posted on May 25, 2007 11:25:15 AM new
Media pounced on Edwards' haircuts, but ignore Giuliani's Iowa farm snub
As Media Matters for America documented, the media recently devoted extensive coverage to a report -- first "broken" by Politico senior political writer Ben Smith on April 16 -- that Democratic presidential candidate and former Sen. John Edwards' (NC) campaign spent $800 on two haircuts. The story was covered by major print, broadcast, and cable outlets, and often featured characterizations of Edwards as "pretty" and the "Breck girl" -- echoing Republican and conservative attacks on Edwards dating back to 2004. These same media outlets, however, have shown almost no interest in recent reports that the presidential campaign of former New York City mayor Rudy Giuliani (R) scheduled -- and then abruptly canceled -- a campaign rally at the home of two Iowa farmers because they were not wealthy enough to be affected by the estate tax.
In a May 3 article, the Anamosa Journal-Eureka (Jones County, Iowa) reported: "Deb and Jerry VonSprecken of Olin received a call from former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani's campaign office asking them if they would be interested in holding a campaign rally on May 4, after she had donated to his campaign." According to the article, the VonSpreckens, who "have a modest 80 acre farm and raise cattle," agreed to the proposal and prepared for a 75-100 person rally. However, according to Deb VonSprecken, the Giuliani campaign later canceled the event, telling her: "I'm sorry, you aren't worth a million dollars and he is campaigning on the Death Tax right now." According to the Journal-Eureka, a Giuliani campaign spokesman would not comment on the issue. As Media Matters has noted, Republicans and conservatives who support repealing the "death tax" (a poll-tested GOP buzzword for the estate tax) have claimed that it hurts family farms and small businesses -- when in fact a very small percentage of the affected estates -- 2 percent in 2004 -- in which more than half of the assets are farms and family-owned businesses. At the May 3 Republican presidential debate, Giuliani declared: "We have to get rid of the death tax."
Blogger and media critic Greg Sargent highlighted the Journal-Eureka article on May 10, confirmed the details of the story with the Iowan paper and the VonSpreckens, and wrote that the "Rudy campaign just confirmed to me that its non-denial to the paper is real." On May 11, Sargent reported that Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) "put in a personal call today to an Iowa woman that was snubbed by Rudy Giuliani's campaign, asking to meet with her and apologizing to her on 'behalf of all politicians,' the woman told me this evening."
However, a Media Matters Nexis search revealed that this story has been almost completely ignored by the media in the 11 days since it was first reported, even after McCain's reported phone call. The New York Times, The Washington Post, the Los Angeles Times, and USA Today have not reported on the story. In his May 14 "Media Notes Extra" online column, Post media critic Howard Kurtz noted that the story "has gained some traction in the liberal blogosphere," but he dismissed blogger Kevin Drum's observation that "Giuliani's gang was playing an old time conservative game: trying to find a family farm that would eventually have to be sold in order to pay inheritance taxes," writing: "Come on -- don't all politicians look for people who illustrate the problem that their plan (on taxes, Social Security, whatever) is going to solve?" When asked about the story during a May 11 washingtonpost.com online discussion, Washington Post congressional reporter Jonathan Weisman responded: "There really aren't too many farmers affected by the death tax, although most of them think they are, so if that's his criteria, he's gonna have some trouble stumping in farm country." The Politico's Smith and Jonathan Martin noted the story on their respective blogs, but it was completely ignored by CNN, MSNBC, Fox News, CBS, and NBC. ABC noted the story on its Political Radar weblog on May 12.
The Associated Press devoted a May 12 article to the Giuliani story, reporting: "Deborah VonSprecken said that Giuliani's campaign bailed after deciding the couple didn't mesh with Giuliani's planned speech about the elimination of the inheritance tax. The so-called 'death tax,' is a big issue in Iowa, where farmers face hurdles passing their land along to the next generation." The AP offered no evidence to support the claim that the estate tax is "a big issue" for Iowa farmers. Estate tax data available on the IRS website do not indicate how many Iowa farms have paid estate taxes, though only 174 estates in Iowa paid the tax in 2005. According to Roger McEowen, director of Iowa State University's Center for Agricultural Law and Taxation, the federal estate tax "has virtually no impact in Iowa," and "[m]ost Iowa farms" are not valuable enough to meet the estate tax's threshold. McEowen was quoted in an April 20 Des Moines Register article:
"It has virtually no impact when you bring it down to Iowa," said McEowen. ... "It's not a death tax. That's misconstruing it."
McEowen said that Iowa continually ranks near the bottom of the list of states ranked in order of the amount of estate taxes paid. He cited a nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office study from 2004 that showed of the roughly 25,000 deaths in Iowa, fewer than 1 percent generated estate tax returns.
Most Iowa farms are valued at less than the $2 million threshold required to trigger the estate tax, McEowen said, especially considering the debt owed on most farms.
The media's lack of interest in the Giuliani/VonSprecken story stands in stark contrast to the widespread coverage of the Edwards haircut story. The Politico's Smith "broke" the Edwards story in an April 16 blog entry, which was linked to by Internet gossip Matt Drudge and almost instantly seized upon by the rest of the media. A Nexis search of the 11 days following Smith's blog entry (the same interval of time since the Giuliani story was first reported on May 3) revealed:
The New York Times reported on the story twice, and the haircuts were the subject of Times columnist Maureen Dowd's April 21 column (subscription required). The Washington Post mentioned the haircuts in five articles, while the Los Angeles Times mentioned them twice. USA Today mentioned them once.
The AP referred to the haircuts in five articles, including an April 17 article that labeled Edwards as "pretty."
NBC and CBS reported on Edwards' haircuts twice, and ABC reported on them once.
CNN referred to the haircuts at least six times, MSNBC at least three times, and Fox News at least five times.
As blogger Glenn Greenwald documented on May 3, The Politico had reported on the story at least eight times since April 16, while eschewing other political news stories. The Politico's and the media's coverage of the story was such that, during the April 26 Democratic presidential debate, moderator and NBC Nightly News anchor Brian Williams asked Edwards a question about the haircuts based on a column by Politico chief political columnist Roger Simon.
Kurtz, rather than dismissing the Edwards/haircut story as he did the Giuliani report, wrote on April 24: "You might think that this would be too trivial to spark a major online debate, but hair matters, apparently. It's a metaphor for ... well, for something very important." In a May 14 online discussion on washingtonpost.com, Kurtz rejected a reader's suggestion that the disparity in coverage between the Edwards haircut story and the Giuliani farm story constitutes "pretty clear evidence of conservative bias in those outlets that neglect the Giuliani story." According to Kurtz:
Howard Kurtz: No, I don't think it's evidence of pretty clear bias because I don't think the two are comparable. While the haircut story has been overblown, Edwards presumably knew about it, since it was his hair being cut, and he had the good sense to say he was embarrassed about it. There's no evidence that Giuliani personally knew about his staff's effort to line up a farming family hit by the estate tax. And I do believe that political staffs looking for real-life examples of this or that policy do this kind of prospecting all the time.
In dismissing the story, Kurtz ignored the problem underlying the staff's endeavor to find "real-life examples" for Giuliani's estate tax policy: Giuliani has chosen to stress an issue -- the federal estate tax -- that, as noted above, has little impact in Iowa. According to Kurtz apparently, the fact that Giuliani and/or his campaign staff either do not understand or willfully misrepresent the effects of the estate tax is less newsworthy than Edwards' paying for his haircuts with campaign funds, which Edwards later claimed "was a mistake."
posted on May 29, 2007 11:06:56 AM new
Somebody posts a lamebrained article from some neocon blog about the "liberal MSM" and all the syncophants come running to tsk tsk tsk about it. Post a serious one like this and they are curiously silent....except classic of course, who only posts one-liners anyhow.
posted on May 29, 2007 11:24:41 AM new
Yup, classic, Kiara and I can get pretty silly sometimes...we have a sense of humor and a sense of neocon ridiculousness.
However, UNLIKE YOU , bear, and stone, WE can also posts opinions and interesting articles.
YOU simply repeat stupid one liners forever....NOTHING else...
at the profe who calls sybil's op "this SERIOUS article".
LOL
Maybe the profe can tell us who wrote it.
Maybe the profe can tell us what site it came from.
And he expects ANYONE here to take it seriously? LOL How funny.
================
I was thinking the same thing, classic. Such INTELLIGENT, GROWN UP posts from kiara and sybil. LOL And that's okay with every liberal here. Then they expect to be taken SERIOUSLY??? LOL LOL LOL
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
"While the democratic party complains about everything THIS President does to protect our Nation": "What would a Democrat president have done at that point?"
"Apparently, the answer is: Sit back and wait for the next terrorist attack."
Ann Coulter
[ edited by Linda_K on May 29, 2007 02:47 PM ]
posted on May 29, 2007 11:45:18 PM new
And THIS IS interesting? It wasn't the first time and it wasn't all the other times when you had NOTHING to say:
""classicrock000
posted on May 25, 2007 07:55:40 PM
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Paybacks are a #*!@.
Goes to show when the dems/liberals here REFUSE to answer ANY questions put to THEM....then turn about is FAIR play.
Now...back to talking to yourself in SEVERAL threads.
LOL LOL LOL""""
Oh , and NOTHING from the neocons about their HUGE MYTH that the media is controlled by the LIBERALS !!!?????
NO COMMENTS ???!!!!
[ edited by mingotree on May 29, 2007 11:59 PM ]
[ edited by mingotree on May 30, 2007 09:59 AM ]
posted on May 30, 2007 04:23:35 AM new
posted on January 1, 2007 06:40:28
mingotree
Evade WHAT issue? YOU, Helen, are making an issue.
I have no idea what prompted this attack or why you're trying to start a fight but it's ridiculous.
What IS your point?
Evading? YOU didn't answer my question about whether you answered any of linduh's posts.
AND ignoring linduh has been discussed many times in the past...and,unlike you, I don't keep saying I'll ignore her.
Now why don't you stick to fighting with your long time antagonist, the one YOU'VE been fighting with a LOT longer than I have ........you're quickly getting borrrrrring ...and even linduh and classic are starting to make more sense
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
If you dont want to hear the truth....dont ask the question.
[ edited by classicrock000 on May 30, 2007 04:25 AM ]
Whats the matter Helen-you've done this hundreds of times-go back and copy and paste posts and re post them here.Dont like it when the tables are turned do ya LOL
If you dont want to hear the truth....dont ask the question.
[ edited by classicrock000 on May 30, 2007 06:40 AM ]
posted on May 30, 2007 06:54:51 AM new
I was just going to ask helen the same thing.
All those months of her running back and forth between otwa and the RT posting what was said at both boards.
She must have been EXCEPTIONALLY desperate....looking for stimulus and to alleviate HER boredom.
Again she proves what a hypocrite she is. LOL LOL LOL
helenjw posted - It's amazing what an awful stimulus some people require to alleviate boredom."
====
And the profe whines about how THIS oh so important subject isn't being addressed.
LOL LOL LOL But notice the GARBAGE kiara and sybil post and that's an accepted manner of answering an important post about Iran getting nuclear weapons.
Now...that's NOT as important as the childish garbage we ALWAYS get from kiara and mingo. LOL LOL LOL
Classic, you posted Mingo's remark to me several months ago when she stated, "Now why don't you stick to fighting with your long time antagonist, the one YOU'VE been fighting with a LOT longer than I have ........you're quickly getting borrrrrring ...and even linduh and classic are starting to make more sense "
Where did I object to the reposting of anything here? My response was a humorous one in reference to Mingo's need, expressed in that quote to use you and linda to alleviate her boredom.
I never object to the reposting of comments. However, it may make your post more understandable if you include some reason for posting it.
posted on May 30, 2007 08:23:50 AM new
"""However, it may make your post more understandable if you include some reason for posting it. ""
To avoid this:
Media pounced on Edwards' haircuts, but ignore Giuliani's Iowa farm snub
As Media Matters for America documented, the media recently devoted extensive coverage to a report -- first "broken" by Politico senior political writer Ben Smith on April 16 -- that Democratic presidential candidate and former Sen. John Edwards' (NC) campaign spent $800 on two haircuts. The story was covered by major print, broadcast, and cable outlets, and often featured characterizations of Edwards as "pretty" and the "Breck girl" -- echoing Republican and conservative attacks on Edwards dating back to 2004. These same media outlets, however, have shown almost no interest in recent reports that the presidential campaign of former New York City mayor Rudy Giuliani (R) scheduled -- and then abruptly canceled -- a campaign rally at the home of two Iowa farmers because they were not wealthy enough to be affected by the estate tax.
In a May 3 article, the Anamosa Journal-Eureka (Jones County, Iowa) reported: "Deb and Jerry VonSprecken of Olin received a call from former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani's campaign office asking them if they would be interested in holding a campaign rally on May 4, after she had donated to his campaign." According to the article, the VonSpreckens, who "have a modest 80 acre farm and raise cattle," agreed to the proposal and prepared for a 75-100 person rally. However, according to Deb VonSprecken, the Giuliani campaign later canceled the event, telling her: "I'm sorry, you aren't worth a million dollars and he is campaigning on the Death Tax right now." According to the Journal-Eureka, a Giuliani campaign spokesman would not comment on the issue. As Media Matters has noted, Republicans and conservatives who support repealing the "death tax" (a poll-tested GOP buzzword for the estate tax) have claimed that it hurts family farms and small businesses -- when in fact a very small percentage of the affected estates -- 2 percent in 2004 -- in which more than half of the assets are farms and family-owned businesses. At the May 3 Republican presidential debate, Giuliani declared: "We have to get rid of the death tax."
Blogger and media critic Greg Sargent highlighted the Journal-Eureka article on May 10, confirmed the details of the story with the Iowan paper and the VonSpreckens, and wrote that the "Rudy campaign just confirmed to me that its non-denial to the paper is real." On May 11, Sargent reported that Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) "put in a personal call today to an Iowa woman that was snubbed by Rudy Giuliani's campaign, asking to meet with her and apologizing to her on 'behalf of all politicians,' the woman told me this evening."
However, a Media Matters Nexis search revealed that this story has been almost completely ignored by the media in the 11 days since it was first reported, even after McCain's reported phone call. The New York Times, The Washington Post, the Los Angeles Times, and USA Today have not reported on the story. In his May 14 "Media Notes Extra" online column, Post media critic Howard Kurtz noted that the story "has gained some traction in the liberal blogosphere," but he dismissed blogger Kevin Drum's observation that "Giuliani's gang was playing an old time conservative game: trying to find a family farm that would eventually have to be sold in order to pay inheritance taxes," writing: "Come on -- don't all politicians look for people who illustrate the problem that their plan (on taxes, Social Security, whatever) is going to solve?" When asked about the story during a May 11 washingtonpost.com online discussion, Washington Post congressional reporter Jonathan Weisman responded: "There really aren't too many farmers affected by the death tax, although most of them think they are, so if that's his criteria, he's gonna have some trouble stumping in farm country." The Politico's Smith and Jonathan Martin noted the story on their respective blogs, but it was completely ignored by CNN, MSNBC, Fox News, CBS, and NBC. ABC noted the story on its Political Radar weblog on May 12.
The Associated Press devoted a May 12 article to the Giuliani story, reporting: "Deborah VonSprecken said that Giuliani's campaign bailed after deciding the couple didn't mesh with Giuliani's planned speech about the elimination of the inheritance tax. The so-called 'death tax,' is a big issue in Iowa, where farmers face hurdles passing their land along to the next generation." The AP offered no evidence to support the claim that the estate tax is "a big issue" for Iowa farmers. Estate tax data available on the IRS website do not indicate how many Iowa farms have paid estate taxes, though only 174 estates in Iowa paid the tax in 2005. According to Roger McEowen, director of Iowa State University's Center for Agricultural Law and Taxation, the federal estate tax "has virtually no impact in Iowa," and "[m]ost Iowa farms" are not valuable enough to meet the estate tax's threshold. McEowen was quoted in an April 20 Des Moines Register article:
"It has virtually no impact when you bring it down to Iowa," said McEowen. ... "It's not a death tax. That's misconstruing it."
McEowen said that Iowa continually ranks near the bottom of the list of states ranked in order of the amount of estate taxes paid. He cited a nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office study from 2004 that showed of the roughly 25,000 deaths in Iowa, fewer than 1 percent generated estate tax returns.
Most Iowa farms are valued at less than the $2 million threshold required to trigger the estate tax, McEowen said, especially considering the debt owed on most farms.
The media's lack of interest in the Giuliani/VonSprecken story stands in stark contrast to the widespread coverage of the Edwards haircut story. The Politico's Smith "broke" the Edwards story in an April 16 blog entry, which was linked to by Internet gossip Matt Drudge and almost instantly seized upon by the rest of the media. A Nexis search of the 11 days following Smith's blog entry (the same interval of time since the Giuliani story was first reported on May 3) revealed:
The New York Times reported on the story twice, and the haircuts were the subject of Times columnist Maureen Dowd's April 21 column (subscription required). The Washington Post mentioned the haircuts in five articles, while the Los Angeles Times mentioned them twice. USA Today mentioned them once.
The AP referred to the haircuts in five articles, including an April 17 article that labeled Edwards as "pretty."
NBC and CBS reported on Edwards' haircuts twice, and ABC reported on them once.
CNN referred to the haircuts at least six times, MSNBC at least three times, and Fox News at least five times.
As blogger Glenn Greenwald documented on May 3, The Politico had reported on the story at least eight times since April 16, while eschewing other political news stories. The Politico's and the media's coverage of the story was such that, during the April 26 Democratic presidential debate, moderator and NBC Nightly News anchor Brian Williams asked Edwards a question about the haircuts based on a column by Politico chief political columnist Roger Simon.
Kurtz, rather than dismissing the Edwards/haircut story as he did the Giuliani report, wrote on April 24: "You might think that this would be too trivial to spark a major online debate, but hair matters, apparently. It's a metaphor for ... well, for something very important." In a May 14 online discussion on washingtonpost.com, Kurtz rejected a reader's suggestion that the disparity in coverage between the Edwards haircut story and the Giuliani farm story constitutes "pretty clear evidence of conservative bias in those outlets that neglect the Giuliani story." According to Kurtz:
Howard Kurtz: No, I don't think it's evidence of pretty clear bias because I don't think the two are comparable. While the haircut story has been overblown, Edwards presumably knew about it, since it was his hair being cut, and he had the good sense to say he was embarrassed about it. There's no evidence that Giuliani personally knew about his staff's effort to line up a farming family hit by the estate tax. And I do believe that political staffs looking for real-life examples of this or that policy do this kind of prospecting all the time.
In dismissing the story, Kurtz ignored the problem underlying the staff's endeavor to find "real-life examples" for Giuliani's estate tax policy: Giuliani has chosen to stress an issue -- the federal estate tax -- that, as noted above, has little impact in Iowa. According to Kurtz apparently, the fact that Giuliani and/or his campaign staff either do not understand or willfully misrepresent the effects of the estate tax is less newsworthy than Edwards' paying for his haircuts with campaign funds, which Edwards later claimed "was a mistake."
posted on May 30, 2007 09:39:21 AM new
linduh, aren't you a big girl now? can't you look up Mediamatters, Anamosa Journal, The Washington Post, The New York Times, Howard Kurtz, etc. ?????
posted on May 30, 2007 10:33:16 AM new
Admit to what facts?
You, Helen and the rest would not know a fact if you fell over it. Here is a hint. Cutting and pasting an editorial comment from some dummy with the same ideological bent as yours is not a "fact".
As to "liberal media" it is much more subtle than news bias. When we were kids we saw old movies with John Wayne pulling his men through the fighting on Iwo Jima. What do we have today? What is the constant barrage fed to kids today?
1) Denzel Washington risks his career to bring the Marines who machine gunned the Iraqi hospital to justice.
2)Anybody getting bored with the "Law & Order", "Boston Legal", etc, plots where the "good American Muslim" on his way to volunteer at a community action center is murdered by some "dumb American" for being a terrorist because they saw him surfing Al Jezeera? Meanwhile the plot is exposed to be the evil American corporation covering up defective body armor supplied to the troops.
3)The brilliant black (hispanic, Muslim, etc, etc) neurosurgeon on his way to donate his services to treat wounded "war refugees" is pulled from his BMW and murdered by the "Irish gang". Eventually it is discovered he was on the verge of exposing the big pharmaceutical company.
This stuff is getting absolutely boring with the old been there done that.
You neocons just can't face the FACT that you hide behind the false bumper sticker idea that the media is liberal....just because and only because you don't like what they print or say
posted on May 30, 2007 11:43:56 AM new
mingotree
posted on January 7, 2007 02:59:57 PM I, for one, am ever so glad helen is ignoring linduh's posts ....
LOLOLOL!!
:LOLOL!!!!!
Helenjw
posted on January 7, 2007 03:10:50 PM
IDIOT.
Mingo, in this comment on the second page of this thread I made it perfectly clear in this post that I am not ignoring but rather avoiding some posts by linda.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
If you dont want to hear the truth....dont ask the question.
[ edited by classicrock000 on May 30, 2007 11:44 AM ]
Are YOU a Bunghole?
