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Times Watch for March 17, 2004

Burying Pro-Bush Poll Results?

     Did the Times bury the real news in Adam Nagourney and Janet Elder's Tuesday story on the most recent CBS/NYT presidential poll?

     After a calendar year full of media and Democratic attacks, Bush has actually crept back into a slight lead over John Kerry, 46%-43% in the latest poll. Yet the Times doesn't tell us that until the eighth paragraph, with this underwhelming sentence suggesting the race is a tie: "Even after two weeks in which Mr. Bush has run televised advertisements promoting himself and attacking Mr. Kerry, and in which Mr. Kerry has enjoyed the glow of favorable coverage that greeted his near-sweep of Democratic primaries, the two men are effectively tied, with 46 percent of voters saying they supported Mr. Bush and 43 percent backing Mr. Kerry."

     But that's actually a fairly significant pro-Bush uptick. As Slate journalist Mickey Kaus writes: "Isn't the news in the latest CBS/New York Times poll that it shows Bush inching ahead--that the current (pre-Spanish election) campaign dynamic, including Bush's advertising launch, has been working at least slightly in the President's favor? A month ago CBS had Kerry over Bush by five percent, but in the new poll Bush leads Kerry 46 to 43 even without Nader. The NYT's Nagourney and Elder comically don't get around to imparting this information until paragraph #8, choosing instead to emphasize the anti-incumbent suggestion that 'Bush and Kerry enter the general election at a time of growing concern among Americans that the nation is veering in the wrong direction.'"

     Admittedly, it's a bit early to take horse-race numbers seriously. But the headline the Times chooses for the story is almost willfully bland: "Nation's Direction Prompts Voters' Concern, Poll Finds." The Times doesn't exactly go out of the way to call attention to the story itself, either, running it on page A24. The Times often, but not always, places its poll stories on the front page.

For Nagourney and Elder's take on the NYT's latest poll, click here.

• George W. Bush | Campaign 2004 | Janet Elder | Sen. John Kerry | Adam Nagourney | Polls

"Greater Scrutiny" of Bush After Madrid, From….?

     Nagourney teams up with reporter Richard Stevenson for Wednesday's lead story, "Bush's Campaign Emphasizes Role Of Leader In War," which opens by putting Bush on a war footing against Kerry: "A year after ordering the invasion of Iraq, President Bush is moving the war to the forefront of his re-election effort with a weeklong barrage of speeches, an orchestrated set of interviews with senior Pentagon officials and a new television advertisement questioning Senator John Kerry's support of the troops."

     Question: Do Democrats never engage in "orchestrated" political moves?

     A subhed claims: "President's Foreign Policy Faces Greater Scrutiny After Madrid Attack." And indeed, the third paragraph puts Bush on the defensive regarding Spain: "The moves were part of what aides described as a new chapter in the political campaign against Mr. Kerry. But they came as the bombings in Spain stirred more criticism of Mr. Bush's Iraq policy, underlining the extent to which the campaign had become subject to the unpredictability of overseas events, and pointing up the complications Mr. Bush faces in trying to balance the demands of the presidency with a re-election effort."

     Yet after the Times front page insists on seeing "greater scrutiny" and "criticism" of Bush over events in Spain, the article itself totally fails to back up those Bush-critical insinuations. Nagourney and Stevenson make just one other mention of Spain--a Kerry comment in which Kerry actually comes out in support of the Bush position that Spanish troops should remain in Iraq.

For Nagourney and Stevenson on Bush's emerging strategy, click here.

• George W. Bush | Campaign 2004 | Sen. John Kerry | Adam Nagourney | Spain | Richard Stevenson

Offering the (In)Complete Story from Iraq

     Jeffrey Gettleman's front-page story for Wednesday, "For Iraqis in Harm's Way, $5,000 and 'I'm Sorry'" features a large photo of an Iraqi boy who says an American bomb blinded him in one eye. It's an emotional launching point for a story on the accidental deaths of civilians during the Iraqi war.

     After citing estimated casualty figures from two antiwar groups (the Pentagon doesn't keep track of noncombatant casualties in Iraq), Gettleman says: "Whatever the true figures, the list is growing. Since May 1, many Iraqi civilians have been cut down by American forces in checkpoint shootings and crossfires, accidents and mishaps. Last week, a 14-year-old Kurdish girl was killed by an American mortar round near the northern city of Mosul. Army officials said soldiers fired the mortar at terrorists. It fell short. A few months ago, according to an official with the Iraqi Interior Ministry, American soldiers shot and killed a man driving in his car because he had a hole in his muffler and the sputtering exhaust sounded like gunfire." 
Then Gettleman quotes an Iraqi Interior Ministry official who complains "The Americas [sic] are so jumpy." (Wonder why….)

     Although every accidental death is a tragedy, Gettleman doesn't offer perspective or pose countervailing questions such as, What was the death rate during Saddam Hussein's 24-year thugocracy, which the Bush administration ended?

     As the Times own John Burns estimates, Hussein killed perhaps one million of his own people in war and through terror--a perversely impressive figure in a country of just 22 million. And of course, those deaths and disappearances were not tragic accidents but cold-blooded and brutal murders.

For the rest of Gettleman on Iraqi fatalities, click here.

• Casualties | Jeffrey Gettleman | Iraq War

E-mail TimesWatch Director, Clay Waters, with TimesWatch feedback at cwaters@mediaresearch.org