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Triumph of the Trivial

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Almost evrything on TV and the newspapers come with

smoke and mirrors and spin whether we are talking

about real health or real politics. You will not get

much " truth " there. It not about reporting news but is

all about " selling you something " whether a new drug

or a president. If someone can control the information

that you receive they then can control what you think.

 

Learn to seperate the wheat from the chaff whether in

health care or anything else. F.

 

 

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/07/30/opinion/30krugman.html?th

 

July 30, 2004

OP-ED COLUMNIST

 

Triumph of the Trivial

By PAUL KRUGMAN

 

Under the headline " Voters Want Specifics From Kerry, "

The Washington Post recently quoted a voter demanding

that John Kerry and John Edwards talk about " what they

plan on doing about health care for middle-income or

lower-income people. I have to face the fact that I

will never be able to have health insurance, the way

things are now. And these millionaires don't seem to

address that. "

 

Mr. Kerry proposes spending $650 billion extending

health insurance to lower- and middle-income families.

Whether you approve or not, you can't say he hasn't

addressed the issue. Why hasn't this voter heard about

it?

 

Well, I've been reading 60 days' worth of transcripts

from the places four out of five Americans cite as

where they usually get their news: the major cable and

broadcast TV networks. Never mind the details - I

couldn't even find a clear statement that Mr. Kerry

wants to roll back recent high-income tax cuts and use

the money to cover most of the uninsured. When reports

mentioned the Kerry plan at all, it was usually horse

race analysis - how it's playing, not what's in it.

 

On the other hand, everyone knows that Teresa Heinz

Kerry told someone to " shove it, " though even there,

the context was missing. Except for a brief reference

on MSNBC, none of the transcripts I've read mention

that the target of her ire works for Richard Mellon

Scaife, a billionaire who financed smear campaigns

against the Clintons - including accusations of

murder. (CNN did mention Mr. Scaife on its Web site,

but described him only as a donor to " conservative

causes. " ) And viewers learned nothing about Mr.

Scaife's long vendetta against Mrs. Heinz Kerry

herself.

 

There are two issues here, trivialization and bias,

but they're related.

 

Somewhere along the line, TV news stopped reporting on

candidates' policies, and turned instead to trivia

that supposedly reveal their personalities. We hear

about Mr. Kerry's haircuts, not his health care

proposals. We hear about George Bush's brush-cutting,

not his environmental policies.

 

Even on its own terms, such reporting often gets it

wrong, because journalists aren't especially good at

judging character. ( " He is, above all, a moralist, "

wrote George Will about Jack Ryan, the Illinois Senate

candidate who dropped out after embarrassing sex-club

questions.) And the character issues that dominate

today's reporting have historically had no bearing on

leadership qualities. While planning D-Day, Dwight

Eisenhower had a close, though possibly platonic,

relationship with his female driver. Should that have

barred him from the White House?

 

And since campaign coverage as celebrity profiling has

no rules, it offers ample scope for biased reporting.

 

Notice the voter's reference to " these millionaires. "

A Columbia Journalism Review Web site called

campaigndesk.org, says its analysis " reveals a press

prone to needlessly introduce Senators Kerry and

Edwards and Kerry's wife, Teresa Heinz Kerry, as

millionaires or billionaires, without similar labels

for President Bush or Vice President Cheney. "

 

As the site points out, the Bush campaign has been

" hammering away with talking points casting Kerry as

out of the mainstream because of his wealth, hoping to

influence press coverage. " The campaign isn't claiming

that Mr. Kerry's policies favor the rich - they

manifestly don't, while Mr. Bush's manifestly do.

Instead, we're supposed to dislike Mr. Kerry simply

because he's wealthy (and not notice that his opponent

is, too). Republicans, of all people, are practicing

the politics of envy, and the media obediently go

along.

 

In short, the triumph of the trivial is not a trivial

matter. The failure of TV news to inform the public

about the policy proposals of this year's presidential

candidates is, in its own way, as serious a

journalistic betrayal as the failure to raise

questions about the rush to invade Iraq.

 

P.S.: Another story you may not see on TV: Jeb Bush

insists that electronic voting machines are perfectly

reliable, but The St. Petersburg Times says the

Republican Party of Florida has sent out a flier

urging supporters to use absentee ballots because the

machines lack a paper trail and cannot " verify your

vote. "

 

P.P.S.: Three weeks ago, The New Republic reported

that the Bush administration was pressuring Pakistan

to announce a major terrorist capture during the

Democratic convention. Hours before Mr. Kerry's

acceptance speech, Pakistan announced, several days

after the fact, that it had apprehended an important

Al Qaeda operative.

 

Copyright 2004 The New York Times Company

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