The New York Times provides us with
another case study in sloppy journalism with this absolutely absurd story on Giuliani's
relationship with FoxNews head Roger Ailes. First, the story teaser
on the front page of the website reads:
Rudolph W. Giuliani is facing increased scrutiny
over his friendship with Roger Ailes, the head of Fox
News.
Classic
NYT. The self-validating truth.
Once this story gets published, Rudy is facing "increased
scrutiny." Largely because prior to this story, he was facing zero
scrutiny.
The story then says:
Whether their friendship would ever affect coverage
- Fox insists that it has not and will not - it is nonetheless the
sort of relationship that other campaigns have noted, though none
wanted to speak publicly for fear of offending the station.
So in other words, we can't find any evidence to support our story,
but his opponents made accusations and we couldn't pass up the
oppourtunity to do an anti-Rudy piece. "Fox insists" = "Fox is
lying."
Then the one bit of circumstantial evidence that they offer for
this allegedly too cozy relationship is that he's had more time on
FoxNews than any other Republican candidate--a whopping 13 minutes
more than Fred Thompson, who hasn't even announced, and who didn't
get back in the political spotlight until the spring. Yet it must
be noted that Thompson first said he was thinking about running for
president in March on Fox, was given 20 minutes with Hannity after
the Republican debate to announce his imwithfred site, and has
repeatedly found a friend in Hannity everytime questions are being
raised.
Besides, the NYT singling out that one
statistic is completely arbitrary. On MSNBC, Joe Biden has been on
more than any other candidate. He's been on the station even more
than Rudy has been on FoxNews. Is that significant?
Then the NYT, of course, quotes the
lofty ivy league media watchdog type:
Few, if any, presidents have taken office with a
close friend at the helm of a network news division, said Thomas E.
Patterson, the Bradlee Professor of Government and the Press at
Harvard, and author of "Out of Order," a book about the
relationship between the news media and politics. But the value of
television appearances to politicians, he said, has never been in
doubt.
"It gets to be circular," Mr. Patterson said. "The
more coverage you get, the easier it is to stay up in the polls.
You stay up in the polls, you get more coverage. It's a cycle that
the second- and third-tier candidates just tear their hair out
about."
That might be a nice theory. Too bad that when you combine all of
the broadcast and cable networks, Mike Huckabee has had
substantially more air time than Giuliani.
The story does discuss the friendship of Giuliani and Ailes, and
how Giuliani intervened on his behalf, when FoxNews was blocked by
Time Warner from getting a station in New York. And it offers a
tidbit that is sure to cause Rudy yet another headache in the
Republican primary:
But aides to both men acknowledge that they have
been friends for more than 20 years. After meeting at dinner
parties in the 1980s, where they discovered a shared respect for
Ronald Reagan, they developed into the kind of friends who lend
one another help, trade accolades and attend each other's
weddings.
The only reason why I went through the exercise is that it's a
great example of how the media can create a story by linking
together a lot of random facts and filling in the blanks with
speculation to create the impression that they've actually
uncovered something.
topics:
Trade, Joe Biden, Television
