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Times Watch for
May 5, 2004
Page One for Michael Moore,
Vets Against Kerry Buried
Yesterday’s front page carried a story above the fold titled “Kerry Life Story Will Be Focus Of Big Ad Buy.” John Kerry’s new commercials will, like most others, highlight the Senator’s home movies of himself trudging through Vietnam. But when a group of fellow Navy “swift boat” veterans from the Vietnam era assembled in Washington to declare Kerry unfit for the presidency, they were assigned to page A-20.
Jodi Wilgoren began her story on the swift boat vets: “A group of Vietnam veterans tried to pick apart Senator John Kerry’s war-hero biography on Tuesday, questioning a combat wound and denouncing his antiwar activities as a betrayal that should disqualify him to be commander in chief.” She quoted several speakers from the group, and followed with Kerry aides (decrying “Nixonian dirty tricks”) and Kerry comrade Wade Sanders, who invoked Joseph McCarthy, asking: “Is there no limit to the extreme that you will go in the destruction of someone who scares you?” Wilgoren concluded by noting that O’Neill denied being connected to the Bush campaign, but that “the group’s publicist, Merrie Spaeth, worked in the Reagan White House and has given money to Bush’s campaigns.”
Needless to say, this questioning campaign coordination and picking at the contributions of publicists was not the way the Times covered the anti-Bush 9-11 widows.
While Kerry’s critics were buried inside the paper, the front page was devoted to a new anti-Bush “mockumentary” by radical-left filmmaker Michael Moore. Jim Rutenberg reported that Disney is preventing its Miramax division from distributing Moore’s film “Fahrenheit 911,” which “links Mr. Bush and prominent Saudis – including the family of of Osama bin Laden.” Rutenberg failed to mention Moore’s films have been regularly challenged for their accuracy. He could have even checked in with the liberal accuracy cops at Spinsanity.org.
Rutenberg did not describe Moore as a “liberal,” let alone radical, although he noted “Disney came under heavy criticism from conservatives” when Miramax signed up Moore, and that Moore’s films “skewer what he says are the misguided priorities of conservatives and big business.” Despite Moore’s unmentioned endorsement of Democratic presidential candidate Wesley Clark, and his related description of President Bush as a “deserter,” Rutenberg allowed Moore to protest his film was not partisan: “If this is partisan in any way, it is partisan on the side of the poor and working people of this country who provided fodder for the war machine.” No conservative critic of Moore appeared for rebuttal.
For the complete Wilgoren story, click here.
For the complete Rutenberg story on Moore, click here.
• Sen. John Kerry | Jodi Wilgoren | Jim Rutenberg | Michael Moore
Fighting “Hate” in a Southern State
Michael Winerip’s story was headlined “Officials Vote for the Closet at Hunt High.” When Jarred Gamwell ran for student body president, he put up campaign signs proclaiming “Queer Eye for Hunt High” and “Gay Guys Know Everything!” The signs were removed by the school principal, who said they were “disruptive of the educational process.” The school’s lawyer wrote that the posters “had no relevance” to Gamwell’s qualifications, even though Gamwell insisted his sexual preference was a qualification. He finished fourth out of four.
Those small concessions to balance (school officials refused interview requests) were the only paragraphs that weren’t promoting Gamwell’s agenda. While his mother and stepfather told Winerip they don’t support homosexuality “in principle…There’s a piece of the parents that admires Jarred for being open and standing up for what he believes. And there’s a piece that fears what could happen in this small conservative town.” Conservative equals violent hatred? “Every time the phone rings I wonder, is it the school saying he’s been beat up and sent to the hospital,” said the mother. “There’s so much hate out there,” added the stepfather. The Times can always find plenty of “hate” in a Southern state.
For the complete Winerip story, click here.
The Times showed smaller biases in favor of the gay left in two other Wednesday stories:
Pam Belluck and Katie Zezima reported that Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney is softening his attempt to prevent out-of-state homosexual couples from getting married in the state, but the story quoted only three city clerks favoring gay unions and a gay-union lobbyist, none of whom were called liberals. Click here.
Laurie Goodstein relayed that the United Methodist Church’s supreme court allowed a lesbian pastor in Washington state, and that the church has debated adding language to its Book of Discipline that would declare that church members can disagree on whether homosexuality is compatible with Christian teaching. But Goodstein twice identified “conservatives” who opposed the new language, while the supporters were not liberals, but a group which “supports inclusion of gays and lesbians.” Click here.
E-mail TimesWatch Director, Clay Waters, with TimesWatch feedback at cwaters@mediaresearch.org