Here is another reason NOT to throw away your vote on
the shell-of-a-man-formerly-known-as-Ralph-Nader(as if
the real possibility of a Chief Justice Scalia or
Thomas and two or three Supreme Court appoinments from
the increasingly unhinged and incredibly shrinking
_resident were not incentive enough), and further
evidence that the-shell-of-a-man-formerly-known-as-Ralph-Nader has
either lost his marbles or his morals...It's the Media, Stupid...
John Nichols interviews Sen. John F. Kerry (D-Mekong
Delta) for The Nation: In particular, Kerry said he
was upset that the nation's commercial broadcast
networks -- including ABC, CBS and NBC -- decided not
to air any coverage on the second night of the
convention in Boston. That was the night when Illinois
U.S. Senate candidate Barack Obama delivered a
much-praised keynote address, Ron Reagan broke ranks
with the Republican Party to criticize President
Bush's limits on stem-cell research, and Teresa Heinz
Kerry spoke about her husband.
"My wife gave a wonderful speech, Ronald Reagan,
Barack Obama, it was a brilliant night," said Kerry.
"I think it's very disappointing that the American
people, at least the people who watch the networks,
missed it. I talked to several of the anchors
beforehand but, you know, that's the way they decided.
Obviously, I disagreed."
...If Kerry is elected president, he will be in a
position to influence the media landscape. Encouraged
by President Bush and lobbyists for the major
networks, a Republican-dominated Federal
Communications Commission sought last year to ease
limits on media consolidation at the local and
national levels. Kerry, who notes that he voted in the
Senate to maintain the controls against consolidation,
says he would set a different course by appointing FCC
commissioners who are more sympathetic to diversity of
ownership, competition and local control. Several days
after he sat down for the interview that is recounted
here, Kerry amplified the point when he promised a
gathering of minority journalists that, "I will
appoint people to the FCC, and I will pursue a policy,
that tries to have as diverse and broad an ownership
as possible."
Distinguishing himself from President Bush, Kerry
says, "I'm against the ongoing push for media
consolidation. It's contrary to the stronger interests
of the country." Diversity of media ownership and
content, the candidate explains, "is critical to who
we are as a free people. It's critical to our
democracy."
Break the Corporatist Stranglehold on the "US
Mainstream News Media," Show Up for Democracy in 2004:
Defeat Bush (again!)
http://www.thenation.com/thebeat/index.mhtml?bid=1&pid=1671
John Kerry and George W. Bush, the Democrat and
Republican who will compete this November for the
presidency, both attended similar New England
preparatory schools, both graduated from Yale, and
both received advanced degrees from prestigious east
coast colleges. But, somewhere along the way, they
developed dramatically different reading habits.
Where Bush says he does not read newspapers, Kerry
says he cannot get enough of them. And that
distinction, Kerry suggested when he sat down with
this reporter for a rare extended interview on media
issues this week, sums up a radically different vision
of how a president should gather and process
information they must use to make fundamental
decisions about the direction of the nation and the
world.
"I read four or five papers a day if I can," said
Kerry, when asked about his newspaper reading habits.
"It depends obviously on where I am and what I'm
doing. I always pick up a local paper in the hotel I'm
staying at, or two depending on what the city is. And
I try to get the Washington Post, New York Times, Wall
Street Journal, USA Today, papers like that. I try to
read as much as I can."
Those patterns are similar to most former presidents.
Dwight Eisenhower read nine papers daily, Ronald
Reagan was such an avid consumer of newspapers that
his ex-wife Jane Wyman complained about his print
media obsessions, and Presidents George H.W. Bush and
Bill Clinton were known to go through stacks of papers
each day. But Kerry's penchant for the papers clearly
distinguishes him from the current President Bush.
When asked last fall by Fox News anchor Brit Hume how
he gets his news, Bush said he asks an aide, "What's
in the newspapers worth worrying about?" The president
added that, "I glance at the headlines just to kind of
(get) a flavor of what's moving. I rarely the
stories..."
Instead of gathering information himself, Bush said he
prefers to "get briefed by people who probably read
the news themselves" and "people on my staff who tell
me what's happening in the world."
Kerry shook his head in disagreement as Bush's
comments were recounted to him.
"I can't imagine being president and not reading as
much as I can about what people are saying," explained
Kerry. "I don't want (information) varnished by staff.
I don't want it filtered by staff. I want it the way
it is. And I think you get a much better sense of
what's going in the country (when you gather
information yourself). I think one of the reasons we
have some problems today is that we have an
administration that's out of touch with the problems
of average people. They don't know how people are
struggling. They don't know what's happening with
health care, employment. They don't know, or they
don't care, that's their choice."
As a constant consumer of news, Kerry says he spends a
good deal of time thinking about the role of media in
a democratic society. And he gets frustrated when
television networks fail to live up to the
responsibility that should go with a license to use
the people's airwaves.
When it was mentioned that many Americans had
expressed disappointment with the decision of the
nation's broadcast television networks to air only
three hours of Democratic convention coverage, Kerry
said, "I share the disappointment. We're a democracy,
and the strength of our democracy is in the ability of
citizens to be informed. If the major media are
unwilling to inform -- and simply because there is not
a clash or a conflict or something doesn't mean (a
convention) is not informative -- I personally think
it's a derogation of their responsibility (that goes
with using) the broadcast airwaves."
In particular, Kerry said he was upset that the
nation's commercial broadcast networks -- including
ABC, CBS and NBC -- decided not to air any coverage on
the second night of the convention in Boston. That was
the night when Illinois U.S. Senate candidate Barack
Obama delivered a much-praised keynote address, Ron
Reagan broke ranks with the Republican Party to
criticize President Bush's limits on stem-cell
research, and Teresa Heinz Kerry spoke about her
husband.
"My wife gave a wonderful speech, Ronald Reagan,
Barack Obama, it was a brilliant night," said Kerry.
"I think it's very disappointing that the American
people, at least the people who watch the networks,
missed it. I talked to several of the anchors
beforehand but, you know, that's the way they decided.
Obviously, I disagreed."
Asked if he thought the decision of the networks to
downplay the coverage of the convention sent a signal
that told Americans not to take what happened in
Boston seriously, Kerry said, "I don't know if its
that message or not. I think most Americans are smart
enough to understand (that it does matter)."
But Teresa Heinz Kerry, who was seated next to her
husband, interrupted him and said, "That is the
message, I think. I agree that it hurts."
Concerns about consolidated media, particularly
consolidated media that does not see itself as having
a responsibility to cover politics seriously and to
question those in positions of authority, have been
highlighted in recent documentaries such as Robert
Greenwald's "Outfoxed," a critique of the conservative
bias of Rupert Murdoch and his Fox News programs, and
Michael Moore's "Fahrenheit 9-11." Kerry has not yet
seen "Fahrenheit 9-11," but he described its success
as "remarkable." And he made it clear that he shares
the view of those who believe that media consolidation
is a significant issue in contemporary America.
If Kerry is elected president, he will be in a
position to influence the media landscape. Encouraged
by President Bush and lobbyists for the major
networks, a Republican-dominated Federal
Communications Commission sought last year to ease
limits on media consolidation at the local and
national levels. Kerry, who notes that he voted in the
Senate to maintain the controls against consolidation,
says he would set a different course by appointing FCC
commissioners who are more sympathetic to diversity of
ownership, competition and local control. Several days
after he sat down for the interview that is recounted
here, Kerry amplified the point when he promised a
gathering of minority journalists that, "I will
appoint people to the FCC, and I will pursue a policy,
that tries to have as diverse and broad an ownership
as possible."
Distinguishing himself from President Bush, Kerry
says, "I'm against the ongoing push for media
consolidation. It's contrary to the stronger interests
of the country." Diversity of media ownership and
content, the candidate explains, "is critical to who
we are as a free people. It's critical to our
democracy."