A dispute

Monday night's Daily Show had what I thought at the time was a very funny bit with Rob Corddry (transcript via Atrios):

STEWART: Here's what puzzles me most, Rob. John Kerry's record in Vietnam is pretty much right there in the official records of the US military, and haven't been disputed for 35 years?

CORDDRY: That's right, Jon, and that's certainly the spin you'll be hearing coming from the Kerry campaign over the next few days.

STEWART: Th-that's not a spin thing, that's a fact. That's established.

CORDDRY: Exactly, Jon, and that established, incontravertible fact is one side of the story.

STEWART: But that should be -- isn't that the end of the story? I mean, you've seen the records, haven't you? What's your opinion?

CORDDRY: I'm sorry, my *opinion*? No, I don't have 'o-pin-i-ons'. I'm a reporter, Jon, and my job is to spend half the time repeating what one side says, and half the time repeating the other. Little thing called 'objectivity' -- might wanna look it up some day.

STEWART: Doesn't objectivity mean objectively weighing the evidence, and calling out what's credible and what isn't?

CORDDRY: Whoa-ho! Well, well, well -- sounds like someone wants the media to act as a filter! [high-pitched, effeminate] 'Ooh, this allegation is spurious! Upon investigation this claim lacks any basis in reality! Mmm, mmm, mmm.' Listen buddy: not my job to stand between the people talking to me and the people listening to me.

I ceased to find this funny on Tuesday night, when I heard almost exactly this -- but without the sarcasm -- in a newsroom discussion about this article.

It cites Bob Elder, a member of the Swift Boat Vets for yada yada, who accuses Kerry of "insurrection" and of "giving aid and comfort to the enemy." I pointed out that all of the official Navy records, all of the actual eyewitnesses, and many previous statements by members of Elder's group refute their accusations and that maybe we have a responsibility to mention that if we're going to insist on giving this guy a platform just because he's local.

It's a balance issue, I was told. There is a dispute and we have to report both sides of the dispute. We don't work for the Kerry campaign.

Balance apparently requires repeating whatever anyone says, without question, without context, without verification. Demanding that assertions be supported, or checked against the historical record, is a kind of bias.

Jon Stewart insists he's the fake news, but some days I just don't know.

The Columbia Journalism Review's Campaign Desk considers the press coverage of the Swift Boat "dispute" to be the nadir of journalism in this campaign:

Campaign Desk has written many times about the perils of "he said/she said" journalism, the practice of reporters parroting competing rhetoric instead of measuring it for veracity against known facts. In the wake of the first SBVFT spot early this month, cable news programs for the most part offered viewers two talking heads, one on each side of the issue, to debate the merits of the claims. Verifiable facts were rarely offered to viewers -- despite the fact that military records supporting Kerry's version of events were readily available. Instead of acting as filters for the truth, reporters nodded and attentively transcribed both sides of the story, invariably failing to provide context, background, or any sense of which claims held up and which were misleading. ...

In the end, as always, the information that voters receive depends entirely on the way in which the press frames the story. The problem is that once an easy storyline is entrenched -- that Kerry and his detractors disagree -- too many reporters fail to press on. In this case, they neglected to either test the veracity of the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth or to compare their ads with those financed by other 527s like MoveOn.

There have been dozens of press failures during this presidential campaign. But this one, even given the Times' and the Post's belated efforts to get to the bottom of things, has to rank as a low point.

In the end, the whole ball of wax certainly did nothing to help the mainstream press' credibility with what is an increasingly dubious audience.

Comments

[pinkoflaggo]

In the stories about Benjamin Ginsberg's resignation, the media has been repeating his statement that there is nothing illegal about his dual roles in the campaign and the 527 organization, then stating that the Democrats do the same thing, so it all evens out. This is nothing but a crude diversion by the Bush campaign, since the real story should not the dual roles or the existence of the 527s, but the fact that the Bush campaign has been falsely disavowing any connection to the SWVFT and their disgusting smear campaign. It sickens me that the media has fallen for it.

[kodi]

"Jon Stewart insists he's the fake news, but some days I just don't know."

I've been thinking about this since I read Koppel's whining about news consumers choosing The Daily Show over other avenues, and I think what I've concluded is this: The reason I like to watch The Daily Show is that I can understand why someone on a comedy show would lie to me, and it doesn't offend me.

"The reason I like to watch The Daily Show is that I can understand why someone on a comedy show would lie to me, and it doesn't offend me."

Stewart's not even lying; he points out all the lies and inconsistencies. That's why I watch - because time has looped back a couple centuries and once again, only the Court Jester has the power to tell the real truth instead of a party line.

[cjmr]

Actually, I thought Corddry's bit was a great satire on a WashPost editorial (which, I believe, was written by a female editor) stating basically the same thing--"we're just supposed to report, not interpret, investigate, or offer opinions as to the relative credibility of the people making the statements." (Sorry, I don't remember the day it ran, or I'd try to link it.)

And the right-wing pundits call the Post a liberal rag...

[lightning]

So, I can claim that Georgie Bush eats live kittens for breakfast and get together a bunch of people to swear that he does, and I'll get on TV for many hours as reporters "discuss both sides of the issue"? Cool!

[Terry Karney]

I posted on this subject in my LJ.

But I agree, objective doesn't mean letting both sides have an equal say, when one of those sides is wrong.

I think this is the victory of the right's attempt to paint the media as liberal, the press has become afraid that pointing out the emperor has no clothes will get them accused of being in favor of nudism.

For what I said on it elsewhere

http://www.livejournal.com/users/pecunium/2004/03/02/

[Elisa Camahort]

"This is nothing but a crude diversion by the Bush campaign, since the real story should not the dual roles or the existence of the 527s, but the fact that the Bush campaign has been falsely disavowing any connection to the SWVFT and their disgusting smear campaign. It sickens me that the media has fallen for it."

Exactly, exactly! That is exactly the issue I raised in my blog yesterday:

http://sccdp.org/blogentry.php?linkID=http://sccdcc.mn.sabren.com/mt-static/archives/issues/000804.html

As I like to say: "it's the hypocrisy, stupid!"

This was exactly what bothered me about the f-bomb non-controversy. I mean, go ahead, say "go f%&^ yourself." I don't care. I have a mouth like a sailor myself. Just don't tell me you're bringing civility back to Washington. Just don't get all up in arms about the rather benign "shove it" comment.

And the "sensitivity" brou-ha-ha is just another example.

It's is really sickening. And the mainstream absolutely does NOT call them on it.

SCLM, my Democratic, patriotic ass.

[Elisa Camahort]

"This is nothing but a crude diversion by the Bush campaign, since the real story should not the dual roles or the existence of the 527s, but the fact that the Bush campaign has been falsely disavowing any connection to the SWVFT and their disgusting smear campaign. It sickens me that the media has fallen for it."

Exactly, exactly! That is exactly the issue I raised in my blog yesterday:

http://sccdp.org/blogentry.php?linkID=http://sccdcc.mn.sabren.com/mt-static/archives/issues/000804.html

As I like to say: "it's the hypocrisy, stupid!"

This was exactly what bothered me about the f-bomb non-controversy. I mean, go ahead, say "go f%&^ yourself." I don't care. I have a mouth like a sailor myself. Just don't tell me you're bringing civility back to Washington. Just don't get all up in arms about the rather benign "shove it" comment.

And the "sensitivity" brou-ha-ha is just another example.

It's really sickening. And the mainstream absolutely does NOT call them on it.

SCLM, my Democratic, patriotic ass.

[Elisa Camahort]

Apologies for the double post.

[Miss Authoritiva]

I came across a straightforward, no-nonsense piece -- US Election Descends into the Mire -- on the Swift Boat smear campaign. I had to look to the Bangladesh Daily Star to find it, though:

"The [Swift Boat] ad is simply a calculated political slander.... The ad is funded by a major Bush campaign donor, and the accompanying book Unfit for Command that has just been released by the right-wing Regnery Press and is shooting to the top of the best-seller lists is co-written by an extreme right-wing activist who has been quoted as referring to Bill Clinton as an "anti-American communist" and describing Islam as "a worthless, dangerous Satanic religion."

"Enough said about the credibility and decency of those who are associated with this attack on Kerry's record...."

"Tough stuff. President Bush knows that he has no real answer to similar charges [ie, that his administration has pretty much botched up everything], which is why the only card he has left to play is to spend the next eighty days trying to convince the American public that John Kerry is unfit to be commander in chief. The ad run by Swift Boat Veterans for Truth is just the opening salvo in what promises to be the most vicious US presidential campaign in memory."

Well there you go: In Bangladesh, they've figured out was has flummoxed the mighty American media for weeks.

[Miss Authoritiva]

Oops -- the URL for the Bangladesh Daily Star article is http://www.thedailystar.net/2004/08/20/d40820020328.htm

[Dan]

Bush is just exploiting and old Texas playbook. I'm paraphrasing here, but LBJ, back before he hit the White House, was once embroiled in a tight campaign. He told his manager to find someone to accuse his opponent of being a pigf*er. The campaign manager, aghast, asked LBJ of what proof he had. The response: "Of course there's no proof, I just want to make the sumbitch deny it!"

[s9]

"Jon Stewart insists he's the fake news, but some days I just don't know."

It's a very clever deployment of IRONY. Stewart openly declares what he does to be "fake" news, when all he is really doing is the same fake thing everyone else does. It's funny because nobody else will admit it's fake.

If the "serious" news organizations stopped producing fake news and started producing serious news again, then Stewart's schtick would no longer be funny.