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Times Watch for
April 29, 2004
Manipulating the “Sharp” Decline
The Times led the paper Thursday with bad news for President Bush: “Support for War Down Sharply,” from 63 percent saying the war was the “right thing” in December to 58 percent in March to 47 percent in April. But they downplayed that December’s poll numbers were instantly taken after the capture of Saddam Hussein, so the numbers might logically fall “sharply” from that summit.
Richard W. Stevenson and Janet Elder explain in the third paragraph that December’s numbers were taken “just after American forces captured Saddam Hussein.” Actually, in December, the Times pollsters took two polls – one from December 10 to 13, and a second, smaller sample on December 14 and 15. The first December poll put support for the war at 47 percent – the same number as the April poll.
For the rest of the Thursday story, the second, smaller December poll is defined as the only December poll, all the better to underline a Bush decline: “Mr. Bush’s approval rating for his handling of Iraq was 41 percent, down from 49 percent last month and 59 percent in December.” Actually, the December 10-13 mark on Iraq job approval was 45 percent, and their September 2003 poll number was 47 percent.
In the graphics across the top of page A-19, the Times largely uses charts instead of numbers. In one set of pie graphs, they lay out results for the question if the U.S. did the “right thing in taking military action against Iraq, or should the U.S. have stayed out?” They compare April and December – but the second December, and there is no asterisk or explanation of the December bifurcation.
As for Kerry, a subheadline on the front page explained: “Bush’s Rating is at a Low, but a Survey Shows No Advantage for Kerry.” Front-page text declared: “The poll showed the two men in a statistical dead heat, both in a head-to-head matchup and in a three-way race that included Ralph Nader. Inside they note that Kerry’s up 46-44 without Nader, and Bush’s up 43-41-5 with him.
Also buried inside were the really troubling numbers for John Kerry: “While 55 percent of Mr. Bush’s supporters said they strongly favored the president, only 32 percent of Mr. Kerry’s supporters strongly favored their candidate.” And: “Sixty-one percent of voters said Mr. Kerry says what he things people want to hear, versus 29 percent who said he says what he believes. The Bush campaign has attacked Kerry for months on that score, portraying him as a flip-flopper with no convictions.” The Bush numbers were the opposite: 43 to 53.
For the full Stevenson and Elder report, click here.
• Richard Stevenson | Janet Elder | Polls | Campaign 2004 | George W. Bush | Sen. John Kerry
Snell and the Terrorist’s Plea Bargain
The Times promoted the “Quiet but Aggressive Staff” on the 9-11 Commission. The story’s lead character, Dietrich Snell, tells the Times that he heard a terror suspect promise revenge as he was led away. The New York Daily News had a slightly different story in 2001.
Reporters Jennifer 8. Lee and Eric Lichtblau began: “When Dietrich Snell first felt his office shake on the morning of Sept. 11, 2001 — the reverberations from the first jetliner crashing into the World Trade Center down the street — he ran into the office of his boss, the attorney general of New York, Eliot L. Spitzer. Mr. Snell, who was a federal prosecutor in the 1993 World Trade Center bombing case, had a feeling that this was no accident. Gazing through the windows at the burning tower, Mr. Snell told his co-workers, Mr. Spitzer said, that one of the defendants convicted in a terrorism case had warned as he was being led away: ‘We're going to get them. We're going to get them.’”
But the New York Daily News had a slightly different and more detailed Snell story on September 25, 2001. From the viewpoint of the 9-11 commission and the widows that promote it, Snell was part of the problem. Greg B. Smith reported: “Two years ago, federal prosecutors turned down a cooperation offer from a terrorist who claimed he was part of a well-financed 1995 plot to crash an airplane into the CIA headquarters.”
"It was not something that we focused on. It was something that he said," recalled Dietrich Snell, the ex-prosecutor who convicted Murad. "We took seriously what he was telling us, but what we were focused on was the plot to blow up the 12 airliners."
“Snell, who left office in 1998, did not recall Murad coming forward to offer information in return for leniency in sentencing. But court papers and two sources familiar with the situation confirm that Murad did try to cooperate with Manhattan U.S. Attorney Mary Jo White's office. He was turned down, the sources said.”
For the complete Lee and Lichtblau report, click here.
For a version of the Daily News story by Smith, click here.
• Jennifer Lee | Eric Lichtblau | Terrorism
E-mail TimesWatch Director, Clay Waters, with TimesWatch feedback at cwaters@mediaresearch.org