Well, you can't say they haven't tried. Maybe more garlic and an extra cross or two?
"What I've heard from colleagues is that people feel it probably has had too long a life," said Frank James, a Chicago Tribune reporter. "We wish someone would put a stake in this vampire."
Campaign Journalists: Has Swift Boat Story Gone on Too Long?
By Joe Strupp
Published: August 24, 2004 3:15 PM EST
NEW YORK As Sen. John Kerry spoke to supporters at a campaign event in New York City's East Village Tuesday afternoon, the swift boat controversy that has enveloped his run for the White House in recent weeks was on the minds of many of the journalists present.
After the speech, when approached by an E&P reporter as he worked the crowd, Kerry declined twice to answer when asked what he thought of press coverage of the swift boat issue. After a third time, the candidate finally said, "I'm talking about the economy, jobs, health care and things that matter to Americans."
Kerry had raised the issue briefly during the speech at Cooper Union, declaring "we have seen a calculated effort to evade the debate. The Bush campaign and its allies have turned to the tactics of fear and smear because they can't talk about jobs, health care, energy independence, and rebuilding our alliances."
Some of the reporters covering Kerry said that the candidate had become less accessible on the campaign plane in recent weeks, with a few speculating that it might be because he did not want to face questions about the swift boat issue. But among them, different views arose over the swift boat story, with some saying it had gone on too long and others believing it was news that had to be covered.
"What I've heard from colleagues is that people feel it probably has had too long a life," said Frank James, a Chicago Tribune reporter. "We wish someone would put a stake in this vampire."
James also said some wondered why Kerry did not take on the issue himself earlier on. "He should have knocked it down early, but the campaign clearly thought it would go away."
David Broder of The Washington Post, who penned a column on the controversy Tuesday, said Vietnam is such a sensitive issue among Kerry's generation that it is hard to expect it to go away too quickly. "The boomers have never managed to come to terms with this thing," he said. "I don't think you will see it as a perpetual issue at this level to the end, but it will come up in some form."
When asked if newspapers should be reducing coverage of the swift boat story given the discrepancies found in many of the allegations made by the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, Broder said reporters needed to follow the story, not lead it. "The press does not have that authority," he said.
Kerry appears to have grown more wary of reporters due to this issue. "He did not come to the back of the plane," Broder said about Tuesday's flight from Boston to New York. "He had been much more accessible." Glen Johnson of The Boston Globe, also in the press travel pool, concurred, saying "that limits the options of what we can write about."
James also noticed a tightening of restrictions on Kerry, adding "they want to be as careful as possible, not having unscripted moments so mistakes don't happen."
The Globe's Johnson is not surprised that the swift boat saga had taken on such attention, but added that it presents a challenge to papers not to fall into the trap of television, which has almost obsessed over the story. "It is a very TV-friendly story," he said. "That makes it hard not to cover what he has been dealing with."
Joe Strupp (jstrupp@editorandpublisher.com) is senior editor for E&P.
editorandpublisher.com |
