Newspaper coverage in Portland for Bush/Kerry appearance

[gratuitous]

That darned librul media! Sure, John Kerry drew a crowd of 50,000 in the middle of a work day, but he got the good place to appear. Poor George Bush had to settle for a little school and had a crowd of 2,300, but the Portland Oregonian did its level best to make the two events appear comparable.

The top headline, of course, went to Hurricane Charley, an issue of vital importance here in Oregon. I'm sure that all of the flooding that we experienced last winter was headline news in Miami. Right?

Anyway, the secondary headline, just above the fold is "Political rivals play to crowds" with side-by-side photos from each rally. Stupidhead and Stepford, basking in the adulation of 2,300 hand-picked supporters; the next president and first lady, standing before a heueueuge crowd. But on a first look, the two appearances appear totally comparable. A more realistic comparison would have been to give Kerry a six-column photo with an inset of Stupidhead at approximately 1/20 the size, to represent the respective audiences each man spoke before.

But the Oregonian has been flat-out dishonest for years. I don't expect anything different from them anymore.

Does anyone have a report on the local television coverage? And a side question to any reporters or news directors: Which candidate provided you the more compelling footage, and the better visuals for your newscast?

[WI_DEM]

1. did they at least mention how many were at the Kerry event?

it's the biggest of the campaign yet. Is the Oregonian basically a dem or rep paper (or ind)who do you think they will endorse?

[King of New Orleans]

2. Oregonian endorsed Shrub in 2000

Here's a very useful little reference site


http://www.gwu.edu/~action/natendorse5.html

Gives most of the newspaper endorsements from 2000

[nikatnyte]

3. L.A. Times took a similar approach

It ran the story about the candidates' visit to Oregon on page 27 (!) and showed a large two-column photo of Shrub and Pickles talking to a sparse crowd in the high school auditorium. Below it was a one-column photo of Kerry and his wife waving to what was obviously a huge crowd. I had to look down 16(!) paragraphs to get the relative sizes of the crowds. It called Oregon "the biggest rally of Kerry's campaign: roughly 40,000 to 50,000 supporters filled a downtown park on the banks of the Willamette River, with thousands more on a nearby bridge and surrounding streets."

[gratuitous]

4. To their credit . . .

The Oregonian did manage to mention the crowd sizes for each candidates in the photo captions. Below the fold. The second paragraph of the report reads:

"In one of the most extraordinary political days in Portland history, Kerry spoke in Tom McCall Waterfront Park to what aides said was the largest crowd of his campaign, while a few miles to the west Republican Bush based in the glow of a smaller but no less fervent audience that jammed the gymnasium at Southridge High School in Beaverton."

Just before the front page jump in paragraph 7, the report grudgingly mentions Kerry's crowd of 50,000, as estimated by the Portland fire marshal's office. This from the same newspaper that hired aerial photography and a photograph analyst to downplay the number of protestors who marched in the streets prior to Stupidhead's illegal invasion. Their official editorial policy, stated at that time in February 2003, is that anyone who says the war is just an oil grab is naive.

The Oregonian has been the reliable mouthpiece of monied interests in the State of Oregon, faithfully serving the needs of the business community with neither fear nor favor since 1858. It has endorsed the Republican candidate for president in every election except 1996, but hasn't made its endorsement for this year yet.

[NewYorkerfromMass]

6. NYTimes reports 40,000

Still impressive.

"...Mr. Kerry culminated his 15-day, 4,971.12-mile cross-country trek on the banks of the Willamette with a crowd that the fire marshal estimated at 40,000... "

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/08/14/politics/campaign/14campaign.html?pagewanted=print&position=

[stevedeshazer]

5. And when you turn to the O's op-ed page

You get the reptilian visage of Kathleen Parker and her latest hit piece headline, "Kerry's ownVietnam quagmire", filled with lies and bullshit about the oxymoronically named Swift Boat Veterans for Truth. The O's editorial board must care more about Florida than Oregon, all right.

I gave up on the Oregonian in 1992, when the Bob Packwood story broke just days before the election. The Oregonian spiked and covered up the sexual harrassment revelations about Packwood, and he narrowly won the election and was subsequently forced to resign. We could have been spared the misery if they had bothered to report it, because we'd have two Democratic senators now instead of Pea Packer Smith.