LAST WEDNESDAY, veteran journalist Michael Barone came to speak at the University as part of the National Symposium on Youth Civic Engagement. Barone is a U.S. News & World Report columnist, Fox News Contributor and author of the widely acclaimed political reference, the Almanac of American Politics.
One of the many topics he touched upon was the so-called Old Media vs. New Media phenomenon, essentially a response to the long-standing institutional bias of the mainstream press. Barone was just literally a few hours ahead of his time; his allegations of medias bias were proven right, once again, by the surfacing of supposedly authentic newly discovered National Guard records of President Bush.
Barone identified the Old Media as liberal institutions such as The New York Times and the "Big Three" broadcast networks, claiming that Democrats outnumber Republicans in the establishment media about 12 to 1. The proliferation of the New Media, spawned in part by the void left by the Old Media, encompasses cable television, talk radio and the blogosphere, which Barone portrays as not completely dominated by either ideology.
Barone contended that the Old Media, in a crusade against President Bush, wanted to ignore the Swift Boat Veterans' allegations for as long as possible, but eventually was forced to at least mention them in reports due to the New Media's coverage. The Swift Boat Veterans aired their first television ad on Aug. 4, and the book "Unfit for Command," authored by Swift Boat Veteran co-founder John O'Neill, was released to the public on Aug. 15. The New Media began to report on the Swift Boat Veterans' ad and book at this time. Finally, on Aug. 19, when Kerry responded, the Old Media started paying attention.
Barone surmised that the Old Media covered significantly less of the Swift Boat Veteran attacks on Kerry than controversy over Bush's National Guard service. The Media Research Center tallied up the number of news stories, and before Aug. 19, the Swift Boat Veterans were featured nine times in all of the network news broadcasts, while 75 stories covered Bush's National Guard records.
While the mainstream press (e.g. The New York Times) labels the Swift Boat Veterans' accusations as "unsubstantiated," CBS News, another member of the Old Media who first reported on Bush's new National Guard documents on "60 Minutes," failed to even consider the blatant discrepancies, both physical and circumstantial, of the Bush National Guard documents.
According to several typography experts, the documents are most likely not genuine considering the technology available at the time. Numerous minuscule details, unrecognizable to the untrained eye, cast doubt on the documents' validity, such as the superscript of the "th" of the 111th Fighter Interceptor Squadron, Bush's unit, the font and the letter spacing. However, if one were to type up the documents on Microsoft Word and hold up the 1970s documents to the light, they match up pretty well (this was done by several New Media outlets, including Fox News and some blogs.)
One of CBS's two main witnesses they interviewed and staked as their evidence for authenticity, retired National Guard Maj. Gen. Bobby W. Hodges, was confronted with the actual documents. He consequently changed his story and felt he was "misled" by CBS, only being read excerpts from the documents over the phone.
While some of the Old Media did report on the documents and the possibility of fraud, many Democrats and news outlets have speculated that the documents reveal Bush dodged a medical examination to avoid being caught for drinking or experimenting with drugs while in the National Guard. Sen. Tom Harkin, D-Iowa, charged, "We know that George Bush did not take his physical when he was ordered to do so. And that raises all kinds of questions about why didn't he take his physical at that time."
Retired Col. Bill Campenni, who served with Bush in Texas, explained in a recent Fox News interview, "The whole purpose of a physical in that era was to see if you were a healthy pilot... So we did do a urinalysis testing. We did blood testing... The formal Air Force drug-testing program... I believe began in 1981... at this time interval, in 1972, '73, the drug testing would have been command directed."
This information is easily accessible to journalists if they search for it. Instead, rampant gossip is being disseminated without thoroughly investigating whether this charge of alcohol or drug abuse could have conceivably been an excuse to avoid the medical test.
This is just one documented example of the tilt of the mainstream press. When specific allegations relating to Kerry's service emerges, the coverage is scant until the story is already old news in the New Media, but as soon as the shoe is on the other foot, and Bush's military service is probed, the press pounces on it like a cat would a canary.
Whitney Blake is a Cavalier Daily associate editor. She can be reached at wblake@cavalierdaily.com.
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