Tom Daschle’s Defeat, Media Filters, and Kansas

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(Reprinted with the permission of the author, Karl Peterjohn, of Kansas Taxpayers Network.)

Enclosed is a December 13, 2004 Wall Street Journal opinion piece by John Fund (How Daschle Got Blogged) demonstrating how the bloggers went past the media filters in South Dakota to help knock off Tom Daschle last month.

This is relevant to Kansas for several reasons: This state has a similar one party news media like South Dakota’s that provides unbalanced information — as was well demonstrated by the critical letter to the editor that appeared in the Wichita Eagle December 13 criticizing an Americans For Prosperity report that the Kansas press — with one exception in the Lawrence Journal World — had not bothered to mention in print.

The Eagle editorial page found it worthwhile to publish a letter from Wisconsin blasting AFP-KS’ position on TABOR without bothering to report on the basic study or mention it in their editorial page. In fact, the Eagle has an unpublished editorial piece from Alan Cobb on TABOR.

Ironically, despite this recent flaw in their coverage, I consider the Eagle to have the least bad level of imbalance in both its editorial and news coverage when compared with the major newspapers in this state.

There are even worse examples coming out of the Kansas City area as well as the Topeka newspaper. The smaller dailies, lead by the Harris chain as well as Dave Seaton’s two Cowley County papers are usually even worse.

Second, these media filters allow distortions, like the 2002 Sebelius campaign, to get away with remarkable prevarication on their position concerning key issues, like taxes. Another example of flawed Kansas media coverage is the non reporting of the Missouri money flowing into Kansas campaigns at many levels. See the last minute, third-party hit pieces that occur at the end of the campaign and get no negative coverage if the Left blasts Phill Kline in the last week of his campaign but is major news if the conservatives find a 527 vehicle that runs paid media ads in this state.

In the 2002 campaign Sebelius kept claiming that she was not supportive of raising taxes. No one in the mainstream press bothered to ask her about her repeated legislative votes for raising taxes while serving in the Kansas house in the 1980’s and early 1990’s. Now that she has spent the last year proposing numerous, large tax hikes it would seem worthwhile for someone in this state’s news media to bother to mention her flip-flop. I’ve complained about it in my editorials that I post on KTN’s web site and I send out on-line but I believe that the statehouse press corps is concerned about losing access inside her office if they press her on this as well as other key issues.

Third, there are already a few good bloggers at work in this state. “The Kansas Meadowlark” is regularly providing excellent public document information that is regularly ignored in the “mainstream” Kansas press. We need more Meadowlarks and we need ways to disseminate his work more widely to Kansas netizens. There was another blogger, I believe it was “Kansas Citizen” operating out of Johnson County too.

Fourth, I’m tired of the rotating door between the media and its sources and the political Left in this state. Jim MacLean leaves the Topeka Capital-Journal for the Sebelius administration. This occurred only a year or so after the head of the KS Associated Press statehouse office “retires” and is then appointed to the Kansas Board of Regents as well as serving on other boards appointed by the governor.

More recently the most commonly quoted-by-the-press academic in this state, Burdett Loomis, takes a position with the Sebelius administration without fully leaving his position at KU! I was recently surprised to find out from the Kansas Meadowlark that his son had been active in the 2002 Sebelius campaign as well as joining her staff after Sebelius became governor. I wonder who the media will find to become the next Burdett Loomis to quote in “news” stories or if they will continue to quote him since he still is part time at KU’s Dole center.

Fifth, this is a national as well as statewide problem. Tom Daschle’s wife is a Washington lobbyist. Could a Dennis Hastert or Bill Frist spouse do this? Of course not, the media would howl. Newt Gingrich was forced by the news media to surrender book royalties after he became speaker while HIllary Clinton had no problem taking her book royalties to her bank. Fortunately there are several groups like the Media Resource Center and Accuracy in Media as well as numerous bloggers operating in Washington. Unfortunately, the only methodical effort to hold the media accountable in this state that I know of is through bloggers like the Kansas Meadowlark.

Many of you receiving this email distribute your own material and others to your own lists. This effort needs to expand and grow. If you have a web site, I strongly urge you to link up with the Kansas Meadowlark’s. If you find other web sites, please spread the word. I’m sending this to you not in the belief that I have all of the answers, but only because I think I know some of the questions and you need to read Fund’s editorial.

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