Editors Grapple With How to Cover Swift Boat Controversy

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http://www.editorandpublisher.com/eandp/news/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1000617053

NEW YORK As the John Kerry swift boat controversy navigates itself from the shoreline of the 2004 presidential campaign into the mainstream, newspapers face a dilemma of how to report on the attacks against the Democratic nominee without giving them undue credibility or blowing the issue out of proportion.

Alison Mitchell, deputy national editor for The New York Times (Click for QuikCap), points to the changing media landscape and its impact on what newspapers choose to cover. "I'm not sure that in an era of no-cable television we would even have looked into it," she said. Near the top of a front-page article on Tuesday, the Times referred to the "mostly unsubstantiated accusations" of Kerry's swift boat critics....

[Cocoa]

1. they didn't grapple with how to cover "Fortunate Son"

they just ignored it.

[Jack Rabbit]

2. 'Mostly unsubstantiated accusations'

How about "accusations contradicted by the historical records and eyewitness accounts"?

There is no "he said/she said" here. John O'Neill and Swift Boat Veterans fo Truth are liars, plain and simple. They got their financial backing from a wealthy Texan with close ties to Bush and Rove. The question that should be asked is how independent of the Bush campaign are the Swifties and what did Bush or Rove know and when did either know it.