MEDIA UNPLUGGED
Posted December 15, 2003 thepeoplesvoice.org

by Dan Dvorak

Who would have thought that the best media attention to date for the only real Democratic Presidential candidates, Kucinich, Sharpton and Braun would come from the fact that they were not receiving media attention?

Kucinich boxed Ted Koppel’s ears several times during the last debate of 2003, finally getting the message out to America that the media was selecting the candidates instead of the voters. It could not have been clearer of a message nor could it have been accomplished more honestly and smoothly, almost scripted in fact if it wasn’t for the fact that the whole world knew that Koppel’s intention was to put down the three and not give them an opportunity to score any points during the contest. Koppel failed miserably at delivering the knock out punch with his remarks of the three campaigns being broke and out of the running. He was victimized by his own bad intent and turned into an unwilling dupe for the slamming of the press and the TV media. He knew he had been had and his face showed it.

It continued after the show when ABC pulled all their “imbedded” reporters off all three campaigns, a move that again helped the three campaigns. The effect of the reporters following their campaigns being pulled out is negligible since they write next to nothing anyway, or that which they write gets no ink anyway, but the fact that ABC did pull them makes an incredible story in itself, proof in itself that Dennis Kucinich was absolutely correct in his assessment of the media hand picking those they like and dumping on those they don’t like. Network also demonstrated the fine art of revenge for Kucinich, Braun and Sharpton’s embarrassment of Koppel as he tried to embarrass them, still another tool of the media.

Never before has a self fulfilling prophesy been filled in almost instantaneous fashion as the media selection of candidates had been filled, publicly and completely.

One of the great replies to the question of how the three candidates could survive having no money and being last in the polls was that of Ms. Braun who said that some of them had better poll numbers than some of the ones not singled out by Koppel even though the others had vastly greater sums of money and have spent much more, but the media basically ignores them and the issues for which they fight.

Those issues, although not discussed that night were that all three singled out, Kucinich, Braun and Sharpton are the only candidates who agree totally on immediate total withdrawal from Iraq and single payer health care, and none of the three takes contributions from PAC’s and special interest groups. Every single media outlet from ABC to Disney have direct ties of ownership or partnership with some major military war machine and hardware producer and the continuation of wars or ‘police actions’ is in their best interests. You will never get anti war stories on networks like Fox, ABC, NBC or CBS. This will only get worse as these media giants spend mega millions in lobbying money to get the FCC to give them even more stations and outlets to control what we see and hear. Coincidentally, these media mergers and increased ownership of multiple forms of media within given areas are also just the kind of things our big three, Kucinich, Braun and Sharpton strongly oppose. It’s not surprising that they will not get any coverage because the networks and media don’t want a Kucinich administration.

That also explains why they don’t have much money because they rely on money from the citizens of this country and will only owe allegiance to the people. It also explains how George Bush will sport a staggering quarter TRILLION dollar campaign war chest. Interesting how even his money relates to ‘war’!

It also explains the media’s reluctance to embrace these candidates or just report basic things about the campaign and what they say. That seems like it’s their job to do that but what they do is follow the money. The amount of coverage a candidate gets is directly proportional to the amount of money collected and that coverage gets them even more contributions. Koppel explained that the amount of money the candidate collects is somehow indicative of the support he is receiving nationwide. This is BULL. When big contributors fill the coffers they represent very few people, unlike the grass roots effort run by Dennis Kucinich and others that have hundreds of thousands of small contributors that represent many citizens but much less money. Ignoring the rest is a disservice to the country and violates the public trust. It also puts the campaign and the office directly in the hands of the corporate media.

It’s the job of all Americans to do the research on your own unless you just want the media’s hand picked golden boy, one that will ‘play ball’ and be a good little boy and conduct business as usual. It’s called hedging your bets. If not Bush, then a Bush lite will have to do. That’s why Clark and Lieberman are so popular with the media. These are Republicans in Democrat clothing.

Remember, it’s our election. The media just brings us their version of the news. That’s not all the news and it may not even be the truth in news. This coming election will be the most important election in our nations history. Don’t leave the contestants up to the media and their agenda. Do a little work on this important task. You will be thankful for it and may even have a hand in saving this planet.

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This article is © copyright 2003 by Dan Dvorak (dvorak@fdt.net) Permission is granted for reprint in print, email, blog, or web media so long as this credit is attached.