September 4
(On the plane from Salt Lake City to Atlanta).
In the last sixty days of what could be a close presidential race, with media coverage of a candidate’s campaign crucial to garnering undecided votes or motivating constituencies to visit the voting booths, I am surprised America’s presidential hopefuls don’t pander to media sources like dogs pleading to kids holding hamburgers. But either the Bush and Kerry campaigns haven’t begun to cater to news networks yet or they’re doing it without my knowing.
In the jumble of issues that lie on the table for this November’s election – war in Iraq, a languid economy, gay rights, employment, arms buildup in North Korea – where is the First Amendment? Neither candidate has mentioned it. Have we already forgotten the radical role of journalists in the march on Baghdad – journalists embedded in military units as though they were medical personnel? Have we – and have the candidates – already forgotten the awesome power of the news media and the messages they disseminate?
News networks can be interest groups, just like oil companies or environmental societies. They just desire different things. The United States presses have never had absolute freedom, despite their best efforts and despite the wording of the Constitution. Those who would take expression and set it in print have fought for centuries to expand that freedom. They have battled the Alien and Sedition Acts, suits for libel, complaints about the invasion of privacy, restrictions set on their methods of investigation, bureaucrats who sought to silence them in the interest of national security. Advocates of the free press have not always been justified in their claims – at least according to the Supreme Court, which has sometimes ruled with them and sometimes against them – but we can recognize that, right or wrong, the American press has consistently sought to escape restrictions on its freedom.
Why don’t today’s candidates take advantage of that effort? Why isn’t Bush promising CNN even better seats on America’s next invasion? Why isn’t Kerry lambasting the Bush administration for not granting more press passes to American POW camps? Don’t get me wrong here – I’m not saying that candidates wooing the press with assurances of greater future freedoms would be desirable – but I am surprised it hasn’t happened yet.
Or maybe we just don’t know about it.
I also think Senator Kerry should:
1) Figure out exactly what President Bush has done to aid hurricane relief in Florida, and then “call for” more.
2) Spend some of his advertising money buying plywood and shipping it to West Palm Beach – if he can get away with it under campaign finance laws.
3) Go down there and pitch sandbags for a day.
In the last sixty days of what could be a close presidential race, with media coverage of a candidate’s campaign crucial to garnering undecided votes or motivating constituencies to visit the voting booths, I am surprised America’s presidential hopefuls don’t pander to media sources like dogs pleading to kids holding hamburgers. But either the Bush and Kerry campaigns haven’t begun to cater to news networks yet or they’re doing it without my knowing.
In the jumble of issues that lie on the table for this November’s election – war in Iraq, a languid economy, gay rights, employment, arms buildup in North Korea – where is the First Amendment? Neither candidate has mentioned it. Have we already forgotten the radical role of journalists in the march on Baghdad – journalists embedded in military units as though they were medical personnel? Have we – and have the candidates – already forgotten the awesome power of the news media and the messages they disseminate?
News networks can be interest groups, just like oil companies or environmental societies. They just desire different things. The United States presses have never had absolute freedom, despite their best efforts and despite the wording of the Constitution. Those who would take expression and set it in print have fought for centuries to expand that freedom. They have battled the Alien and Sedition Acts, suits for libel, complaints about the invasion of privacy, restrictions set on their methods of investigation, bureaucrats who sought to silence them in the interest of national security. Advocates of the free press have not always been justified in their claims – at least according to the Supreme Court, which has sometimes ruled with them and sometimes against them – but we can recognize that, right or wrong, the American press has consistently sought to escape restrictions on its freedom.
Why don’t today’s candidates take advantage of that effort? Why isn’t Bush promising CNN even better seats on America’s next invasion? Why isn’t Kerry lambasting the Bush administration for not granting more press passes to American POW camps? Don’t get me wrong here – I’m not saying that candidates wooing the press with assurances of greater future freedoms would be desirable – but I am surprised it hasn’t happened yet.
Or maybe we just don’t know about it.
I also think Senator Kerry should:
1) Figure out exactly what President Bush has done to aid hurricane relief in Florida, and then “call for” more.
2) Spend some of his advertising money buying plywood and shipping it to West Palm Beach – if he can get away with it under campaign finance laws.
3) Go down there and pitch sandbags for a day.
posted by Jeb Butler at 10:35 AM
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