Going After Gore
Sep 5th, 2007 | 23 responses
Vanity Fair published an article describing the treatment Al Gore received back in 2000 from the mainstream media. I am not talking about so-called right-wing media, but about the New York Times and the Washington Post. The author of the article did not just ask Gore and his staffers what they thought about the way the media depicted him, she also talked to journalists themselves and asked them why they did what they did. Read the entire article, it is a fascinating read about how journalists purposefully distort what someone says and purposefully create a caricature because it is more fun like that, they sell more newspapers / get more viewers, and because they personally – get this – did not like Gore because he refused to chitchat with them.
Back in the day – I did not most know of this since, well, I am only 23 years old now, so that would have made me 16 back then – Time‘s Margaret Carlson admitted to Don Imus: “You can actually disprove some of what Bush is saying if you really get into the weeds and get out your calculator, or look at his record in Texas. But it’s really easy, and it’s fun to disprove Al Gore. As sport, and as our enterprise, Gore coming up with another whopper is greatly entertaining to us.”
I find it amazing that journalists admit this. One would expect them to be a bit embarrassed about their misbehavior and lack of journalistic standards, but no; for some strange reason, they are proud of it. For example, here is Howard Kurtz, Washington Post columnist: “Everything is fair game in a presidential campaign and part of the test of any candidate is how he deals with an often skeptical press corps.… The press sets up a series of obstacle courses … and if you are Al Gore and considered to be super-smart, yet not particularly gregarious, it’s the moments of awkwardness or misstatements that are going to get media attention. If Gore had had a lighter touch, he probably could have overcome that.”
Kurtz was greatly surprised that Gore did not care to chitchat with reporters who misquoted him and who tried to make him look as bad as possible. This, according to Kurtz, only made matters worse: they already went after Gore, but Gore’s refusal to chitchat with them made them want to go after Gore even more.
Are these journalists or children?
What’s worse, these people seem to have no problem with destroying an entire career as long as they’ve got ‘fun.’ When I read the article at Vanity Fair I got a very uncomfortable feeling, realizing that if they did this in 00, they are bound to do it again in 2008 (and now already). The media narratives are already created, and we can only expect them to repeat what they did in 00. I do not care who they do it with; Democrat or Republican or both, but I do care about honest and truthful reporting.
I suggest we all keep an eye on the narratives created in the msm. About Mitt Romney, for instance, there is the “robot-like, too smooth, flipflopper” narrative. John Edwards is depicted as the ultimate hypocrite. Those are just two examples, from both sides of the aisle, of how the media creates a caricature and then builds on it. Y’all have more examples? Lets keep an eye on this.
As for Gore, he mainly lost because of himself. He was the vice-president of an incredibly popular president. The economy was doing well, foreign policy wise went OK, domestically he could simply built on what Clinton had done… He should have won easily. Having said that, the way the media treated him certainly did not help and, more importantly, it is disgraceful that professional journalists would act like that.
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23 Responses to “Going After Gore”
I agree with your assertion that Gore has himself to blame for many of the problems he had in 2000 but this
flies in the face of the facts. You’re overstating Clinton’s popularity. Like GWB he was a divisive president, especially for his own party.
[...] Clark Going After Gore » This Summary is from an article posted at The Moderate Voice » Domestic and international news [...]
Dave: Bill Clinton was very popular. The idea that Clinton was disliked by many is not based on the fact.
Michael,
The flip side of that coin was the free pass Bush got. Questions that needed to be asked never were, puff pieces abounded, and the ‘who would you rather drink with’ set-up seemed the only important decision the media felt the country needed to ponder.
I used to think journalists wrote as they thought there readers wanted to read, but the last six years has put paid to this. As the Knight Ridder reporters showed, it wasn’t hard to find the holes in the administrations case for war, but the vast majority of our most senior correspondents chose, or were told, to look the other way.
Today, there are scant signs that this has changed. Thank God for the internet.
The whole time I was reading that article, I kept thinking of Howard Dean. He might have been our 44th President (at the very least a much more interesting and dynamic nominee than Kerry) if the media hadn’t gone nuts over one moment of excitement and blow it completely out of proportion.
Thanks for posting this, Michael – it’s an incredibly important issue.
‘You’re overstating Clinton’s popularity. Like GWB he was a divisive president, especially for his own party.’
I have to disagree with this. Sure, liberal Democrats disagreed with Clinton on some of his centrist, pro-business views, and were angry at him for tainting the party with scandal. But, he was always personally popular, leaving office with a 70% approval rating. The only time GWB had that high a rating was after 9/11. He tanked after Katrina, and has been hovering in the 30′s ever since. Perhaps a more apt comparison is Reagan, who was popular with his own party, but polarizing with everyone else.
Gore lost because the SC decided to deny him a recount of the contested votes in Florida. His campaign was flawed- he should have campaigned with Clinton, established better relations with the press, and concentrated on the many positive aspects of the Clinton years.
I remember one of the selling points for President Bush was that he was the kind of guy you’d like to have a beer with.
Unlike that wooden nerdy guy who acted all smart.
So much for that old canard about the biased, liberal MSM!
I guess to the left, media bias means that the meida does not repeat the message exactly the way that the Democratic Party wants it repeated.
The difference was that the media did repeat President Clinton’s message exactly like he and his advisors wanted it to be repeated.
The kool-aid is really getting spiked around here lately……..
In the first full study of Florida’s ballots since the election ended, The Miami Herald and USA Today reported George W. Bush would have widened his 537-vote victory to a 1,665-vote margin if the recount ordered by the Florida Supreme Court would have been allowed to continue, using standards that would have allowed even faintly dimpled “undervotes” — ballots the voter has noticeably indented but had not punched all the way through — to be counted.
http://www.pbs.org/newshour/media/media_watch/jan-june01/recount_4-3.html
Oh, and as far as the media “mistreating” him…….I suppose these quotes were actually media fabrications?
In a March 1999 interview with Wolf Blitzer, Gore said, “During my service in the United States Congress, I took the initiative in creating the Internet.”
Earned Income Tax Credit
“I was the author of that proposal. I wrote that….That is something for which I have been the principal proponent for a long time.”
Al Gore in a Time Interview, on the EARNED INCOME TAX CREDIT (EITC). Now, this is interesting, since the EITC became law in 1975, a year BEFORE Gore was elected to Congress.
during a visit to a New Hampshire high school on November 30, 1999………
“I called for a congressional investigation and a hearing. I looked around the country for other sites like that. I found a little place in upstate New York called Love Canal.
@ casualobserver
Oh yes, GWB has never, ever, put his foot in his mouth or said something completely retarded. The media was always quick to point that out, and GWB was hampered throughout his entire campaign by his poor oratory skills. That’s why he lost the presidential election in 2000 and again in 2004, because the American people were repulsed by such a candidate that said such stupid and blatantly untrue statements.
I do not cut the media as much slack as you do. The constant harping by them on what a swell guy W was and what a nerd Gore was, the constant snarky comments on him all the time, the mis-analysis of quotes of his by the media (continuing even here in these comments), all contributed to people not voting for Gore. I still hear people today who say they are glad Gore was not Prez when 9-11 hit. I dont understand it and dont particularly care anymore. The American people get a government just like themselves. Always have, and always will. Oh, and Casual Observer, he DID take the initiative in creating the internet in that his work on the relevant congressional subcommittee was instrumental in getting the kind of government funding and development that was necessary to turn the internet into what it is today. Why are we even still discussing that one? Of all the goofy issues to hit when deciding who your leader will be! For 7 years I have had to listen to a Prez who cannot speak in a whole sentence. Again, the people get what they deserve in this Country and the blame for the last seven years must lay with them, not Al Gore.
I think the point of this post is that the media think they have the right to act as gatekeepers.
If I were the author of the post I would agree with you George. But then, who am I?
O, wait
SD- Clinton was roasted by the media- during the Lewinsky mess and during some of his other scandals. His wife was portrayed very negatively also,(especially when compared to the hands off treatment for Laura Bush) until she chose to stand by him. The Washington press had a field day during the Clinton years!
Whatever gaffes Gore might have made while campaigning, the country would have been much better off than it is now, after 7 years of total incompetence, cronyism and policy failures. Gore is one of the smartest men in America, even if he’s a poor campaigner. Instead we got a man who was a great campaigner, but who lacked the ability to govern.
“So much for that old canard about the biased, liberal MSM!”
I’ve been saying this for years, but it’s just too easy to repeat self-serving cliches and slogans.
As a whole,the media have never been fair or accountable or responsible. Their bias is in faovr of grabbing attention with juicy stories, and the methods and victims on that path are just incidental..
At the same time, though, there has been excellent reporting done, shedding light on neglected and dark areas. Sometimes, investigative reporting has even brought about significan change. Watergate, anyone?
I think the greater point of the post, about the media creating these caricatures and narratives, is very true (more so than the narrow Vanity Fair piece about how this happened specifically to Gore).
This phenomena of the media controlling the narrative probably is hurtful to our system of electing our presidents, but so are a lot of other factors. Ultimately, it’s up to the candidates and their campaign teams to deal with that situation and overcome any negative press. The MSM wasn’t exactly friendly to Bush 41either (remember the brouhaha about the elder Bush not knowing what a grocery scanner was?) and although the GOP got some mileage out of this (bumper stickers reading: “Annoy the media, elect George Bush”), the negative reporting only had an effect because it had a ring of truth to it and the candidate wasn’t able to overcome that image.
To apply this to “W” vs. Algore, the media recognized that the public would be more annoyed by a wonkish guy who overstated his accomplishments than by a ‘regular guy’ who often mangled his speeches. Americans (for better or worse) tend to value common sense over ‘book smarts’. To some extent, I think the pundits like to be seen as predicting the public opinion and in doing so, they also help create it.
Anyway, I think it’s wise for us to be wary of the media caricatures, but it’s also the candidates’ responsibility to try to rise above them.
“Americans (for better or worse) tend to value common sense over ‘book smarts’
That’s true, except that the opposite of book smarts is not necessaritly common sense. It can as easily be election samrts, appealing to baser instincts smarts, or a host of other samrts.
The good news is, that in comparison to the openly libelous press in the early years of the US, the media are now tamer. Despite the associated problems, notions about equal time, fair and unbiased reporting and accountability have raised public expectations. We criticize the press more for less horrendous misuse of their power than what was the case in the rather distant past.
The bad news is that the media are more and more concentrated in a small circle of poweful hands. Those hands are increasingly profit driven, not truth telling driven.
That bodes ill, for the kind of in-depth investigative reporting that has been the saving grace of MSM. It favors a one-view-fits-all news coverage.
We have to read with extreme caution and scepticism. That;s not good in all ways, however, because when the public becomes sceptical about everything, it loses its footing. The very notion of what is ture and what is not becomes vague and diffuse.
You make an excellent point but I’d also point out the need for more and more news in the 24/7 news cycle. When you have to have someone on screen almost constantly, you sometimes have to stretch the definition of what is “news”.
However, since it’s unlikely we’ll return to the days of yesteryear where Americans got most of their news from reading the local paper and watching Cronkite for 30 minutes each evening, we as news consumers have to adapt. And to some extent many have. There are lots of media watchdog groups representing both the left and right side of the political spectrum. They too often overdue it, but at least they are there.
Which explains the brutally annoying and despicable coverage of the recent mine collapse.
“THIS JUST IN! BREAKING NEWS: WE MAY HAVE NEWS FOR YOU SOON!”
Yeah yeah yeah.
The media is doing an incredibly awful job, and the fact that they’ve faded from bright yellow to some pastel shade is a lame excuse. I think Bob Somerby gets it right when he points out that this incredibly biased coverage put Bush in the White House and led us directly into Iraq. There is a direct causal chain from Ceci Connely to Iraq. This media bullshit is why we are in Iraq. If they had even had a little evenhandedness, we wouldn’t be in Iraq. This is a matter of record, now, you can dismiss, but you can’t deny.
And they’re doing it again! John Edwards’ hair! Just read the Daily Howler, for chrissakes. It gets nauseating, though, so if you want to feel all special and even-handed by blaming the Democrats for being slandered, feel free. But you’d be full of shit if you did.
The fact of the matter is that it is media concentration. Murdoch, the Sulzbergers, and the Grahams control the papers, and 4 or 5 mega media conglomerates control network news. This is where almost everyone in the country gets their news. The networks are all controlled by Republican CEO’s, and the print media have some bizarre hatred for dems, as this story shows. And the NY Times went after Clinton, too! Remember Wen Ho Lee? Hell, even Jon Stewart is a self-described libertarian!
Lemme tell you, I went to a private school, and I know what these upper-middle-class, striving little pukes who populate the newsrooms are like. They may be “liberal,” in an incredibly watered-down centrist way, but they are even more self-serving, spineless, craven and approval-seeking. If the boss doesn’t like a Dem, if he thinks a major Dem is a “class traitor” (John Edwards, anyone?), our little press puke will fall all over himself to make the boss happy, his own “convictions” be damned. This is what we’re seeing in the media. The bigotries of the rich, and the pathetic grasping of the petit-Bourgeoise amplifying those bigotries.
And at the end of the day, the people don’t have a clue what candidates stand for. The press can’t even get simple statements right. Voters are left with bullshit narrative, and we get the worst leadership possible – unless you’re a rich-ass press baron! Then it’s all gravy!
Bring on Iran! Blame the dems for being gang-raped by the press! Whee!