By: While this election may have had no October Surprise other than Osama bin Laden's last-minute tape announcing, "Hey, I'm still alive," there was quite a Summer Scare: scrutiny of both John Kerry's Vietnam service and George W. Bush's National Guard stint.
"The whole matter of swift boats and National Guard were a diversion," argues Dan Balz, a veteran political reporter for the Washington Post. "People looked for an issue where they could create an advantage for themselves." Sherry Bebitch Jeffe, a political commentator and professor at the University of Southern California, also saw it as overdone. "Newspapers glommed on to it much too long because it was simple and adversarial," she says. "I think the press stayed on it longer than the public."
But for those who often argue that campaign reporters must cover the events and not dictate them, the story was major news and deserved major coverage. "Newspapers pursued it actively in a serious, investigative way," says Susan Page, Washington bureau chief for USA Today. "I give them high marks on that. It was a complicated issue. I think we did a good job sorting it out and doing what the press ought to do." Sandalow of the San Francisco Chronicle agrees. "I think they did what they had to do," he says of the dailies. "They covered it, did the fact-checking, and it faded."
Syndicated columnist Cal Thomas, who believes newspapers got on the swift boat story late, disagrees that it took up too much coverage. "Newspapers finally caught up to it after cable drove it," he says. "But everyone had their say. I think it was a side issue." But Alex Jones, director of the Joan Shorenstein Center on Press, Politics, and Public Policy, saw it as a major issue, adding, "How can you let a hugely damaging accusation go unchallenged?"
Comments
No comments on this item Please log in to comment by clicking here