"On Kerry, News Services Play Catch-up"

See if you can read this article by the Kansas City Star's reader representative, yesterday, without laughing.

Some of you think the paper isn't doing its job of covering Sen. John Kerry and the controversy surrounding his military record.

Last week, readers called and wrote in, saying The Star hasn't covered critics' assertions that:

1) Kerry's claim of being in Cambodia on Christmas of 1968 was a lie; and that

2) One of the swift boat veterans says he was misquoted by the Boston Globe, and is still fully behind the anti-Kerry movement....

The Star subscribes to several news wire services — the aforementioned credible sources — including Knight Ridder (The Star's parent company), The Associated Press, and the Los Angeles Times, The New York Times and The Washington Post wire services.

On Friday, a Google News search turned up dozens of references to the Kerry stories. Many of them were on fringe news and personal Internet pages, sites that The Star and other mainstream media don't recognize as credible by themselves. Such news must be verified, preferably with two independent sources. That doesn't always happen on Internet sites, talk radio and cable TV news shows — even though such electronic media often are far ahead of other traditional news media in reporting controversy.

Sometimes the early reports do get it right. When that happens, traditional news media look like slowpokes. As with other celebrity and political news stories, electronic media frequently move faster than print news does. That's because they don't always have the system of checks and balances newspapers require....

As to the system of checks and balances newspapers require, one need only bring up two names to get an idea of what passes for checks & balances at mainstream newspapers: Jayson Blair and Michael Kranish.

Lane Core Jr. CIW P — Mon. 08/16/04 07:44:36 AM
Categorized as Media.