http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/printedition/bal-te.journal07aug07,1,7565738.column?coll=bal-pe-asection



WASHINGTON - Reactions to the two men who want to be president come January
could not have been more dissimilar.

On one day, Democratic nominee Sen. John Kerry won standing ovations and
warm cheers at a conference of minority journalists. On the next, President
Bush received polite applause, some snickers and a heckler's rant from the
same group.

The disparate responses to Bush and Kerry by a hall filled mostly with
newspaper reporters, broadcasters, photographers and editors have raised the
specter of press bias and partiality, with academicians, critics and
journalists themselves condemning both reactions, raucous and rude, for
putting the media in an unflattering light three months from Election Day.

A crowd, which filled roughly three-quarters of a 5,000-seat hall, applauded
18 times for Bush during his speech and a question-and-answer period
yesterday morning, while a similar-size audience interrupted Kerry with
applause on more than three dozen occasions on Thursday and rose to its feet
in appreciation more than once. Derisive laughter greeted some of the
president's answers to questions while conventioneers jockeyed to take
photographs and shake hands with Kerry.

Both men came to address the Unity: Journalists of Color convention, a
gathering of African-American, Hispanic, Asian-American and Native American
journalists. They faced a body that media polls and studies suggest leans
liberal.

Bush began by acknowledging the need for diversity in the news media and
announcing his interest in maintaining a "cordial and professional"
relationship with the press.

Unity president Ernest R. Sotomayor said before Bush spoke that he wished
for "a very courteous reception" to the president. The audience listened
quietly throughout Bush's 26-minute stump speech, summarizing his
administration's record on tort reform, Medicare, interest rates, racial
profiling and minority-owned businesses.


Eye-rolling

The grumping and eye-rolling began in earnest during the question-and-answer
session that followed. It reached a peak when Bush responded to a question
from Seattle Post-Intelligencer editorial page editor Mark Trahant, a Native
American, about resolving conflicts between tribes and the federal and state
governments.

"Tribal sovereignty means that it's sovereign," Bush said. "You're a -
you've been given sovereignty, and you're viewed as a sovereign entity. And,
therefore, the relationship between the federal government and tribes is one
between sovereign entities." His words elicited bursts of disparaging
laughter from around the convention hall.

The same sounds arose when Bush declared: "We actually misnamed the war on
terror, it ought to be the struggle against ideological extremists who do
not believe in free societies who happen to use terror as a weapon to try to
shake the conscience of the free world."

David Donald, training director for Investigative Reporters and Editors, a
professional organization, shook his head afterward.

"I was surprised," he said. "I think a journalist has to respond without
taking sides."

Houston Chronicle suburban editor Pete McConnell, who listened to both
Bush's and Kerry's speeches, also left the room disaffected by the
experience.

"I was embarrassed," McConnell said. "I know who I'm going to vote for in
November, but I didn't think we ought to be out there snickering and
laughing and giving standing ovations. As a group, we should have kept
ourselves in check."

Tim Graham, director of analysis for the Media Research Center, a
conservative media watchdog group based in Alexandria, Va., agreed. "I think
it is embarrassing and disappointing," Graham said in a telephone interview.
"Wasn't anybody thinking about how it would look from the outside?"

Thomas Kunkel, dean of the journalism school at the University of Maryland,
College Park, said the very credibility of journalists is at stake when they
shift from impartial observation to reactive participation.

"Journalists are citizens, and it's perfectly reasonable to have opinions
and express them, but in this very heated election environment, I wonder if
it was smart. From a public relations perspective, I don't know how wise it
was," Kunkel said in a telephone interview.

Reporters typically tread lightly on civic ground, discouraged from
contributing to political candidates and causes, from sporting partisan
bumper stickers or candidate yard signs and, and from taking part in
campaign events. Kunkel said that he teaches journalism students to "sit on
their hands" at events they are covering so they record what happens without
taking part in it.

Avoiding partisanship

"The key value here is professionalism," explained Bob Steele, a senior
ethics faculty member at the Poynter Institute, a school for journalists in
St. Petersburg, Fla., "We should not allow ourselves to cross over the
lights at the foot of the stage with partisan behavior."

Writing in a Web log after the speech, Congressional Quarterly reporter
Isaiah J. Poole pointed out that opinion writers, public relations
specialists, students and other non-journalists were among the 7,700 in
attendance at Unity this week.

But Val Canez, a staff photographer for the Tucson Citizen, pulled out his
voter registration card and pointed to his chosen affiliation to illustrate
his displeasure.

"As a registered Republican, I tend to feel that a lot of journalists lean
to the left wing and just don't take President Bush seriously," he said.
"How people reacted today proved that for me."

For Graham, a former White House correspondent for an evangelical magazine,
The World, the reaction raised a more troubling concern:

"I think it suggests to the average news viewer that they're going to have
to be very conscious of the news they're consuming. In other words, is it
coming from someone who just cheered Kerry? And if that matters to you, can
you trust them?"