leads Ohio Sec. of State to recommend ban of DRE (touch-screen) voting machines Ohio Secretary of State confirms 2004 election could have been stolen Kucinich first, Edwards second in PDA straw poll Hillary and the politics of disappointment Voting can be a real battle for U.S. troops and others overseas in the 2008 primaries Wolf Blitzer loses Democratic debate Another Clinton campaign fraud We remember… Nov. 2 memorial anniversary of the 2004 Ohio election The weak slat under the bed of democracy Aurora Dairy exemption from check-off program challenged; USDA should demand retroactive payment from faux organic milk producers Kucinich tops other Dem Presidential leaders in key CA straw poll Will the GOP election theft machine do it again in 2008? Exactly how the good guys finally won Voter purging: a legal way for Republicans to swing elections? Why doesn't the GOP want Ohio's voting machines tested? The Cat in the Hat, elusive happy endings, and the [election] mess that is so big, and so deep, and so tall The Death of the DRE: gone the way of Lawn Jarts Fooled Again series: exclusive interview with Michael Collins Fooled again series: exclusive interview with "Diebold whistleblower" Steve Heller The Dan Rather voting machine special, a recipe for election disaster, and serious food for thought Resistance of one The dog ate my homework continues: inter-office Ohio Board of Elections email prompted by SAVE THE BALLOTS website gives a glimpse into the attitudes of Ohio election officials Look at who runs our boards of elections Restore health to America's elections and pull the plug on SDD virus threat Paper ballots for California: Secretary of State announces de-certification/re-certification plans for e-voting systems The dog ate my homework Welcome to jail for destruction of election records… for some of the ladies and gentlemen of the Ohio Boards of Elections! The criminal cover-up of Ohio's stolen 2004 election sinks to the fraudulent, the absurd, the pathetic Part II – Squire v. Geer: Facts the Magistrate left out are even more shocking than the ones he included Will Bush cancel the 2008 election? Ohio's 2004 presidential election records missing or destroyed Sausage making and electronic voting machines Shreds of evidence Missing records and record access in Ohio, July 2007 On-site observations of the hand-counting of paper ballots and recommendations for the general election of 2008 Sicko ? John Edwards supports "open source" for voting systems Will electronic voting reform create new ways to steal elections? US Attorney resigns following Conyers’ request for BBC documents Will Al Gore face his inconvenient truths about our stolen elections? Giving the voters "poisoned food" to "nourish" democracy In the land of the free, and the home of the brave The globalization of electronic election theft RFK: Rove and Rove's brain, 'Should be in jail,' not in office Introducing Psephos Are Rove's missing e-mails the smoking guns of the stolen 2004 election? The GOP's cyber election hit squad Another path to peace: the case for Kucinich Virtual election season Bye bye to Cleveland GOP Election Chair Bob "Ballots for Bush" Bennett Bye bye to Cleveland GOP Election Chair Bob "Ballots for Bush" Bennett Auditing the mid-term election Two big victories boost Ohio's election protection movement More potential 2004 election illegalities rock Ohio's Hocking County as Cleveland braces for a legal firestorm New Ohio evidence exposes apparently illegal 2004 recount activity by Hocking County's GOP Election Director, and a stinging complaint is filed in Cleveland Explosive new vote fraud developments continue to rock Ohio and Florida Forced resignations and stiff prison sentences intensify the escalating blowback from Ohio's 2004 stolen election Election fraud, my ass After Ohio's recount rigging convictions in Cuyahoga, is Coshocton County next? Florida setting example Sequoia Voting Systems contract with San Francisco needs added section to ensure transparency Ohio's spreading stolen 2004 election scandal claims another victim First criminal convictions from Ohio's stolen 2004 election confirm recount was rigged Election attorneys amplify importance of convictions for recount rigging in Ohio 2004 presidential race Do new Ohio recount prosecutions indicate unraveling of 2004 election theft cover-up? The mystic voting hall: for the love of democracy DREs, magic and other sleights of hand Read Election Issues Articles by Year: |
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