_______________________________________________________________
 |
 |  http://propaganda.lege.net/misperceptions/examples/disfavouring/
 |
 |
 |  Selling Kucinich short - should the media elect our
 |  president, or should we?
 |  http://townonline.com/cambridge/news/opinion/cam_colccpennms10012003.htm
 |  http://townonline.com/HiasysTools/PrinterFriendly.bg/www.townonline.com/cambridge/news/opinion/cam_colccpennms10012003.htm
 |
 |
 |  Cambridge Chronicle on townonline.com
 |
 |
 |
 |  Selling Kucinich short - should the media elect our
 |  president, or should we?
 |
 |  By Adam Penn
 |  Wednesday, October 1, 2003
 |
 |  Is it just me, or is something very curious going on in the
 |  race to choose a Democratic nominee for President? First
 |  Howard Dean, and now Wesley Clark have charged to the lead,
 |  and yet almost every Dean or Clark supporter I speak with
 |  says that he or she actually agrees more with the policies
 |  of Dennis Kucinich. Many of the articles I read in support
 |  of Dean or Clark state the same thing, that Kucinich is
 |  actually more in tune with the author's way of thinking, but
 |  that the author will support Dean or Clark anyway. The
 |  reasoning behind this is usually that the number one
 |  priority is to get Bush out of the White House, and that
 |  Kucinich is not electable.
 |
 |  I can't help but think that we've got a real-life case of
 |  the Emperor's New Clothes going on. Everyone says Kucinich
 |  is not electable, it seems, because that is what the media
 |  tells them. I'm the little child who has to ask the question
 |  - "but if so many Dean and Clark supporters actually prefer
 |  Kucinich, and if these two candidates can beat Bush, then
 |  wouldn't Kucinich be able to beat Bush if all those Dean and
 |  Clark supporters simply voted for Kucinich instead?"
 |
 |  I realize, of course, that not all Dean and Clark supporters
 |  prefer Kucinich. In fact, I'd bet that a lot of their
 |  supporters haven't even heard of Kucinich. But that's my
 |  point; the media is determining who is or isn't a viable
 |  candidate, and we're not being given a real choice to elect
 |  the one who best represents our views.
 |
 |  In my mind, there's no excuse for lopsided coverage. The
 |  media knows who the 10 Democratic candidates are, and it
 |  should be informing us about each and every one of them. It
 |  should be analyzing their proposed programs and giving us a
 |  sense of what policies might or might not be implemented
 |  under their respective administrations. Instead, we find
 |  ourselves doing detective work to figure out what each of
 |  the candidates really stand for; and some of the candidates'
 |  names, let alone their views, still remain barely
 |  recognizable to a majority of the public. Unfortunately, it
 |  seems democracy can indeed be bought and sold.
 |
 |  This media neglect is readily apparent in the whole Howard
 |  Dean phenomenon. To Dean's credit, he received a lot of
 |  early support and financing because of his own
 |  well-organized campaign efforts. As a result, the media has
 |  given him a significant amount of coverage, thus snowballing
 |  his name recognition, support and fund raising. He has
 |  gained a great deal of support among progressives largely
 |  through this media recognition.
 |
 |  Dennis Kucinich, on the other hand, who is a more
 |  progressive choice than Dean, has received very little
 |  recognition in the media. Why? It knows he's running. It
 |  should tell us who he is and what he stands for, and let us
 |  decide if we want to support him or not. It should tell us
 |  that Kucinich has been even more unwavering in his
 |  opposition to the Iraq war than has Dean, the supposed
 |  "anti-war" candidate. It should tell us that Kucinich
 |  proposes a plan for universal health care that would cover
 |  everyone, while Dean proposes a piecemeal plan that would
 |  still leave many Americans uninsured. It should tell us that
 |  Kucinich supports the environmental Kyoto treaty, while Dean
 |  opposes the treaty subject to stronger calls for emission
 |  reductions by developing nations (this even though the U.S.
 |  is by far the greatest contributor to, and developing
 |  nations largely victims of, such emissions). Instead, all
 |  we're really told about Kucinich is that he can't win. Some
 |  democracy we're in when the media decides for us who can or
 |  can't become our President!
 |
 |  I don't know about the rest of you, but when I'm buying a
 |  car, I want to buy the best car, not a lesser car from the
 |  best salesman. We need to move past the campaign rhetoric
 |  and not be swayed by levels of media recognition. We need to
 |  find out what our real choices are so that we can elect the
 |  person who best represents us and what we believe. For me,
 |  that person is Dennis Kucinich. For my fellow Cantabrigians,
 |  it may be someone else. We all agree that the number-one
 |  priority is to get Bush out, and in the general election we
 |  can all unite to support whichever candidate is opposing
 |  him. But for now, let us, not our media, decide who is or
 |  isn't electable; that's the least that we owe ourselves and
 |  our democracy.
 |
 |  (Adam Penn lives on Inman Street. He is co-owner of Veggie
 |  Planet restaurant in Harvard Square.)
 |
 |
 |  (In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this
 |  material is distributed without profit to those who have
 |  expressed a prior interest in receiving the included
 |  information for research and educational purposes.)
 |______________________________________________________________