Kerry, McCain soothe 2008 campaign rift

[Mass]

This article from the Globe is a perfect prototype of why I hate the media and in particular the Globe.

Yesterday, Kerry had a speech about energy, a panel about the middle east, and introduced a bill about Internet privacy . What does the Globe report? That McCain and him reconciled?

Of course, they cant avoid any cliche and rumor, from Kerry considering McCain as VP, to Kerry being mean at McCain during the 2008 campaign to the gaffe. About the bill, or about Kerry's leadership introducing the bill, NOTHING.

http://www.boston.com/news/politics/politicalintelligence/2011/04/kerry_mccain_pa.html

[karynnj]

1. What an infuriating article

For the reasons you mention, and for the extreme pro-McCain and anti-Kerry point of view. Ignored is all Kerry did to help McCain during the POW/MIA times. Also mentioned only under "supported George Bush" is what happened at the 2004 Republican convention. No mention of all the purple heart bandaids McCain had no problem with - and no quote of McCain's speech which was far harsher than Kerry's 2008 speech - though Kerry's was FAR more effective.

Almost like being mean to Kerry doesn't count, but it is unthinkable that Kerry question anything about McCain.

[ObamaKerryDem]

8. Exactly! Just further shows what a media darling McCain still is..

..if he ever lost their love (as some argue, though I don't agree with) during the 2008 campaign, he quickly got it back. While JK so often gets the cold shoulder. It's just incredibly frustrating! Not to mention the fact that virtually no matter what McCain does gets NATIONAL press. I've seen both MSNBC and CNN--the presumed "liberal media"--cut into programming for one of his town halls for instance, while the Boston Globe couldn't even be bothered to report on JK's, even though he is one of the most high profile Senior Senators, at a time where so much of what he was discussing was/is front page news. Yeah one could argue that as the most recent, not elected Presidential nominee to date, McCain would draw more attention...but I don't remember JK getting that from the msm, even right after 2004, unless it was to slam him (like the ridiculous faux outrage over "the joke", even when a child could see that's not what he meant and he simply left out a word..) Completely agree with you on the last count as well. I think--outside looking in, at least--that there was an apparent tension there between JK and McCain. JK clearly seemed to have "beef" with him (the "Depends" joke he told for example, though I think the media, Greta Van Sustren in particular..OMG you'd think he'd insulted her father, the way she went off! lol! made too much of it, a snarky but innocuous remark, in which JK also poked fun at himself) during that time..but you know what? I can't say I blame him. Not after what went down in 2004 and not only that, but wasn't McCain really critical of him after "the joke" (the 2006 media hullabaloo, I mean) as well? Like really critical? I seem to remember that. Or even him refusing to appear in an ad, discrediting the Swiftboat liars. I know he made public comments defending JK on that, but according to Bob Shrum's book at least, McCain had snapped to Kerry's team that "if you keep on pressing me to do that , I will come out against you publicly" or something along those lines. So I think JK had plenty to be miffed about, on both a political and personal level, as they had appeared to be really good personal friends before that. That would hurt.

Of course on a human level, McCain was probably quite sore at JK's very enthusiastic campaigning for Obama...but hey, he went all out for Bush, at least at the 2004 convention, so touche I guess. Good that they can work together on this though. This is a side of McCain that made him popular with many even of different points of view in 2000. Too bad JK isn't given the credit he deserves in it by the media, though. Grr!

[beachmom]

2. I couldn't disagree more.

The article was fair -- in fact, too many pundits conveniently forgot about McCain's reaction to The Joke which was so utterly shameless. And frankly, I thought Kerry's remarks at the DNC remain apt and quite fair. He makes a contrast between "Candidate" McCain and his old friend, "Senator" McCain that still holds up. The journalist actually did dig up some quotes, and showed what we know to have happened.

As to the Globe, here is the bottom line: that newspaper is in decline. My hometown paper is doing much better, and to be clear, it also is in decline but not as steep as the BG. Articles about energy and the Middle East are "eat your green beans" kind of pieces which in an online world won't get many readers. McCain and Kerry reconciling is an eyeball catching article. I know that was true for me just here on the JK forum. The Globe is a general interest local newspaper, not a policy wonk forum. They need to sell papers and gather eyeballs. They don't have the funds to be a premier paper anymore. I mean, I just don't expect much from local papers anymore. Ads online do not come close to equal ads in paper form. You said yourself, Mass, that you do not subscribe to the Globe. Well, between media consolidation in the '90s and the steep decline in paper subscriptions in the Naughts, don't be surprised when the "fun gossipy" articles are going to be the rule, not the exception. That may also explain why Scott Brown has gotten so much good coverage -- he's basically the American Idol Senator, and people eat that stuff up.

I think the changes in the media right now are going to be followed by a somewhat dark period, where it will be hard to get good local news coverage from traditional media (national still has things like ProPublica so that won't be as bad), and nothing new is going to replace it. I am sure that decline will turn around at some point as the internet becomes more sophisticated, but in the mean time, be glad that there is a lot of raw information out there, like Senate hearings on c-span so you can get the news you want. But don't be surprised when old media descends more and more into lower common denominator stories. I mean, journalists getting laid off every other week does have consequences. And newspapers are not public service entities -- they are for profit businesses. Which is why I am so relieved that NPR and PBS funding remained in the budget deal that just passed. It's not like commercial media is going to pick up the slack anytime soon.

[karynnj]

3. I agree with you on the attempt to sell papers

I know I have put subjects in GDP to attract interest that are emphasizing things that will "sell" there.

But, there are tons of little omissions or errors.

Here are two of the most glaring - "when both Kerry and McCain called on the Senate to ratify the New START treaty with Russia." - McCain with Kyl led the people AGAINST the treaty. McCain spoke often against it, voted against cloture and was not one of the 71 Senators voting for the treaty on the ratification vote. http://www.senate.gov/legislative/LIS/roll_call_lists/roll_call_vote_cfm.cfm?congress=111&session=2&vote=00298

even on the joke, where the journalist writes, "suggesting Bush hadn't studied hard enough in college to avoid a bad decision in Iraq." = Kerry never said that and it is stupid. It had NOTHING to do with Bush in college (by then we knew Mr. Kerry really was not being modest when he said he had not been a diligent student himself in Tour of Duty.) Kerry was referring to what he said thousands of times in 2003/2004, Bush did not do all the things he should have before going to war (when had he done everything war could have been avoided.).

[beachmom]

4. Good point on START, but the Joke stuff was a lot fairer than

what we have seen in the past. Frankly, I did kind of take the Joke to be about IN GENERAL Bush never studied hard, including when he was in school, not just as POTUS. Sort of a pattern. As long as the press doesn't give it the Right's spin (that Kerry was dissing the troops which he clearly was not), I'm not going to nitpick.

But again, expect more of these kinds of minor errors/omissions as writers are saddled with more and more work and less time and help to get it right. The Atlantic Wire is also making a lot of mistakes because it is done on the cheap, but the Atlantic has seen its page views go way up on account of creating all that content. Again, we are living in the Content Farm era and the social media era, both which tend to encourage juicy articles instead of good for you articles.

[karynnj]

6. I agree that it is far more fair than most things written

Agree that we will see more of these errors. Glenn Johnson covered Kerry for a very long time. He was the jerk whose first question when Kerry announced he had cancer was to call him a liar for not telling him when he informed the Senator that he he looked like S..t and asked if he were sick a few weeks before - and got a non-committal non-answer.

I think the START error was that Johnson, might have mentally mixed him up with Lugar there.

[Mass]

5. This is what I am talking about.

Both articles are blog articles, so there is no real difference there, but one (the Murdoch paper) is informative about the bill itself, while reminding people that Kerry and McCain once were foes. The other one could not care less about the issue, but spends its time on things nobody cares about. I understand that conflicts sell, but, at this game, the Globe has no chance winning. The Herald is much better at printing juicy stories, and it does that while still informing people about local issues.

http://blogs.wsj.com/law/2011/04/13/the-two-johns-strike-a-note-for-data-privacy/

Data privacy is one of the hot legal issues of the day. Companies can not gather enough information about consumers’ interests and spending habits.

But one-time political foes John Kerry and John McCain are trying to put some limits on secretive data gathering.

The Johns yesterday filed the august-sounding Commercial Privacy Bill of Rights Act of 2011.

The bill would allow companies to gather only as much information as necessary to process a transaction or to deliver a service with the exception that information can be collected for research and development to improve the transaction or service, according to this statement form Kerry’s office about the bill. (If you want more, here’s a press conference announcing the legislation.)

McCain said in a statement that the legislation would allow businesses to market and advertise to Internet consumers, but “does not allow for the collection and sharing of private data by businesses that have no relationship to the consumer for purposes other than advertising and marketing,” UPI reports.

Some privacy advocates, though, say the legislation does not go far enough. The Electronic Privacy Information Center complains that the bill does not allow for a private right of action.

The American Civil Liberties union calls the legislation an important first step to protecting online privacy but said in this statement that the proposed law still would allow too much data sharing between companies.

“It unfortunately does not include a ‘do not track’ mechanism, which would allow consumers to opt out of having their online activity tracked, stored and shared with private companies for targeted advertising use,” the ACLU said.

“Currently, corporations can track individuals around the web, through social media and other sites. That information can be used to create detailed profiles about Americans’ complete online activities and can be sold to advertisers.”

[beachmom]

7. I'll add that the WSJ article was put up under the "Breaking News" banner on Twitter.

So, I guess what I am saying is that this article plus a lot of good ones in the tech news world did a good job describing the bill.

The tech press is still working the story:

http://www.techmeme.com/#a110413p41

Apparently, government agencies are exempt from the bill.

As to the Kerry/McCain conflict story, I think it could have been expanded more into a real article. I suppose the NYT will end up doing that at some point with lots of anonymous sources . . .

[wisteria]

9. Newspapers don't print news anymore, they print gossip. n/t