Howard Kurtz Sees No Problem With Media's Failure To Cover Rudy Farm Gaffe
May 16, 2007 -- 12:31 PM EST // // Post a Comment
Amazing. Via Media Matters, The Washington Post's Howard Kurtz says in a chat with readers that he sees no problem with the media's failure to cover the Rudy campaign's snubbing of an Iowa farm family because they weren't millionaires:
Washington: Hi Mr. Kurtz, thanks for taking my question. So, are we going to see a feeding frenzy of process stories on Giuliani's gaffe, where his campaign asked an Iowa farm family to host a fundraiser and then backed out because their farm wasn't valuable enough to be subject to the estate tax? If it doesn't get as much press as the Edwards haircut story, isn't that pretty clear evidence of conservative bias in those outlets that neglect the Giuliani story? It always seemed to me that story selection is the real test of whether or not a news outlet is objective.Howard Kurtz: No, I don't think it's evidence of pretty clear bias because I don't think the two are comparable. While the haircut story has been overblown, Edwards presumably knew about it, since it was his hair being cut, and he had the good sense to say he was embarrassed about it. There's no evidence that Giuliani personally knew about his staff's effort to line up a farming family hit by the estate tax. And I do believe that political staffs looking for real-life examples of this or that policy do this kind of prospecting all the time.
Howard: Lemme have a crack at explaining why I think you're wrong here -- if you're game, it could lead to a much-need discussion of some important stuff about the state of our political reporting today.
You are right to point out that the parallel between Edwards' haircut and the Rudy camp's farm gaffe is imperfect in the sense that in Rudy's case staff was involved. But that's an absurdly narrow way to look at this. The larger and far more important context here is that this episode reveals the glaring schizophrenia that dominates much of the media's coverage of Republicans and Dems when it comes to their personal wealth.
One of the key justifications people in the media offer for devoting so much coverage to Edwards' haircut -- coverage that you yourself said was "overblown" -- is that it allegedly cuts against Edwards' populist campaign. This has also been the justification for story after story in your own paper about Edwards' wealth -- stories that even your own Ombud has condemned precisely for leaning on that justification. This alone wouldn't be terribly important, but for the fact -- ably demonstrated by Jamison Foser -- that this is the fundamental larger media default setting when it comes to covering Dems. Because Dems are interested in antipoverty policy, their personal wealth and conduct is automatically a liability, a sign of hypocrisy.
Though this justification is everywhere in the media, the absurdity of it is strikingly, almost comically, obvious. After all, we generally think it's a good thing when wealthy private sector folks show concern for the poor in the form of charity or philanthropy. Yet, absurdly, when politicians -- that is, mainly Democrats -- voice concern for the poor or advocate for antipoverty policies, this is taken in the media as a sign that it's open season on Dems' personal wealth and grooming habits and the alleged hypocrisy they embody. This media default setting also holds that the wealth of Republicans doesn't make them hypocrites because of their lack of interest in poverty. And this, I submit, is the real reason for the lack of coverage of the Rudy campaign's snubbing of the non-millionaire farm family, not the reasons you gave.
On this score, here's a question. What do you think would have happened in the media if the campaign of Edwards or Hillary had done this -- that is, if Edwards or Hillary's people had put out a poor Iowa farmer in this manner, because the farm was seen as too modest?
This is admittedly a speculative question. But let's speculate. I say a hailstone of media attention would have rained down on that Iowa farm. It would have been all over TV for days and days and days and would have been debated relentlessly by the pundits. Do you really think the media would have been able to resist such a story? Would reporters and editors really have cited the reasons you gave for not covering this -- it wasn't Edwards or Hillary per se; campaign staffs do prospecting like this all the time -- and taken a pass? No way. And again, the Dems' interest in poverty would have been the stated reason why. That's the larger problem at play here.
Come on, Howard, let's dig deep and use some imagination. What would the media treatment really have been like if Edwards or Hillary had done this? And why?
Update: A commenter writes: "I seem to recall a firestorm of controversy about the Edwards campaign hiring so-called foul-mouthed Catholic-hating bloggers. Presumably John Edwards was not personally involved in hiring decisions for low-level staffers like that, but that didn't stop the media having a field day."
No, indeed it didn't. Howard?
Update II: Another commenter takes on the it-was-only-staffers argument: "To accept Kurtz's argument that Edwards `presumably knew about' the cost of his haircut, you'd have to believe that Edwards makes his own haircut appointments and pays for them out of his own pocket. Sounds far-fetched to me." Seriously. Isn't it likely that a staffer made Edwards' haircut appointment?
Howard?
You there?
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