News Intelligence Analysis
Kerry on the Media
08/07/2004
John Nichols
John Kerry and George W. Bush, the Democrat and Republican
who will compete
this November for the presidency, both attended similar New England
preparatory schools, both graduated from Yale, and both received
advanced
degrees from prestigious east coast colleges. But, somewhere
along the way,
they developed dramatically different reading habits.
Where Bush says he does not read newspapers, Kerry says he
cannot get enough
of them. And that distinction, Kerry suggested when he sat down
with this
reporter for a rare extended interview on media issues this week,
sums up a
radically different vision of how a president should gather and
process
information they must use to make fundamental decisions about
the direction
of the nation and the world.
"I read four or five papers a day if I can," said
Kerry, when asked about
his newspaper reading habits. "It depends obviously on where
I am and what
I'm doing. I always pick up a local paper in the hotel I'm staying
at, or
two depending on what the city is. And I try to get the Washington
Post, New
York Times, Wall Street Journal, USA Today, papers like that.
I try to read
as much as I can."
Those patterns are similar to most former presidents. Dwight
Eisenhower read
nine papers daily, Ronald Reagan was such an avid consumer of
newspapers
that his ex-wife Jane Wyman complained about his print media
obsessions, and
Presidents George H.W. Bush and Bill Clinton were known to go
through stacks
of papers each day. But Kerry's penchant for the papers clearly
distinguishes him from the current President Bush.
When asked last fall by Fox News anchor Brit Hume how he gets
his news, Bush
said he asks an aide, "What's in the newspapers worth worrying
about?" The
president added that, "I glance at the headlines just to
kind of (get) a
flavor of what's moving. I rarely read the stories..."
Instead of gathering information himself, Bush said he prefers
to "get
briefed by people who probably read the news themselves"
and "people on my
staff who tell me what's happening in the world."
Kerry shook his head in disagreement as Bush's comments were
recounted to
him.
"I can't imagine being president and not reading as much
as I can about what
people are saying," explained Kerry. "I don't want
(information) varnished
by staff. I don't want it filtered by staff. I want it the way
it is. And I
think you get a much better sense of what's going in the country
(when you
gather information yourself). I think one of the reasons we have
some
problems today is that we have an administration that's out of
touch with
the problems of average people. They don't know how people are
struggling.
They don't know what's happening with health care, employment.
They don't
know, or they don't care, that's their choice."
As a constant consumer of news, Kerry says he spends a good
deal of time
thinking about the role of media in a democratic society. And
he gets
frustrated when television networks fail to live up to the responsibility
that should go with a license to use the people's airwaves.
When it was mentioned that many Americans had expressed disappointment
with
the decision of the nation's broadcast television networks to
air only three
hours of Democratic convention coverage, Kerry said, "I
share the
disappointment. We're a democracy, and the strength of our democracy
is in
the ability of citizens to be informed. If the major media are
unwilling to
inform -- and simply because there is not a clash or a conflict
or something
doesn't mean (a convention) is not informative -- I personally
think it's a
derogation of their responsibility (that goes with using) the
broadcast
airwaves."
In particular, Kerry said he was upset that the nation's commercial
broadcast networks -- including ABC, CBS and NBC -- decided not
to air any
coverage on the second night of the convention in Boston. That
was the night
when Illinois U.S. Senate candidate Barack Obama delivered a
much-praised
keynote address, Ron Reagan broke ranks with the Republican Party
to
criticize President Bush's limits on stem-cell research, and
Teresa Heinz
Kerry spoke about her husband.
"My wife gave a wonderful speech, Ronald Reagan, Barack
Obama, it was a
brilliant night," said Kerry. "I think it's very disappointing
that the
American people, at least the people who watch the networks,
missed it. I
talked to several of the anchors beforehand but, you know, that's
the way
they decided. Obviously, I disagreed."
Asked if he thought the decision of the networks to downplay
the coverage of
the convention sent a signal that told Americans not to take
what happened
in Boston seriously, Kerry said, "I don't know if its that
message or not. I
think most Americans are smart enough to understand (that it
does matter)."
But Teresa Heinz Kerry, who was seated next to her husband,
interrupted him
and said, "That is the message, I think. I agree that it
hurts."
Concerns about consolidated media, particularly consolidated
media that does
not see itself as having a responsibility to cover politics seriously
and to
question those in positions of authority, have been highlighted
in recent
documentaries such as Robert Greenwald's "Outfoxed,"
a critique of the
conservative bias of Rupert Murdoch and his Fox News programs,
and Michael
Moore's "Fahrenheit 9-11." Kerry has not yet seen "Fahrenheit
9-11," but he
described its success as "remarkable." And he made
it clear that he shares
the view of those who believe that media consolidation is a significant
issue in contemporary America.
If Kerry is elected president, he will be in a position to
influence the
media landscape. Encouraged by President Bush and lobbyists for
the major
networks, a Republican-dominated Federal Communications Commission
sought
last year to ease limits on media consolidation at the local
and national
levels. Kerry, who notes that he voted in the Senate to maintain
the
controls against consolidation, says he would set a different
course by
appointing FCC commissioners who are more sympathetic to diversity
of
ownership, competition and local control. Several days after
he sat down for
the interview that is recounted here, Kerry amplified the point
when he
promised a gathering of minority journalists that, "I will
appoint people to
the FCC, and I will pursue a policy, that tries to have as diverse
and broad
an ownership as possible."
Distinguishing himself from President Bush, Kerry says, "I'm
against the
ongoing push for media consolidation. It's contrary to the stronger
interests of the country." Diversity of media ownership
and content, the
candidate explains, "is critical to who we are as a free
people. It's
critical to our democracy."
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