Fellow Deanies. Cut the crap!!
I am sick and tired of my e-mail inbox being flooded with diatribes about how the media is out to get Dean - and how you are writing nasty retort after nasty retort. "Gotcha!"
I signed up for that list, because I wanted to help counter the "Gore Effect" - the lazy, bad reporting that leads to reporters repeating the same stupid negative "memes" without checking facts.
Instead, I get about 5% of that, and the rest of the time it's whining about how the press is biased, and obviously hates Howard, etc... When it's not true. The Sawyer interview was the last straw. This was gold for Howard, yet many Dean supporters think she was reading "Rove talking points."
Come on people -- I'm a journalist myself (not in politics) ... I happen to think I do a better job than most of what you see. So when I see lazy reporting, it angers me because it makes the rest of us look bad.
But a large majority of the time, people cry "foul" on the media when it's not really a foul. It's bad enough the conservatives do this -us folks don't have to do it too.
First of all, reporters are supposed to ask tough questions. ... But most importantly, what you HAVE TO remember, is that by asking a tough question -- so long as it's fair -- is GOOD for the interviewee. This allows the person to answer the question and remove the stigma, and reassure people, or correct a misconception.
Only when these statements are made by themselves, without giving the subject a chance to respond, does it become unfair. But if Diane Sawyer says "Are you Angry?" - That's good. That gives Dean a chance to respond.
I could give hundreds of examples. ... But I really think what a lot of Dean fans are doing is hurting the candidate. By constantly crying "foul" at everything, you become the boy who cried wolf. Journalists get annoyed at that stuff. It works against you. Trust me.
Everyone thinks the entity they support is being biased against. I wrote for the sports section for 10 years at a daily paper, and if I had a nickle for every time someone accused us of bias towards one team or another, I'd be retired. I'd say, "look, I'm not from around here - I don't care about ANY OF THEM - I'm just a reporter." And there were some supporters in particular that seemed over-sensitive. And it's only human nature of the reporters then to not look very favorably on those people. Which is not to say they're going to go out of their way to then actually do negative things to those people - but they certainly won't go out of their way to do positive things.
Bottom line .... I think the "anti-Gore effect" campaign is good ... but watch what you're doing. Think with a level head ... or you're hurting Dean far more than you're helping.
Thank you.