Reply #26: media campaign article & link

[Iverson]

An excerpt follows.

How the Media Picks Candidates.
Media Profits and Bias.

By Josh Robinson & Lorna Tychostup

...
Later in the debate, Koppel directed the following question to Braun, Sharpton, and Kucinich: “You don’t have any money, at least not much. Rev. Sharpton has almost none. You don’t have very much, Ambassador Braun. The question is, will there come a point when polls, money, and then ultimately the actual votes that will take place here—in places like New Hampshire, the caucuses in Iowa—will there come a point when we can expect one or more of the three of you to drop out? Or are you in this as sort of a vanity candidacy?”
...
Kucinich answered next. Apparently unable to stand the derision of his campaign any longer, he took Koppel to task on the very issue of media bias: “Ted, you know, we started at the beginning of this evening talking about an endorsement. Well, I want the American people to see where the media takes politics in this country. To start with endorsements, to start talking about endorsements. Now we’re talking about polls. And then we’re talking about money. Well, you know, when
you do that, you don’t have to talk about what’s important to the American people.

“Ted, I’m the only one up here that actually, on the stage, that actually voted against the PATRIOT Act. And voted against the war. The only one on this stage. I’m also one of the few candidates up here who’s talking about taking our healthcare system from this for-profit system to a not-for-profit, single-payer, universal health care for all. I’m also the only one who has talked about getting out of NAFTA and the WTO and going back to bilateral trade conditioned on workers rights, human rights, and the environment. Now, I may be inconvenient for some of those in the media, but I’m, you know, sorry about that.”

...
One day after the debate between the Democratic presidential contenders, ABC decided to pull their three journalists who were covering the campaigns of Kucinich, Braun, and Sharpton. Kucinich responded immediately by publicizing the ABC decision. FAIR jumped into the fray by sending out an Action Alert via the Internet, which stated, “ABC’s decision was attributed to the fact that these candidates are perceived to have a slim chance of winning the Democratic nomination....One has to wonder whether Kucinich’s rebuke of Koppel and his criticism of the priorities of the media had something to do with ABC's decision to limit coverage of these candidates. No matter what the rationale, this does raise a concern that ABC is making an early call on the election of 2004—weeks before any votes have been cast.

(end of excerpt)

http://www.zmag.org/ZMagSite/Feb2004/tychostup0204.html