The second-tier candidates, they get angry. They think that the press doesn’t focus on them, spends too much time talking about the front-runners in the debates, in the coverage day by day. But we say to them, "Well, make your mark. Start showing some growth. Start showing some resonance with the populace and you’ll get the same kind of coverage." They’ll say: "Wait a minute. How do we get resonance if we’re not covered?" It's an important issue that we have to keep examining, our own behavior.—Tim Russert (NBC Nightly News, 1/3/08) Coverage in the early phase of a presidential [...]
Search Results for: Jon Whiten
Jun
01
2008
Fair Study: TV's Low-Cal Campaign Coverage
How 385 stories can tell you next to nothing about whom to vote for
By Jon Whiten
Nov
01
2007
Enabling False Convictions
Exoneration coverage overlooks media role
By Jon Whiten
"The science of DNA on Monday cleared the 200th person wrongfully convicted of a crime in the United States, a record that demands that the criminal justice system fix its serious flaws," editorialized the Philadelphia Inquirer (4/25/07), after Jerry Miller of Illinois became an American exoneration milestone. As milestones often do, Miller's exoneration gave the press an easy “news peg” to report on DNA testing and the troubled U.S. criminal justice system. And report they did. Most major news organizations filed at least one piece on Miller's exoneration, with some editorializing for significant reform and others raising specific questions about [...]
Aug
01
2006
The 'Cheat Sheets'
By Jon Whiten
[Note: This piece is a sidebar to "Subverting, Not Preserving, Democracy."] One of the many issues raised in Rep. John Conyers’ report on the 2004 Ohio election but not tackled in the press was the accusation that the electronic voting company Triad had provided a “cheat sheet” for election officials participating in the Ohio recount, with the intent of artificially jibing results to avoid further scrutiny. In a sworn affidavit, Sherole Eaton, who in 2004 was the deputy director of the Board of Elections in Hocking County, Ohio, claimed that a representative from Triad had come to assist her [...]
Aug
01
2006
Subverting, Not Preserving, Democracy
Marginalizing vote fraud 'conspiracy theories'
By Jon Whiten
As the 2006 mid-term elections near, it is worth looking at the way the press handled the important claims of vote fraud in the last election. Extra! examined the 2004 post-election coverage of major news outlets, focusing on the New York Times, Washington Post and USA Today, along with network TV news coverage on ABC, CBS and NBC. Extra! looked at this coverage in light of allegations detailed in Rep. John Conyers' report, "Preserving Democracy: What Went Wrong in Ohio." On January 5, 2005, the Democratic staff of the House Judiciary Committee, led by Conyers of Michigan, issued a report [...]
Aug
01
2005
Does Size Really Matter?
Analyzing the press’s protest coverage
By Jon Whiten
On March 19, the two-year anniversary of the invasion of Iraq, tens of thousands of people across the country, and still more worldwide, turned out to protest the ongoing war. The protests had multiple goals, but given the general numbing of the population to the war, one objective was undoubtedly to keep the fact that human beings are being killed on a daily basis in the forefront of the average American’s brain. Unfortunately, if coverage in leading newspaper and television outlets is any gauge, this goal remains largely unmet. The New York Times (3/20/05) teased its coverage on the front [...]
Mar
01
2005
'The World Little Noted'
CBS scandal eclipses missing WMDs
By Jon Whiten
There was much journalistic hand-wringing and finger-pointing during the week of January 10, after CBS News’ official report on its dubious story on George W. Bush’s Vietnam-era service record. (See Extra! Update, 2/05.) But another story released that week suggests that media self-criticism has its limits—especially when the press’s failures involve being too credulous rather than too critical. The final announcement that there were no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq came on January 12, two days after the CBS report was released. The official evaporation of the Bush administration’s chief rationale for a war that has killed more than [...]
Jul
01
2004
Still Failing the 'Fair & Balanced' Test
Special Report leans right, white, Republican & male
FAIR’s latest study of Fox ’s Special Report With Brit Hume finds the network’s flagship news show still listing right—heavily favoring conservative and Republican guests in its one-on-one interviews. And, according to the study, Special Report rarely features women or non-white guests in these prominent newsmaker inter-view spots. In previous studies FAIR has found that looking at a show’s guest list is one of the most reliable methods for gauging its perspective. In the case of Special Report, the single one-on-one interview with anchor Brit Hume is a central part of the newscast, and the anchor often uses his high-profile [...]
