Attention Associated Press: Democrats Are the Opposition, Not Republicans

by Chris Bowers, Mon Sep 18, 2006 at 01:10:21 PM EDT

At first, I thought I would just sit back and enjoy the media coverage of the Republican "civil war" over whether or not we should torture people. It has been the #1 story on the US section of Google News for a while now, and I was enjoying the "Republicans Are Divided" narrative as a nice break from the nearly omni-temporal "Democrats Are Divided" narrative. However, I am growing increasingly irritated over the amount of coverage given to this story, since focusing on the opposition to this new legislation from a "Republican Civil War" perspective has left out some salient facts:

1. The vast majority of the opposition to Bush's policies in this, and other areas of national security, are Democrats. Sure, there may be three Republicans opposing it. Good for them. However, there are forty Democrats opposing it. If Democrats were not nearly unanimously opposed to it, this "Republican Civil War" wouldn't matter. Democrats are the primary reason this bill is headed to defeat, not Republicans. You couldn't tell that from that way this story is being reported.
2. It robs Democrats of equal time. Today, Democrats held a pres conference on Iraq war profiteering. While over Google News shows over 100 articles from the AP's Nedra Pickler on the "Republican Civil War" today, the only six non-blog articles that even mention Democrats are investigating Iraq war profiteering do so at the very end of a longish article about the arrest of a single woman accused of Iraq war profiteering.

Now, both the article on the torture bill and the article on the investigations into war profiteering were written by the AP. The AP can't make news outlets run all of their press releases in equal numbers, but they can give Democrats equal time in their press releases. In the article on torture policy, not a single Democrat is even mentioned in the article, much less quoted. Even though Democrats form over 90% of the opposition to Bush on this, Pickler makes it seem as though all of the opposition to Bush is coming from three Republicans: In fact, every single person mentioned and quoted in the article is a Republican. I guess this is because Democrats don't exist. I wonder how serious Pcikler thinks the opposition to this legislation would be if the only Republican Senators were allowed to vote on the bill. The three Republicans in opposition at that wouldn't mean diddly-squat.

In the article about war profiteering, Democrats are mentioned once, in the final, fifteenth paragraph of the article:The broader issue of contracting abuses in Iraq was the subject of a meeting to be conducted Monday by U.S. Sen. Byron Dorgan, a Democrat from North Dakota and chairman of the Senate Democratic Policy Committee, a party organization. In the midst of an election season, that is the equal time Democrats get from the AP? That just is not fair. We form the vast majority of the opposition to a piece of legislation, and the AP never quotes a single Democrat, instead portraying Republicans as the opposition to Bush .I'm sure it isn't a coincidence that Republicans around the country are doing everything they can to distance themselves from Bush and try to make themselves look Independent after six years of rubberstamping Bush administration polices. The AP is handing Republicans their desired storyline for this election on a silver platter, and ignoring Democrats altogether.

Democrats deserve equal time in these AP articles, and I am not talking about a token quote here or there. Since four Republicans were quoted in the article on torture legislation, since we form the vast majority of the opposition to the legislation, an equal number of Democrats should be quoted as well. When there is an article about war profiteering, it shouldn't take until the 15th and final paragraph to mention that Democrats are conducting hearings and investigations into these abuses. And at least one Democrat should be quoted when this happens.

This is outrageous. This is a campaign season and media outlets such as the AP are pretending that Democrats not exist as they spin narratives on Republicans supposedly standing up to Bush (yeah, all three of them, and only on this one issue). Republican Noise Machine indeed. Contact the AP at 1-212-621-1500, and politely tell them both how Democrats were ignored in these two article, and that they need to start giving Democrats equal time in their wire releases.

Tags: Activism, Democrats, Media, Republicans (all tags)

Comments

6 Comments

Sort by

permalink

Re: Attention AP: Democrats Are the Opposition

I noticed exactly the same thing the other day Chris. To read the papers you'd think that opposition to torture has been coming from Republicans all along when in fact Democrats have been opposing Bush and the rest of the Republican Party on this from the beginning.

John McCain himself had a chance early on in the torture debate to be heard during the confirmation hearings for Alberto Gonzales. Instead of voting against one of the legal architects of the Republican's torture movement, McCain voted for his confirmation and didn't have much to say at all on the subject of torture. Only later has he and a small number of other Republicans come to admit that torture might not be in the best interests of the United States. Although sadly not unanimously, a large proportion of Democrats have been loudly objecting to the Administration's embrace of torture from the moment the reports of abuse started being heard.

Where was the AP back then? In reporting the Alberto Gonzales confirmation hearings in which Democratic Senator Edward Kennedy and others gave impassioned speeches condemning the Administration policy the AP managed to not even mention the word torture in their reports of the hearings. The AP has been appeasing the Bush Administration without fail so it is no surprise to see this latest example of coverage favorable to the Republicans.

by Curt Matlock 2006-09-18 03:06PM | 0 recs

permalink

Re: Attention AP Democrats Are the Opposition

What came across as the same concern for the three (male) Republican senators opposing Bush's torture bill was what I took away from SusanUnPC's post at NO QUARTER today. Heck, from the reading I did over the weekend, there's plenty of suggestion that the objections are not strong enough.

Also, Sen Graham, who can really back up his statements based on prior experience as a JAG, is prominently labeled a first-term senator, as if that is some bad mark against his knowledge.

by Books Alive 2006-09-18 03:47PM | 0 recs

permalink

Keep going

"Since four Republicans were quoted in the article on torture legislation, since we form the vast majority of the opposition to the legislation, an equal number of Democrats should be quoted as well."

Equal number, my ass. We're 90% of the opposition - give us 90% of the coverage. Otherwise it's just more bullshit "balance" subbing for objectivity. Great post, but you don't push far enough.

by McSnatherson 2006-09-18 04:01PM | 0 recs

permalink

It's a classic media narrative

It's a version of the old saying Give a man a fish, you feed him for a day; teach him to fish, you feed him for a lifetime.

Journos are (like the rest of us) disinclined to do more work than necessary. Hence their love for the narrative.

Brer Somerby goes on ad nauseam (but not without reason) about the way the MSM nailed his chum Al Gore with the fabulism charge. Week in, week out.

Anything that could be fitted into the schema of Gore being boastful or overinventive was grist to the mill.

With Kerry, it was the effete, intellectual, French crap. Be it cheesesteaks with Swiss cheese, windsurfing - it was strictly no assembly required.

With McCain, it's the maverick thing. Forget the vast majority of votes that he votes with his party: the fantasy of a free-thinking independent-minded guy in the Senate, almost non-partisan, above the sordid business of logrolling and taking in shed-loads of cash is just too powerful to allow the facts to get in the way.

It's a political journo's wet-dream.

Plus bonus points if the old guy is prez in 09.

And think of the readers - most of them lap up the ostensible (not the actual) moral of Mr Smith Goes To Washington that a good plain man can triumph over the (necessarily) corrupt System.

With the Dems, there's no equivalent cachet. The guys who don't toe the party line, in general, are moderates.

Feingold could qualify as for maverick status, except so many fewer readers will have heard of him.

by skeptic06 2006-09-18 06:26PM | 0 recs

permalink

Pah-lease

Dont be melodramatic Chris. The Democratic party is the other party, not the opposition party. There's a difference.

by Winston Smith 2006-09-19 12:50AM | 0 recs

permalink

Re: Attention Associated Press: Democrats Are the

Actually I think the fact that it's the GOP that's getting all the attention of being opposed to Bush's torture policy is an example of how the Rove plan is backfiring on the administration. I think their plan was to push Dems into a corner and then be able to paint the Dems as soft on Terror.

But the reality is that even the presidents own party realizes that the American people are against this. I say let the Republican civil war have all the attention.

by carrieboberry 2006-09-19 06:53AM | 0 recs