NOTE: Please see the update to this action alert: “ABC Responds to Critics of Campaign Coverage” (12/12/03)
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:
Kucinich’s response to that question generated perhaps the most media coverage his campaign has received so far:
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
Phone: 202-222-7000
nightline@abcnews.com
