Media Uses Double Standards in Covering Presidential Campaign

Recent media coverage of Democratic presidential contender John Kerry has often focused on alleged gaffes or misstatements, ranging from convoluted explanations of his Senate voting record to whether or not he owns a sports utility vehicle. But while these relatively trivial aspects of John Kerry's record have come under intense and prolonged media scrutiny, journalists have shown a reluctance to highlight much more significant falsehoods or "gaffes" by Kerry's main rival, George W. Bush.
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After Kerry pledged on NBC's "Meet the Press" to release medical records from his service in Vietnam, "ABC World News Tonight" (4/21/04) reported that Kerry's service "has become the subject of controversy" because some of his critics were raising doubts about his first Purple Heart. When the medical records did little to bolster their case, the press corps switched to another GOP spin point: Kerry didn't get the records out fast enough. ABC's report included a soundbite from Republican National Committee Chair Ed Gillespie: "When President Bush committed to release all his military records on the same program, he kept his word. John Kerry should do the same." The fact that Bush took five days after his "Meet the Press" appearance to get his full records out while Kerry took three did not deter media outlets from doing stories on this nonexistent issue.
While the press corps applies microscopic scrutiny to Kerry's statements, looking for evidence of misstatements or "flip-flops," Bush gets little criticism for making blatantly false assertions. Last July (7/14/03), Bush revised the history of the run-up to the Iraq war, claiming that Saddam Hussein refused to allow weapons inspectors into Iraq in late 2002: "Did Saddam Hussein have a weapons program? And the answer is absolutely. And we gave him a chance to allow the inspectors in, and he wouldn't let them in." Of course, Iraq did allow UN weapons inspectors into the country in November 2002; they were withdrawn when war was imminent in March 2003.
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Bush's record is full of similar untrue statements: His claim that Enron's Ken Lay supported Bush's opponent in his 1994 gubernatorial race, when Lay actually contributed three times as much to Bush ("ABC World News Tonight," 1/10/02); his insistence that the White House was not responsible for the "Mission Accomplished" banner on the U.S.S. Lincoln (New York Times, 10/29/03); his statement that in 2002 the economy "was pulling out of a recession that began before I took office" (when it actually started in March 2001--"Slate," 12/30/02); his assertion in a 2000 debate that in his tax cut plan, "by far the vast majority of the help goes to the people at the bottom end of the economic ladder," when the bottom 50 percent really got roughly 10 percent of the benefits (Extra!, 1-2/01); his boast that "I've been to war" (Associated Press, 1/27/02)--to list just a few.
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http://baltimorechronicle.com/052004Media.shtml

my god...........it is so dispiriting to see this. I really want to scream. Not enough brave people in the world of journalism any longer.

and is the primary reason that I left journalism. You are simply not allowed to tell the truth. Journalism professors will preach long and hard about objectivity -- but what they really mean is 'objectivity', as seen through the dulling filter of the status quo or current editorial policy.

Journalists who do not ask the important questions, and who do not write the truth are not journalists at all, but really nothing more than a PR device for the powers that be.

Bush did NOT release all of his service records -- only his dental visits.
Don't let them get away with it -- BUSH DID NOT RELEASE ALL HIS RECORDS -- he still is hiding information about his "service" in the Guard, and our lazy-ass, incompetent, complacent and corrupt media is allowing him to get away with it AGAIN.

Politics is 50% money
50% propoganda
and 50% lies.