STUMP: media and politics

A Visit to Ground Zero

By Karen Brown Dunlap

Memories of Sept. 11, 2001 linger in the Republican National Convention, as speaker after speaker refers to the World Trade Center disaster. President George W. Bush visited New York firefighters last night again evoking memories of 9/11, but at Ground Zero, few voices speak out.

Visitors quietly click photos behind links of a high metal fence. Sounds rise from far below. Metal tools scrape concrete as reconstruction of the site continues. Truck motors rev, and a subway clatters beneath.

Ground Zero would look like any other huge construction dig were it not for oversized placards with pictures hung around the site tracing the WTC creation and destruction; were it not for four or five high rise buildings surrounding it still in need of major repairs on their upper levels.

Little things evoke memories. Next to the site a fire truck, bearing names of firemen who died on Sept. 11, backs into Engine Company # 10. A bronze plaque on the station bears their images. A businessman breaks into a trot as he crosses the street leaving the WTC area. Suddenly I see a familiar photo of 911 of a businessman running away from a crashing building surrounded by dust clouds and smoke.

About 15 protestors wave signs and pass out flyers this Wednesday morning in New York, but even they are quiet. A gray-haired woman raises her voice to say, “It’s not about politics,“ to reporters who nearly outnumber protestors. Some of the protestors display pictures of loved-ones who died on Sept. 11, 2001. They want “ashen remains” dug out and properly buried at a WTC memorial.

Police talk in small groups in front of the site. At one point a helicopter hovers above, pausing so long that people look up. Earlier this day, another, bigger demonstration stretched nearly three miles through city streets. It was also a quiet affair with demonstrators holding up pink slips to signify lost jobs in the current economy.

Across the street from Ground Zero at Church Street and Fulton, tourists wander through the graveyard at St. Paul’s Chapel. The graves go back to at least the 1700s, but the area also serves as a memorial to 9/11. One exhibit in the church bears the shoulder patches of rescue divisions active in the aftermath. Another displays teddy bears left at the site.

New York faced a busy day on this Wednesday. The Yankees played at home in the Bronx, the U.S. Open continued at Flushing in Queens, President Bush spoke to firemen in Queens and the Republican National Convention continued in midtown with a tangle of delegates, security officials, pedestrians, and traffic. Compared to that, the sound in lower Manhattan, at Ground Zero, was nearly silence.

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Did He Really Say That?

Rudy Giuliani offered up lots of 9/11 stories to the RNC in his Monday night speech, but perhaps none as attention-grabbing as this:

"...as we stood on the pavement watching a cloud come through the cavernous streets of lower Manhattan... I grabbed the arm of then Police Commissioner Bernard Kerik and I said to him, 'Bernie, thank God George Bush is our President.'”

The camera quickly panned to Kerik in the convention hall, whose appreciative expression could have been interpreted a number of ways. Perhaps a recognition of a shared recollection? Perhaps an acknowledgement of strategic invention by his former boss?

How would we ever know?

The New York Times' Kevin Flynn pursues the question on behalf of skeptics everywhere.

Especially in an age when battling campaigns are pouncing on each other's rhetoric (Flynn reports that Democratic Party officials were also asking questions), this piece is a great example of a critical media function: the indepenent checker of the record.

Question: Did anybody apply similar scrutiny to Vanessa Kerry's story about her dad rescuing Licorice the Hamster?

Here's an entertaining (fictional) riff by Newsweek satirist Andy Borowitz. Not to make too much of old quotes and soggy hamsters, but still wondering if anybody checked biographies, old friends, etc. to see if they'd ever heard the tale before.

Words on the Final Speech

By Karen Dunlap

As the balloons fell and fell and fell, journalists turned their attention to analyzing John Kerry's speech. Post-speech commenting is a fine tradition, dating back to well before the printing press. The earliest public cave grunter probably heard immediate comments on the quality of the grunt, the motives of the speaker, and the way the grunt would be received by others.

So here's my take on the commentary, which fell into four categories, descending in value.

The Word and Truth. ­This quickly compares the speech to known truths. Were the facts right? Did the shadings match reality? Were the comments in line with the speaker's past actions? The Wall Street Journal approached this today in the article, "Kerry's Deficit-Cutting Math May Not Add Up." Problem is, it's about earlier comments, not last night's speech. This type of analysis takes research, skill, and good planning.

Rhetorical Analysis. ­Jeff Greenfield gave an interesting post-speech riff on CNN about the roots of phrases within the Kerry speech. He noted word plays on phrases used earlier by Ronald Reagan and George Bush. That gave some sense of the ongoing themes in public debate, and might say something about how Kerry and his speech coaches think.

He was/was not himself. ­Reporters who have observed Kerry over time were in a good position to compare this speech to the norm. The Boston news media was at the head the pack. It helps to know if the speaker (zebra, elephant) is changing stripes, or was having an unusually good or bad performance, and suggests what we should expect as the norm.

The speech vs. expectations.­ Here's where most analyses land. Was the speech better than expected or less than expected? These comments are formed quickly, they are almost totally subjective, and of little value.

What's In This for Young Voters?

By Karen Dunlap

I watched Cate Edwards introduce her mother, Elizabeth Edwards, last night and wondered, "What do young people see when they watch the Democratic Convention?" The previous night Chris Heinz introduced his mother, Teresa Heinz Kerry. He's called "hunky" and listed as one of the nation's hottest bachelors. Tonight John Kerry's daughters will be on stage. These good-looking, polite, and well-scrubbed young people should appeal to... parents.

But what do young people see in all this?

Podium time often goes to veteran politicians who are older. Major reporting assignments often go to the most veteran journalists and they are older. Nothing wrong with that, but I wonder how it looks to young people.

Perhaps a better question is: Are young people watching the convention? According to Al's Morning Meeting (http://www.poynter.org/column.asp?id=2&aid=69131) several states struggle to rouse a turnout percentage in two digits among voters under age 25.

So what are they thinking?

I contacted a small group of under 30, college educated men and women at a fine school in south Florida (ours). Most said they didn't have time for the convention. They're occupied with family, school, work, and survival tasks like cleaning and shopping.

Here are a few comments.

Elizabeth Carr said:

The coverage is boring and too scripted. I want to know what the public thinks, not these old senators.

I come from a family that has always watched political events, but even my family is bored. Maybe the public has just had so much hoopla before the convention that we're -- or I'm -- conventioned out already.

Robin Sloan said:

I am paying attention, but barely.

I watched the first night but missed the second two. I had a vague sense of what was happening -- Barack Obama on Tuesday, John Edwards last night -- but managed to miss it both nights 'cause I was busy doing other things.

I watched PBS on Monday night. I've been reading nytimes.com updates this week, and I clicked over to CSPAN.org to download a video of Barack Obama's speech during the day yesterday.

When I did watch, on Monday, it was strictly in the background; I had the TV on while I cleaned stuff up around my apartment, went online, etc. I did sit down for Bill Clinton's speech.

I appreciate C-SPAN's coverage -- especially the online video archive -- the most. It's cool to just be able to download a single speech & watch it, with no commentary.

And one young voter went into greater detail.

Matt Thompson said:

I've been watching bits and pieces of the convention itself, all on CSPAN.org. The only pieces of it I watched live were the Clintons' Monday night speeches. For coverage of it, I've been skimming pretty quickly over the major papers and blogs (and the L.A. Times' blog watch is my favorite place to look to keep track of those), but I keep coming back to Slate for some good punditry, and The American Prospect, which has been doing some great convention blogging AND coverage of the coverage.

In general, the convention is a show, and often a darn good one (Patti LaBelle!). It's millions of dollars spent trying to make politics as exciting and entertaining as possible. We spend so much time and energy the rest of the year trying to do the same thing that I don't know why we can't just sit back and let them do the work two times every four years. Which isn't, of course, to say there's not a place for the media to add context to the claims and strategies presented. This is the Democrats attempting to tell a story, and the press gets to provide the DVD commentary.

Most of the mainstream media coverage I've seen has been from the print media, and it hasn't heartened me. Today's NYT top story? A news analysis by Adam Nagourney, headlined "Obstacles await Kerry after convention concludes." Enlightening. If this article were on Slate, it would be a bulleted list, it would have a lighthearted voice, it would be tagged as an "Explainer" column, it would be headlined, "What's Ahead for Kerry?" and I might actually make it to the bottom.

The Key to Fair and Balanced: The Remote

By Bill Mitchell

Channel surfing to find a cable station that would show the speeches without interruption Tuesday night, I settled on MSNBC.

After the Heinz Kerry speech, I was struck at how positive the analysis was from Chris Matthews and panelists Willie Brown, the former San Francisco mayor, NBC correspondent Andrea Mitchell, and Newsweek correspondent Howard Fineman. It was the fourth member of the panel, former Congressman Joe Scarborough, who raised significant questions about how her speech would be received by Americans outside the hall – especially those Americans of more modest means. He also said he believed many women would not resonate with her remarks, a comment dismissed by Mitchell as an indication of “the gender gap.” Scarborough shot back: “The culture gap.”

OK, so by the time the panel got going and everybody had their say, I felt as if I was getting some interesting diversity of views, if not exactly balance.

Then I switched to Fox and was struck by how negative the analysis was from Host Brit Hume and panelists Mort Kondrake, who is executive editor of Roll Call, Weekly Standard Editor Bill Kristol, and Fred Barnes, who is the Standard’s executive editor. It fell to NPR National Political correspondent Mara Liasson to suggest Heinz Kerry might have connected with women around the country a bit more than her panelists realized. All and all, a reversed image of the MSNBC panel.

The discussion on both panels was noticeably improved by the lone dissenting voice. Neither panel provided as much balance – or insight – as I was looking for after that speech. Together, thanks to the remote in my hotel room, they did.

A Speech Reflecting The Job

By Larry Larsen

Obama's speech was a good example of what I've been talking about in our morning meetings at Poynter. The main job of the President or even a presidential candidate is not to push for laws and trash the other party, but to inspire people to be better citizens. Watch video from the speech and read a transcript via The New York Times.

The story here, as I see it, is that the wrong person is accepting the nomination tomorrow. I hope in the next election the media digs deep enough to get past the two or three people the DNC/RNC try to push to the top, and find the good people of modest upbringing to inspire the country to be
better, even if that means (gasp) a third party candidate.

As for pictures, I really like the wide shots and over-the-shoulder shots. This is about the people and to use a picture framing a single person talking at a podium is vastly missing the point.

Night Two: Reviewing the Coverage

By Karen Dunlap

The Power of the Lens

One angle shows a huge audience paying rapt attention to a speaker. Other angles capture walkers in the aisles, security officials glaring out from below the podium, a bag being passed across seats, a delegate in mid-yawn, a section of seating that’s nearly empty. So what’s the truth? What about the enthusiastic young lady during Heinz Kerry’s speech. Does she represent many present? Or does the man who seems bored? Sometimes it’s all true. Reality for most of us comes from the photojournalists and producers who capture the whole and who make fair decisions in framing the convention.

Whose Picture Made it Above the Fold?

After a night of speakers including Ron Reagan, Barack Obama and Teresa Heinz Kerry, one commentator asked, “But who will be above the fold tomorrow?” The answer seems to be a tie between Heinz Kerry and Obama, with something else altogether as the winner. Online pages seem more likely to have speakers in the lower page, if at all.

So what does that mean? Does having a picture above the fold during a political convention mean that was the most effective speaker, the most photogenic speaker, the best photo, the picture that came in at the best time, the one most likely to sell copies or something else? Interesting concept. Mixed results.

Take a look at the Newseum's collection of 250 front pages from today's editions published around the world.

A True Measure of Success

A reporter told Barack Obama that she had heard many compliments on his speech. His response? “I’m most proud that I stayed within my time limit.” The pace is king of the convention and the coverage .

But Does He Even Play Golf?

Speaking of framing and Obama, commentators found a few challenges in framing the Obama speech. There was more than one reference to Obama as “a Tiger Woods.” Hmmnn. Tiger Woods? Bi-racial, slender, rocketed to success at an early age. Why not “a Derek Jeter?” Or another framing. Why not, “a John Kennedy?” A young, Harvard graduate who enters politics and captures the imagination of a political convention at an early age. The problem with framing Obama as a Tiger Woods is that it leads with race instead of Obama’s achievements.

Then there was his name. He called himself,”a skinny kid with a funny name.”
Most commentators nailed the pronunciation as: Ba-rock. Some drifted to bare-ruk Obama. In an age of Osama, we can be grateful that no one called him Barack thebomber.

The Courage to be Quiet

By Larry Larsen

Karen's piece (below) reminded me of something Al Tompkins wrote in Al's Morning Meeting after the death of former President Reagan:

The Courage to be Quiet - The Power of Silence/Sound

I wanted to say a word about the need for commentators on TV and radio to just be quiet during these days of coverage of the former President's funeral.

Wednesday, MSNBC, while showing the casket being loaded onto a plane heading for California, allowed several minutes to pass without any anchors saying a word. It was marvelous. It allowed me, as a viewer, to experience the moment, not be "reported to."

Local stations, in their coverage of the ceremonies, should also consider building in quiet coverage, especially Friday.

Let us hear the clopping of the horse hooves, let us hear the drums banging, let us hear the cannons fire.

Technology Marches On, Sort Of

By Bill Mitchell

Jimmy Breslin, the Newsday columnist who's been writing a column for various New York papers since 1962, brought a cell phone to Boston, where he's writing about the convention. He says his wife made him bring along the phone, but he says he has no idea what the number is.

Walter Mears, the retired Associated Press correspondent who covered presidential campaigns for 46 years, is in Boston producing a weblog for the AP.

My colleague, Steve Outing, wrote about the AP's plans last month in Poynter's E-Media Tidbits column. Mears met with a group of webloggers who have been granted credentials to cover the convention, but he confessed he had no idea how to find his blog online.

I can't find it either. Somebody please send a link if you discover it anywhere.