The Republican Slime Machine Takes Wing: Archive Entry From Brad DeLong's Webjournal

February 23, 2004

The Republican Slime Machine Takes Wing

Bob Somerby watches the Republican slime machine take wing, ably assisted by the New York Times's Jim Rutenberg:

How easily are New York Times writers spun? Here is Jim Rutenberg, hopelessly bull-roared in a Sunday “Week in Review” report:
RUTENBERG: It was a sharp video attack, jarring in a political season that has been unusually short on negative advertising. A woman, sitting at a keyboard, seeks information about Senator John Kerry on the Internet. She unearths all sorts of scandalizing tidbits.
“More special interest money than any other senator. How much?” she says.
The answer flashes on the screen: $640,000. “Ooh, for what?” she says, typing out “Paybacks?” and then reading aloud from the screen, she says, “Millions from executives at HMO’s, telecoms, drug companies.” She add, “Ka-Ching!”
She can only come to one damning conclusion: Mr. Kerry, she says, is “Unprincipled.”
The one-minute spot, introduced a week ago, did not appear on television, but on President Bush's campaign Web site. And so a new bare-knuckled political use of the World Wide Web showed its head: the Internet attack ad.
Rutenberg repeats the content of this ad, and brightly notes that it’s an “attack.” But he is too inept to let readers know that this ad’s attack is utterly false. Does Kerry take “more special interest money than any other senator?” No, and the (hapless) Washington Post piece which led to this ad never made such an assertion. According to Peter Beinart, Kerry ranks ninety-second among U.S. senators when it comes to special interest money. Meanwhile, at his Annenberg “FactCheck” site, Brooks Jackson shot down this ad’s bogus claim too. (He shot it down ten days ago!) Is Kerry first among senators in special interest dough, raising $640,000 in the last fifteen years? Please. “So far, for example, Senate Republican Leader Bill Frist reported $1,022,063 in PAC donations for his 2004 campaign alone,” Jackson notes. The Bush ad’s claim is utterly bogus. Rutenberg, typing hard, failed to say so.
But then, the New York Times deals in the factesque. The RNC send out a fake claim, so Rutenberg sat right down and typed it!

The thing that amazes me is not so much how overworked reporters get spun by the Republican slime machine, but how they keep coming back from it again and again and again. Why don't people like Jim Rutenberg learn from experience? Why don't they feel a sense of shame? Why don't they check the attack ad claims before they repeat them?

Posted by DeLong at February 23, 2004 10:49 AM | TrackBack | | Other weblogs commenting on this post

Comments

I agree with Somerby that most of them know what they're doing and are writing from a script. They make some attempt to mask their corruption with a veneer of professional neutrality and objectivity, or with a veneer of cute, Gen-X cynicism, but they all seem to know that their bosses do not want the Bush Administration to be critically or analytically reported.

The fact that something like this is happening at NYT and WaPo makes it quite a bit worse -- you really expect Fox to be Fox. I have no idea why the two big newspapers have gotten so bad, not just politically but professionally. Was there an ownership change?

But I'm absolutely convinced that part of the answer is fear of attacks by conservative goons like Limbaugh and Horowitz. Newspapers exist to sell ads, and maybe that's a factor too -- advertiser pressure.

Posted by: zizka / John Emerson on February 23, 2004 11:08 AM

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In fairness, the NYT report was discussing the new genre of advertising, not fact-checking those ads.

However, since I've not seen the claims prominently debunked in the New York Times yet, it would have been nice (and in keeping with the article's theme) to discuss where one could go to see the add ripped apart.

Posted by: Jonathan Williams on February 23, 2004 11:32 AM

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Reporting on an ad full of lies is not reporting all of the news fit to print, period. The Times is helping to perpetuate a libel and a scam. A reporter this bad should be fired. Period. He didn't even make a half ass attempt to report both sides. Didn't the Times fire a reporter for lack of integrity, for lying, for making things up? This is no better. Ignorance is no excuse. If he is that ignorant and that lazy, he should be fired. Everybody makes mistakes. This is far worse than a mistake. Damn. This pisses me off.

Posted by: tstreet on February 23, 2004 12:20 PM

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Reporters at the Chicago City News Bureau had a motto: "If your mother says she loves you, check it out." It seems like it would be easy enough for a reporter, editor, or ombundsman to appreciate and apply this principle. But nooooo.

Posted by: Seth Gordon on February 23, 2004 12:49 PM

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How would Bush supporters react if a reporter related the details of this this story without fact checking it?

http://www.nydailynews.com/front/story/165209p-144622c.html

http://www.atheists.org/flash.line/elec22.htm

Posted by: Beavis on February 23, 2004 12:56 PM

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Hopefully, Beavis, they'd stay home and cry.

By contrast, I hope every liberal and Democrat who hears about this emails, calls, faxes and/or writes the 'Times, asking them to cover things a little (lot) more completely.

Look, journalists have said they were deluged all last summer by liberals every time a story was published that was a little bit critical of Dean. We can and do get their attention!

Of course, it helps if we're nice about it, but we do have influence, regardless.

Posted by: Jonathan Williams on February 23, 2004 01:44 PM

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I think there may well be something to Zizka's suggestion that the Old Gray Lady has become a bit afraid of losing advertising revenue from a right-wing backlash. The slide probably dates from when the paper went national some years ago, and consequently became less tied to the tastes of its New York market. On the other hand, that doesn't explain the journalistic and editorial deterioration at the Post, which deliberately chose to remain a local monopoly. Whatever the reason, it is remarkable to those of us who have been reading both papers for 40 years and more how far they have let their journalistic standards slip.

Posted by: Knut Wicksell on February 23, 2004 01:45 PM

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Sam Parry looks into this question in a lot of detail.

http://www.consortiumnews.com/2004/021904.html

Unfortunately, journalism this good is not found in the WaPo or the NYTimes.

Posted by: bakho on February 23, 2004 01:55 PM

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I couldn't open the link supplied by bakho. If you have the same problem go here:

http://www.consortiumnews.com/

Then click on this link:

Kerry & the 'Special Interest' Hit Piece

It's worth the extra click!

Posted by: dubblblind on February 23, 2004 04:45 PM

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I saw this ad and a counter ad by the Kerry campaign on the NewsHour last night in a segment using both ads as an illustration of Internet based "free" media advertising. The Bush ad didn't seem very effective when paired with the Kerry ad.

Perhaps the NY times piece could have been more fully presented by repeating the contents of the Kerry ad as well. I think, however, it would have been less effective in its stated intent to highlight negative advertising if it had "let the readers know that this ad's attack [was] utterly false".

It seems to me that a report by the Times that the Bush ad was "utterly false" would only play into the hands of those itching to find liberal bias in the pages of the Times. Despite the carping by my fellow members of the vast left-winged conspiracy, I would guess that the folks who think the Times has a "liberal" bias still outnumber us. Why play into their hands with an unnecessary "Bush lied" charge? It seems that Bush is proving this fairly well by himself with out our, (or the NY Times), help.

Posted by: TexasToast on February 23, 2004 07:39 PM

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bahko
thanks for the link and agree with dbblblind about its merits.
So is it an issue of declining standards at our national newspapers ( your view) or is it an issue of political influence/meddling? Simple sloppiness seems a rather naive view since the issue can be readdressed by the same reporter and adjusted to reflect a 'broader or more informed view'. But such 'adjustments' are rare, no?
If the piece you linked to were exchanged for the disKerry piece, are there editorial offices within the NYT that would prune it to reflect a different political taste? Or run it on A18 instead of A1? Or rearrange segments so that the serious charges occur in the last paragraph rather than the first?
Seems clear that websites with all their political biases, do not have to contend with political constraints that may hamper an influencial newspaper.

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