About
	Contact Us
	Articles
	Topic Index
	Reports
	Quotes
	On the Web
	Links
	TW Tracker
	Support

Times Watch for April 30, 2004

Team Kerry is Too White?

     Times reporter Jodi Wilgoren found a new angle on the campaign: “Blacks and Hispanics Criticize Kerry on Outreach.” She found a set of black and Hispanic political players complaining about Kerry’s inner circle being too white, and that the campaign isn’t doing enough direct appealing to minorities (read: not spending enough on minority-owned radio and TV stations.) The hottest quote came from Alvaro Cifuentes, the chairman of the Democratic National Committee's Hispanic Caucus, who said in an e-mail message to party leaders: "It is no secret that the word of mouth in the Beltway and beyond is not that he does not get it, it is that he does not care."

     Among the complainers in the Wilgoren story are the leaders of top “affirmative action” groups, but none of them are properly described in the story as “liberal” groups. Raul Yzaguirre, the president of the National Council of La Raza, denounced the "remarkable and unacceptable absence of Latinos in your campaign." Julian Bond, the chairman of the NAACP, noted that Mr. Kerry was the only Democratic primary contender to come early to mingle at his group’s 2003 convention, but “expressed concern” that "I don't think you can be a serious contender for the votes of people of color if you don't have people of color making the decisions in your campaign." Times Watch cannot imagine the Times will be calling this “the illusion of inclusion.”

For the complete Wilgoren story, click here.

• Jodi Wilgoren | Sen. John Kerry | Campaign 2004 | Affirmative Action

Herbert: America Slaughters and Maims the Innocent

     Bob Herbert, the routinely inflamed former NBC News reporter, began: “At least 10 more American soldiers died yesterday in George W. Bush's senseless war in Iraq. They died for a pipe dream, which the American Heritage Dictionary defines as a fantastic notion or a vain hope. "Pipe dream" originally referred to the fantasies induced by smoking a pipe of opium. The folks who led us into this hideous madness in Iraq, against the wishes of most of the world, sure seem to have been smoking something.”

     Then came the atrocity lines. Since Saddam’s overthrow, Herbert claimed, “we've destroyed countless homes and legitimate businesses and killed or maimed thousands of innocent Iraqi civilians, including many women and children. That was a lousy strategy for winning hearts and minds in Vietnam and it's a lousy strategy now.” It sounds a lot like John Kerry in 1971.

For the complete Herbert column, click here.

• Bob Herbert | Iraq War

Alessandra Grates

     In reviewing the TV coverage of the Bush-Cheney appearance before the 9-11 Commission, Times TV critic Alessandra Stanley singles out Fox News as “conservative” and “considerably more sanguine” about the White House occupants.

     Alessandra Stanley’s piece began with the headline: “Just How ‘Historic’ Can an Oval Office Interview Be if It’s Not Recorded?” Stanley reviewed how the network and cable news operations scrambled to cover an event that was not photographed or recorded.

     She singled out only one network as noticeably biased: “Fox News, the conservative cable network, paid less attention to the meeting than CNN or the networks did and was far more sanguine about the secrecy – as well as Mr. Bush’s insistence that Mr. Cheney be at his side during the interview.” Stanley quoted from ABC’s “Good Morning America,” as Charles Gibson asking George Stephanopoulos about the Oval Office setting: “Is there an intimidation factor here?” But ABC wasn’t the “liberal” channel who was considerably “less sanguine” about the Bush administration.

     That oversight probably stems from the fact that the reporter works for a liberal newspaper that is considerably more sanguine about the presidency of Bill Clinton. While the April 8 testimony of National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice spread across the front page on April 9, Clinton’s private testimony on his administration’s failures on terrorism was summarized in one 700-word piece with no emphasis on the lack of visual images or audio recording.

For the complete Alessandra Stanley “TV Watch,” click here.

For the April 9 Clinton piece by Todd Purdum (the husband of former Clinton press secretary Dee Dee Myers) and Raymond Hernandez, click here.

• Alessandra Stanley | Fox News

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