Not So Swift Coverage - Alterman

[dArKeR]

Just about every news organization is misplaying Bush’s comments yesterday, including most particularly, MSNBC.  Here's the headline:

Bush calls for halt to Swift Boat veterans’ ads
President calls so-called 527 ads ‘bad for the system'

In fact, Bush did no more than duck the question, refusing to condemn the ad and pretending that his call to end all outside spending in the election—spending that the campaign finance law he signed explicitly encourages—has any meaning whatever.  It doesn’t and we all know it.  And yet Bush’s phony pretense is allowed to define the coverage.  Slate’s Today's Papers goes into some detail....

http://msnbc.msn.com/id/3449870/

[mediaman007]

1. I saw the headline and it was very misleading...

in fact, I thought that Bush* got leverage by disowning the Swift Boats and all of the 527's.

But he really didn't say anything. I think that he can't disown anything anymore. Two weeks of this has landed Bush* in a corner. The pendulum is starting to move in Kerry's favor and Bush* missed his chance to be the peacemaker.

Kerry will eventually overcome this and turn it to his favor.

[Miss Authoritiva]

2. Hey, a half-million bucks in ad revenues is a terrible thing to waste.

"Surely our nation's editors and producers don't want to send a signal that all you have to do to set the media's agenda is spend a half-million bucks on television ads." (Alterman quoting E.J. Dionne)

Surely? Surely they don't have to send any signals. It's a given.

All this yawping for only $500,000 worth of television ads? What a fantastically cheap bargain.

The media have an agenda? Only in the way that sufferers of obsessive-compulsive disorders have orderly routines.