| Topic: |
Politics > Politics-USA |
| User: |
"Harry Hope" |
| Date: |
19 Jan 2006 10:09:52 AM |
| Object: |
How the Press Played Dumb About the Corrupt GOP K Street Project |
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/eric-boehlert/how-the-press-played-dumb_b_14076.html
01.19.2006
How the Press Played Dumb About the K Street Project
By Eric Boehlert
One of the most depressing traits of the news media's timid
performance during the Bush years has been their newfound fear of
facts and the consequences of reporting them.
Where Beltway journalists once eagerly corralled facts and dispensed
them to the public, scribes today, like youngsters' endless checking
to see if it's safe to cross the street, over-think the consequences
and end up giving the Bush administration and Republicans a pass.
For instance, in the wake of disgraced lobbyist Jack Abramoff's guilty
plea on Jan. 3, some press outlets did their best, belatedly, to
explain the crooked lobbying empire Abramoff had built with the help
of Rep. Tom DeLay.
And specifically, some news outlets addressed the K Street Project,
the DeLay/Abramoff/Santorum/Norquist pay-to-play money machine that's
playing a pivotal role in the GOP's deepening ethical morass.
(Read a smart, concise description of the K Street Project here.)
http://thinkprogress.org/2006/01/13/k-street-project/
But even then, the media's descriptions have often been half-hearted
at best.
Appearing on the Don Imus radio show recently, Newsweek's Evan Thomas
mentioned, "this thing called the K Street Project," as if he'd just
heard about the day before over lunch at The Palm.
In truth, there's not a serious reporter in Washington, D.C. who for
the last three years did not know exactly what the K Street Project
was.
(The GOP openly boasted about it.)
The K Street Project was, hands down, the most important
behind-the-scenes development in terms of how power/legislation was
bought and sold inside the Beltway and represented an epic story with
endless angles and repercussions.
And yet for the last three years those same serious MSM reporters
participated in a virtual boycott of the story, refusing to detail
corruption inside the GOP.
(Curious, because during the Clinton years the press couldn't stop
writing about alleged Democratic funny money scandals that never
actually materialized into criminal wrongdoing by prominent Dems.)
Only in recent weeks, after Abramoff pleaded guilty and DeLay's grip
on power loosened, have reporters felt confident enough to cross the
street--to explain what the K Street Project is.
And yes, boycott really is the word that described the MSM's previous
don't-ask/don't-tell policy regarding the K Street Project.
It's true that on June 10 2002, the Washington Post and the New York
Times both published articles detailing the creation of the K Street
Project.
(Again, GOP leaders were practically advertising it.)
But then the cones of silence went up.
Between June 10, 2002, and Jan. 3, 2006, here's how many news articles
produced by the Times' D.C. bureau mentioned the K Street Project: 4.
Here's how many mentioned it three or more times: 0.
Between June 2002 and Jan. 3, 2006, here's how many Los Angeles Times
articles mentioned the K Street Project three or more times: 0.
USA Today: 0.
Associated Press: 0.
Miami Herald: 0.
Chicago Tribune: 0.
Boston Globe: 0.
Newsweek: 0.
Even the Washington Post, which is supposed to meticulously detail the
legislative culture of D.C., published just three news articles that
contained three or more references to the K Street Project.
As for television news?
Here's how many references ABC News made to the K Street Project
between June 2002 and Jan. 3, 2006: 1.
CBS: 0. NBC: 1.
MSNBC: 1.
Fox News: 0.
CNN: 5.
CNN never aired a reported piece explaining what the K Street Project
was, although CNN International did.
If you do the math for that 2002-to-2006 timeframe, we're talking
about thousands and thousands of hours of network and cable news
programming aired with a grand total of 8 mentions of the K Street
Project.
The MSM were simply afraid of the facts.
UPDATE: ABC's Jake Tapper mocks Democrats for talking about the K
Street Project, which he thinks goes over the heads of most Americans:
"While the brainy readers of this blog might be able to understand the
terms and significance of terms such as "K Street Project," I don't
see such tactics as coming close to the resonant language and
communications brilliance of Team Gingrich a dozen years ago."
He might be right.
Then again if reporters, producers and anchors hadn't spent the last
three years consciously ignoring the K Street Project story, perhaps
the phrase today might resonate a bit more.
_______________________________________________________
The K Street Project: A vital element of what has come to be known as
the Republican Culture of Corruption.
Harry
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