Even before John Kerry used his Vietnam record to vault to victory in the Iowa Democratic caucuses, the national media frequently touted the Massachusetts liberal as a decorated, thrice-wounded war hero. But apart from interviewing the small group of Vietnam veterans who have campaigned with Kerry over the last two decades, national reporters did not seek out others to confirm or challenge the tales of Kerry’s valor and heroism.
Then in May, a group of more than 250 Vietnam veterans — including Kerry’s superior officers and many who served with him when he was a Swift Boat commander — launched a public challenge to Kerry’s version of Vietnam. At a press conference, they charged Kerry had greatly embellished his military record and betrayed his fellow Swift Boat veterans when he went before the Senate to make sweeping charges of American war crimes in Vietnam. Based on this record, Swift Boat Veterans for Truth declared Kerry “unfit” to serve as Commander-in-Chief.
Yet the national media still offered little scrutiny of
either Kerry’s service or his anti-war rhetoric. Not until Kerry
himself attacked the credibility and integrity of his fellow veterans,
however, did the liberal media jump on the story. But most of their
scrutiny was reserved for the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, not the
candidate seeking the highest office in the land.
Highlights
Peter and Dan Raise Fairness of Swift Boat Ads with Mrs. Bush
Laura Bush was hit on the swift boat ads by both ABC's Peter Jennings
and CBS's Dan Rather during a round of interviews on the last night of
the Republican convention. Rather threatened the resurrection of Bush's
service record: "Now that friends and supporters of the President have
raised the issue of John Kerry's combat record in Vietnam, do you or do
you not think it's fair now for the Kerry people to come back and dig
anew into your husband's military service record?"
(CyberAlert Morning Edition, September 3, 2004 [1])
Aghast Over Purple Heart Band-Aids Mocking Kerry
On the first night of the Republican convention, CNN reporters, and
George Stephanopoulos on the limited distribution ABC News Now channel,
acted aghast over how some delegates wore band-aids displaying a heart
shape in the color purple, meant to make light of John Kerry earning
purple hearts in Vietnam for superficial wounds.
(CyberAlert Morning Edition, August 31, 2004 [2])
Mainstream Media Hostility Documented
The September 6 Weekly Standard
magazine recounted how the mainstream media were forced to cover a
story they hated after the "new media" -- of bloggers, talk radio and
the Fox News Channel -- forced them into covering the swift boat
charges, even if to only concentrate on John McCain's criticism and to
push Republicans to condemn the ads.
(CyberAlert Morning Edition, August 31, 2004 [3])
Networks Hype Kerry Defenders, Hide Kerry Critics
The Saturday, August 22 CBS Evening News could not wait to tell viewers how the next morning’s Chicago Tribune
included a first-person account by a former swift boat commander,
William Rood, defending Kerry’s account of how he won the Silver Star.
But the next Friday, August 27, when the Chicago Sun-Times
interviewed retired Rear Admiral William Schachte, who challenged
another part of Kerry’s story (the first Purple Heart), CBS failed to
utter a single word about it.
(CyberAlert Morning Edition, August 30, 2004 [4])
Networks Reward a Democratic Stunt
On August 25, ABC, CBS and NBC all rewarded the the Kerry campaign's
stunt of sending former Senator Max Cleland to Crawford, Texas to
protest the Swift Vets' anti-Kerry ads. Perpetuating a Democratic myth,
NBC's Tom Brokaw claimed that Cleland "lost his Senate seat after an ad
campaign questioning his patriotism." CBS's John Roberts was even more
ludicrous, asserting that Cleland's "Vietnam record was attacked by
Republicans two years ago" in that losing Senate race. Meanwhile, the
Associated Press and CNN hyped the idea that Kerry accuser John O’Neill
himself “lied” about being in Cambodia.
(CyberAlert, August 26, 2004 [5])
NBC's Myers Outlines Anti-Kerry Case
On August 24, NBC Nightly News
finally got around to actually detailing the recollections of a member
of Swift Boat Veterans for Truth as Lisa Myers compared the claims of
Larry Thurlow to those of Kerry-backers. Myers even pointed out how in
one of the medal instances "there also are inconsistencies in Kerry's
version of events." But on CBS's Early Show, Harry Smith
interrupted Swift Vote spokesman John O'Neill with protests ("hang on a
second...no, no, no, you listen for a second").
(CyberAlert, August 25, 2004 [6])
Networks Dissatisfied with Bush, Not Kerry
Aligning themselves with the Kerry campaign spin line, ABC and NBC on
August 23 were dissatisfied that President Bush condemned all 527
groups, not just the one they detest. "President Bush today condemned
the ads," ABC anchor Charles Gibson noted before he fretted, "but he
only condemned the way such ads are financed, paid for by independent
groups. He avoids condemning the specific content of the ads, and that
infuriates Democrats." Over on CNN, Aaron Brown helpfully concluded
that "the available official record is unambiguous: John Kerry was a
war hero."
(CyberAlert, August 24, 2004 [7])
Bob Schieffer's Double Standard
On CBS's Face the Nation
on August 22, host Bob Schieffer empathized with John Kerry's daughters
(what is it like to be out there when you hear these attacks on your
dad?) as he asked Republican officials why President Bush would not
"condemn this ad specifically." But in February when Democrats
baselessly charged Bush with being AWOL, Schieffer waded into the
details: "Was the President not at these Guard meetings? Is there
actual proof of that?"
(CyberAlert, August 23, 2004 [8])
TV Focuses on Kerry's Spin, Not Kerry's History
John Kerry’s Vietnam history might seem central to the campaign, but an
MRC review found that ABC, CBS and NBC morning shows did not bring
aboard a single member of Swift Boat Veterans for Truth (SBVT) for an
on-air interview until Tuesday, August 24. Up to that point, the
network morning shows focused not on scrutinizing the contradictions in
Kerry’s war stories, but promoting Kerry’s spin lines.
(Media Reality Check, August 23, 2004 [9])
Kerry Attacks, Networks Jump On Board
On August 19, after John Kerry attacked the Swift Boat Veterans for
Truth as an insidious tool of the Bush campaign, all of the networks
offered coverage. ABC's World News Tonight, which ignored the
May 4 press conference by the anti-Kerry veterans and hadn't since
mentioned their charges or early August ad, led with how, as anchor
Elizabeth Vargas framed the matter: "John Kerry fights back against
charges he lied about his war record. He accuses a veterans' group of
doing the President's 'dirty work.'"
(CyberAlert, August 20, 2004 [10])
No Respect for Swift Boat Vets
Back in February, the three broadcast networks were obsessed with the
story of President Bush’s National Guard service, making it the focus
of 75 evening news stories, according to an MRC study. But in May, when
John Kerry’s former Navy colleagues from Vietnam went to the National
Press Club to charge that Kerry’s tales of heroism as a Swift Boat
commander were highly exaggerated, those same networks acted as if
their job was to bury the news, not report it. Through August 18, ABC,
CBS and NBC had aired only nine stories mentioning the Swift Boat
Veterans for Truth charges against Kerry.
(Media Reality Check, August 18, 2004 [11])
ABC, CBS, CNN and NBC Ignore Kerry's Cambodia Backtrack
On August 11, the Kerry campaign backtracked from John Kerry's
oft-repeated claim that he was in Cambodia on Christmas Eve 1968, in
what would have been a violation of international law by the U.S., but
only FNC cared and ran a full story on the admission prompted by John
O'Neill's book, Unfit for Command: Swift Boat Veterans Speak Out Against John Kerry.
(CyberAlert, August 12, 2004 [12])
[13]NBC & MSNBC Team Up to Repress Kerry Ad (With Real [13]Video) Unencumbered by any restrictions on their free speech, NBC's om
Brokaw and Andrea Mitchell and MSNBC's Keith Olbermann on August 6
launched their own independent attack on the Vietnam vets who are
detractors of John Kerry in order to discredit those with a viewpoint
NBC/MSNBC apparently wants to keep hidden from the American people.
"They may get away with it," Mitchell fretted.
(CyberAlert, August 7, 2004 [14])
[15]CBS Tries to Smear Anti-Kerry Vets (With Real [15] Video)
ABC and
NBC ignored the May 4 press conference by a group of Vietnam veterans
who say John Kerry is unfit for the presidency, but the CBS Evening News
that night tried to smear the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth by
impugning them as partisan activists tied to the Bush campaign. Dan
Rather claimed that veterans “allied with the Bush campaign attacked
Senator Kerry today more directly and more personally” than had
President Bush. Rather deplored how “their tactic was to depict Kerry,
a wounded, highly-decorated Vietnam combat veteran, who eventually
became a vocal opponent of that war, as unpatriotic and not a worthy
leader.”
(CyberAlert, May 5, 2004 [16])
Additional coverage of Kerry’s Vietnam record, and how the media
approach to that story was very different to their coverage of the Bush
National Guard story can be found in the August 12 CyberAlert.
(CyberAlert, August 12, 2004 [17])