Media Critic: DNC Coverage More Hype Than Substance
by Chad Groening
August 3, 2004
(AgapePress) - A media watchdog organization says the low network ratings for last week's Democratic National Convention illustrates that people are tired of the relentless liberal partisanship of the mainstream media.The Washington, D.C.-based Media Research Center was not too surprised at the coverage of last week's convention. Spokesman Tim Graham says the coverage lived up to form, with mainstream media outlets offering more subservience than substance, and more color commentary than constructive content. That is why he says few people are watching.
"The numbers for TV news are down," Graham says, adding that a great many people simply "are tired of the relentless partisanship of the major networks -- the relentless liberalism."
The media expert says Kerry's acceptance speech was clearly an effort to ignore or distract from his Senate record over the past two decades. "He has a 20-year record of voting against tough national security," Graham says, "so why are we doing this 'Skip to My Lou' from 1967 or whenever, when he joined the Navy, and then we skip ahead to yesterday?"
Also, despite the Democrats' efforts for a "kinder" convention, Graham feels a fair amount of negative rhetoric crept in, and the nominee himself did not quite avoid going on the attack in his acceptance speech.
"It was a very 'booster-ish' week," the MRC spokesman says. "This convention tried very hard to not come across as too radical, too Bush-bashing. But the fact of the matter was, the platform is liberal, the candidates are liberal, the delegates are liberal. The speeches were liberal, and there was a fair amount of Bush-bashing, especially in Kerry's speech."
Graham notes that, during hours of positive coverage, the major news networks spent more time hyping liberal "rock stars" like the Clintons, Barack Obama and John Edwards than examining how the Democratic Party's liberal record runs counter to their suddenly centrist rhetoric. But if the media analyst found their reporting on the Democratic National Convention obsequious and fawning, he did not find it unexpected.
"I think it lives up to the usual pattern we see," Graham says, "where the news media sort of acts like publicists. They sort of talk a lot about style. They don't talk a lot about substance."
