Mere Politics

My article on media bias in today's Herald-Leader

My opinion piece on media bias appeared in today's Lexington Herald-Leader.

Cheves misses the real story of the election: media bias

In a recent article, John Cheves attempts to analyze the Fletcher campaign's actions in the closing days of the gubernatorial campaign to play what Cheves calls "the gay card."  But Cheves missed the real story--a story in which he himself was a player.

The Fletcher campaign conducted a calling blitz in the waning days of the campaign informing voters of what C-FAIR, a gay rights organization, said in its endorsement of him that Steve Beshear would do once he took office.  The calls featured the voice of Pat Boone.  When word of the calls got out, Kentucky's  liberal press corps, knowing how such information might be received by Kentucky's largely conservative voters, went into full panic mode. 

It was the first recorded instance of anyone actually being terror-stricken by Pat Boone.

When it endorsed Beshear, C-FAIR claimed that he would support gay adoption, gay rights laws, and the recognition of same-sex relationships. The organization also said Beshear would reinstitute gay rights provisions for executive branch employment that would place "sexual orientation" on the same level as race, gender, and religion in state hiring procedures.

Now these positions are pretty common fare for gay rights groups, but it would have been the first time a candidate for Kentucky governor supported them, and would be unusual positions for a gubernatorial candidate to take in a state that just 3 years ago passed the Marriage Amendment by a record margin.  You would have thought the claim by C-FAIR would be big news.

Instead, the media was almost completely silent. 

But when the Fletcher campaign began its calling campaign, all of a sudden reporters swung into action, one describing the calls as "gay-bashing," despite the fact that he hadn't even heard the calls--and despite the fact that the calls said little more than what C-FAIR was saying on its own website. In fact, another series of calls, which did not come from the Fletcher campaign, but from an anonymous entity reporters dubbed the "robo caller", directed recipients directly to the C-FAIR website. 

What was the media so upset about?  And why, when they refused to report what C-FAIR had said on its website in the first place, did it get upset when others did little more than point it out themselves?  Why was it not a story when C-FAIR said it and a scandal when Fletcher said it?  Would the Fletcher campaign (or, for that matter, the robo caller) have bothered if the media had been doing its job in the first place and reporting the news?

Where were John Cheves and his colleagues when C-FAIR made the initial claims?  Under normal circumstances, when reporters smell something potentially embarrassing to a candidate, they pounce.  Why didn't they in this case?

The Beshear campaign was obviously trying to keep a low profile about the C-FAIR endorsement.  It was mysteriously absent from the Beshear campaign's list of endorsements on its web page.  And when Bill Bartleman of the Paducah Sun finally walked through the veritable picket line of reporters who were refusing to report the original story, he asked Beshear's spokesperson Vicki Glass specifically about C-FAIR's claims.

The representative of the candidate who said in his TV commercials, "One thing I promise you, you'll always know where I stand" responded: "No further comment."  Mark it down as the first broken promise of the Beshear administration--and he hadn't even been elected yet.

Had a group as far to the right at C-FAIR is to the left endorsed Fletcher, would the media have waited until the Democrat's campaign pointed it out so say anything about it?  And would it then have launched off on its own campaign to discredit the Democratic candidate for bringing it up?

Not likely.

Had Fletcher spoken to a militia group, for example, ten bucks says the Herald-Leader and the rest of the state media would have been blaring it from the housetops as soon as it could get its hands on the story.  But when a story would embarrass the more liberal candidate, the media's hands are good for little else than sitting on.

One of the things Cheves and other pro-Beshear reporters seemed to be so upset about was that the robo-caller did not identify himself.  But who is worse? A person who refuses to identify himself but is willing to tell you the truth? Or a person who is willing to identify himself but refuses to tell you the truth--despite the fact that that's his job?

Cheves is right about one thing: the calls did little to help Fletcher, but that was largely due to the fact that he did little on social issues during his entire administration, and only began taking a stand when he saw the buzzards circling.

Finally, Cheves and his colleagues were equally disinterested in perhaps the most worrisome revelation of all.  Yes, the Fletcher campaign hired Pat Boone to do a recorded phone message.  But when asked about the calls, Beshear responded that Boone should stick to singing.  And then, ominously, he added, "I still enjoy listening to his music." 

If that's not enough to strike fear into the hearts of Kentuckians, I don't know what is.

Beshear has already broken his first campaign promise

He hasn't even been elected yet and Steve Beshear has already broken his first campaign promise.  "My pledge to you," he tells Kentuckians in a television commercial, "is you'll always know where I stand."

Oh yeah?

Then how do you explain the response of Beshear spokesperson Vicki Glass to the Paducah Sun's Bill Bartleman, who asked her about C-FAIR's claims that Beshear will support recognition of same-sex relationships and gay adoption.

Bartleman pressed Glass about C-FAIR's remarks:

[Glass] declined to respond directly to statements in a news release from the Fairness group saying that Beshear would support adoptions “of loving families regardless of sexual orientation or gender identity” and that he would “support recognition of same-gender relationships.”

Bartleman tried again:

Asked to respond to statements by the Louisville group, Glass said: ". . .[Beshear] does not believe in special treatment of any group of Kentuckians as he believes we are all equal.”

Asked again for a more direct response to the statements by the gay rights group, Glass said she’d have “no further comment.”

Thanks to Bill Bartleman of the Paducah Sun for doing something that sets him apart from the rest of his colleagues in the Kentucky media: He's done his job.  And because of it, we now know a little bit more about Steve Beshear.

It's about media bias

Jefferson Poole at Blue Grass Red State agrees with my point about the KY media not informing Kentuckians about the C-FAIR endorsement of Beshear, but complains that there is too much talk about "gay people."  Well, first, I've never said anything about "gay people".  And, second, this issue is not primarily about gays: its about media bias.  If the media had treated another issue in as unfair a manner as they have treated this one, I would have talked about that.

It just so happens that it is this issue on which the media treatment has been the most surreal.

Joe Gerth charges C-FAIR with gay-bashing

Okay, the media coverage of the gubernatorial campaign gets more surreal by the minute.  Courier-Journal reporter Joe Gerth titles one of his blog posts this afternoon "More gay-bashing robo-calls." He then goes on, in the post, to ask someone to send him a transcript of what the calls, in fact, say.

Now it is not terribly remarkable when a reporter expresses a blatant bias like this (I love Joe, but he can't possibly feel good about how he and his colleagues have covered this election), but I've got several questions:

1. If Joe didn't know what the calls said (which you have to assume, since he was asking someone to provide him with what, in fact, the caller said), then how could he judge that the calls were "gay-bashing"?

2. Since the caller said exactly what C-FAIR, the gay rights organization, had said on its website (which should now be clear to Gerth, since he has seen the transcript), then how could it be gay-bashing?

The only possible solution to this mystery is this: C-FAIR, the source of the content of the robo-caller's message, was engaged in gay-bashing.

What a story!  And Joe Gerth was there to point it out.

Beshear campaign calls spreading disinformation

This just in: phone calls are going out to Kentucky voters spreading disinformation about Steve Beshear, and, what's really interesting is that the calls are coming from (you ready?) ... Steve Beshear!

"Ernie Fletcher is spreading lies to scare you," says Rev. John Dunaway, a retired Baptist minister who has volunteered in the Beshear campaign. "Don't fall for the last-minute dirty tricks."

This is a response of course, to the anonymous robo-caller, who is telling voters exactly what C-FAIR is telling people on its website.  If the robo-caller is lying, and he is telling people the same thing that C-FAIR, which has endorsed Beshear, is telling them, then isn't the problem with C-FAIR, not the robo-caller?

In fact, the Beshear campaign is claiming that Fletcher was behind the calls.  Where is their evidence?  Isn't in fact, the Beshear campaign the one spreading disinformation?

Mark Hebert? Joe Gerth? John Cheves?  Are you there?

What does this tell us?

It took about 15 seconds for reporters to call the Fletcher campaign to ask if it was responsible for the robo calls that are telling Kentuckians about C-FAIR's support of Beshear (it wasn't).  But so far it has been three days since C-FAIR claimed that Beshear favors recognition of same sex relationships and gay adoption, and no indication that any reporters have called the Beshear campaign to ask whether, in fact, he does.

Hmmm. I wonder what that tells us.

What did the robo caller say that C-FAIR hasn't already?

Has anyone stopped to notice that the robo caller that is now tormenting the League of Extraordinarily Self-Righteous Gentlemen (a.k.a. "the media") has said nothing different from what C-FAIR has said?

Not a thing.

The automated phone message claims nothing more than what C-FAIR itself has claimed.  So why is it not bad and not worth reporting on when C-FAIR says it, but it is bad and very much worth reporting on when the robo caller says it?

Not that I'm implying that the media is employing a double standard or anything...

...Well, actually, that's exactly what I'm implying.

KY media in uproar over "robo calls" that tell voters what it should have told them itself

My wife picked up the phone this afternoon and listed to an automated call from someone touting the endorsement of Steve Beshear by the pro gay rights, pro gay adoption, pro same-sex marriage Fairness Campaign.  The call doesn't say it, but it sounds as if it is from a Beshear supporter.

"For the first time in 20 years," says the voice, "the homosexual lobby proudly endorses a candidate for governor, Steve Beshear."

The reaction in the media?  They are, of course, so shocked that anyone would be informing Kentucky voters of what they have refused to inform them of themselves.  The Herald-Leader's Pol Watchers weblog quotes several people who received the calls as being scandalized that anyone would stoop to something so low as...well, telling voters who Steve Beshear is cozy with.

In fact, all the call does is to direct people to the Fairness Campaign's website.  Why should that bother the people who are supported by the Fairness Alliance, like Steve Beshear? Or the people who support the Fairness Alliance, like the reporters who now have the noses so out of joint?

In fact, there is nothing in the call that is inaccurate.  So why is the media so upset about it?  Because the call tells Kentucky voters what the media refuses to tell them itself?  The reporters who are scandalized by the robo calls are the very ones who still refuse to report to a conservative Kentucky electorate that the Fairness Campaign claims that Steve Beshear will:

• Support nondiscrimination in employment, housing and public accommodations.
• Support adoption of children by loving families regardless of sexual orientation or  gender identity.
• Sign an executive order prohibiting discrimination in state government.
• Support recognition of same-gender relationships.
• Veto anti-fairness legislation.

That is a quote from the Fairness Alliance's website.  The real scandal is the Kentucky media's consistent refusal to report this, and for the media, which has engaged in the very dirty trick of downplaying this story, has absolutely no ground on which to criticize anyone else about dirty tricks.

The real dirty trick here is the media's refusal to report a story they know will hurt Beshear's chances of winning the election.

I only wish I had thought of it myself.

Beshear supporters terror stricken by ... Pat Boone?

I will have to make a confession.  When I heard that the Fletcher campaign had tapped Pat Boone to do campaign calls, I thought it was a big mistake.  Why not Mel Gibson?  Why not Steven Seagal?  Or even the Rock?  Heck, I'd take Jackie Chan over Pat Boone.  If your going to inspire people to get out and vote, why choose someone famous for wearing white shoes and singing in wiener commercials? 

I mean what campaign wouldn't pick the star of, say, "Lethal Weapon" over the star of "The Perils of Pauline"?

But I was wrong.

Some Beshear supporters are positively going berserk over calls that Pat Boone is making to Kentucky voters about the Beshear/Fairness Campaign alliance. 

This appears to be the first time any members of the human species have ever experienced mortal fear by the specter of Pat Boone.