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Bloggers keep eye on the news By Mark Memmott

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CBS backs off Guard story By Dave Moniz, Kevin Johnson and Jim Drinkard

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Kerry stumps with Sharpton, Jackson By Judy Keen

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Media have become the message in a bruising political year By Peter Johnson

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Presidential campaigns let fly a barrage of combative ads By Mark Memmott

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Voters in Ohio give political ads a thumbs down By Mark Memmott

PENN2005-01

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Media Influence The media is one of the most powerful carriers of thoughts and opinions as compared to any other outlet in the world. Through this year's presidential election, we have seen the effects of these influential sources of information on the public, and the effects of the media are becoming more apparent with every political milestone. If voters are going to be able to make an informed choice, then they must have meaningful information and informed discussions of political platforms. The problem lies in the bias that is embedded within the media, and news coverage alike. The Pennsylvania State University Education 100S First Year Seminar in Education Betsy Emig, Lauren Fisch, Helen Leasure, Allison Renaut, Jenna Wenclawiak and Jeff Wuebber

This bias is present in many sources, such as radio, magazines, newspapers, and predominately television. News stations have had the tendency to be partial, such as in the situation that occurred at CBS News when the network used false documents critical of President Bush's service in the Texas National Guard. A Texas Guard officer later admitted to lying about the documents and Dan Rather of CBS confessed to being misled by this source. The officer also acknowledged that his lying had been an attempt to throw reporters off the trail. Similar things have happened via the internet. People know as internet "bloggers" supply the media, as well as the public, with false information, claiming its authenticity. It is scandals like these, whether they are accidental or deliberate, that severely influence the public. While brainwashing the public, the media has spent millions of dollars during the presidential election. Each campaign released about one ad per day, and a lot of these messages are repetitive, so it seems as if much money is being wasted. The public is beginning to be concerned with this amount of expenditure, and many citizens even admit that the ads shown are not even realistic. Sometimes the media tends to simplify the language and mere content of political ads, which in turn offends the public and insults its intelligence. It is also known that the public approves of positive ads more so than attack ads, even though the bulk of the media use attack ads. It is these negative vibes that affect many of the voters of today. The purpose of negative ads is to highlight the down side of the one being

Discussion Questions & Future Implications 14

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attacked. Many people, though they say they do not approve of negative ads, will be reminded ad influenced. Negative ads help the media either positively influence the decisions of voters, or discourage them from the right conclusion. The media is a driving force that influences our daily lives and decisions. Unfortunately, the media skews important information about issues that affect all Americans. It is imperative for all voters to make decisions based upon what they feel is beneficial to not only themselves, but the nation as well. The bias in the media is an important subject on which all people should be knowledgeable. AS SEEN IN USA TODAY NEWS SECTION, WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 22, 2004, PAGE 8A

Bloggers keep eye on the news 'Old media' learning to take sites seriously By Mark Memmott USA TODAY TV networks, newspapers and other "old media" now know there's a vigilant pack of watchdogs who can rip holes in stories any time of day or night. They're people who know a lot about, or have strong opinions about, thousands of sometimes arcane topics. And they're sharing that information on the Internet 24 hours a day. Some are Internet "bloggers," who may or may not have expertise and may have biases — but who provide forums for debate. Others are people with a passion for particular topics, such as Jim Forbes, curator of an Internet site devoted to IBM Selectric typewriters, www.selectric.org, which has caught attention in recent weeks. All came together to expose

problems with memos critical of President Bush's National Guard service. Their role in discrediting the story has made clear they can't be ignored by other media, say journalists and Web experts. In the case of the Guard documents, the questioning was led by sites such as powerlineblog.com and rathergate.com and by a writer known as "Buckhead." The writer questioned the memos' authenticity on freerepublic.com within a few hours of the Sept. 8 60 Minutes broadcast in which they first appeared. Buckhead has been identified in several media as conservative Atlanta lawyer Harry MacDougald. Reached Tuesday, MacDougald would "neither confirm nor deny" he is Buckhead. "There's no question we all have to take them seriously," says Terence Smith, media correspondent and senior producer at PBS' The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer. "They do provide, at least potentially, a useful factchecking function. . . . After all, there's an expert out there on everything."

For the old media, "this must have been what it was like for the Catholic Church when movable type was invented," says Jack Shafer, who writes a media column called "Press Box" for the online magazine Slate. "Until then, the church controlled who would be the scribes." In the case of the alleged Texas Air National Guard documents, Buckhead and others pointed to many clues indicating the documents may have been produced by a modern computer, not an early '70s typewriter, as would have had to be the case if they are authentic. CBS initially defended its work. One network executive, Jonathan Klein, referred to bloggers as loners who sit home alone in pajamas and spin fantastic tales. In fact, Web sites run by single individuals and bloggers are frequently wrong because they so often are just bulletin boards for rumors and gossip, Internet experts say. But most bloggers also tend to correct their mistakes quickly. "We dash things off," says John Palfrey, executive director of the Berkman Center for Internet & Society at Harvard Law School and a blogger himself who writes most often about Internet and high technology issues. "But if it needs to be rewritten, it is within an hour many times." For some media experts, the documents episode underscores a troubling fact about this year's political reporting. With just six weeks left in the presidential campaign, the media experts say it appears the stories the news media will be most remembered for reporting are about memos that might be forgeries and things that happened

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30 years ago on a river in Vietnam. Those stories focus on charges — all challenged — leveled by a group of Vietnam War veterans at Democratic presidential candidate Sen. John Kerry.

"I'm reaching the point where I want to ratchet down considerably the volume of coverage we give to the campaigns' back-and-forth and ratchet up the coverage we give to where the candidates stand on the issues," says Douglas Clifton, editor of The Plain Dealer in Cleveland.

Many editors say they recognize what's happening and hope to use the time between now and Election Day, Nov. 2, to put more substance into the news they report.

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CBS backs off Guard story Source for memos now says he lied about where he got them By Dave Moniz, Kevin Johnson and Jim Drinkard USA TODAY CBS News acknowledged Monday that it received disputed documents critical of President Bush's service in the Texas Air National Guard from a former Texas Guard officer who now says he lied about where he got them and has doubts about their authenticity. The network said Bill Burkett, a former lieutenant colonel in the Texas Army Guard, was its source for the memos that were the basis of a 60 Minutes broadcast Sept.

CBS 'deeply regrets' using memos Excerpts from CBS statement: "60 Minutes Wednesday had full confidence in the original report, or it would not have aired. "However, in the wake of serious and disturbing questions that came up after the broadcast, CBS News has done extensive additional reporting in an effort to confirm the documents' authenticity. . . .

8. Burkett provided the documents to USA TODAY later that night. Initially, USA TODAY and other news organizations took the CBS report at face value but in subsequent days, inspired by Internet sites, began to report doubts about the documents' authenticity. For a week, CBS staunchly defended the documents against a stream of experts' opinions that they were fake. In a statement issued Monday, the network acknowledged it had been wrong and said it should not have used the documents. "That was a mistake, which we deeply regret," CBS President Andrew Heyward said. The network's chief anchor, Dan Rather, apologized for "a mistake in judgment." The admission was a major blow to the credibility of the news organization and of Rather, who has a history of skirmishes with politicians and is a favorite target of conservative commentators. Heyward promised an "independent review of the

"Based on what we now know, CBS News cannot prove that the documents are authentic, which is the only acceptable journalistic standard to justify using them in the report. We should not have used them. That was a mistake, which we deeply regret. . . . "CBS News and CBS management are commissioning an independent review of the process by which the report was prepared and broadcast to help determine what actions need to be taken. The names of the people conducting the review will be announced shortly, and their findings will be made public."

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Rather: CBS was 'misled' on source Excerpts from Dan Rather's statement: "Last week, amid increasing questions about the authenticity of documents used in support of a 60 Minutes Wednesday story about President Bush's time in the Texas Air National Guard, CBS News vowed to re-examine the documents in question — and their source — vigorously. . . . process by which the report was prepared and broadcast to determine what actions need to be taken." The network aired an interview with Burkett on the Evening News Monday, after which Rather said, "I want to say personally and directly, I'm sorry." In interviews in recent days with USA TODAY, both in person and on the phone, Burkett said he had merely been a conduit for the records purported to be from the private files of Lt. Col. Jerry Killian, one of Bush's former Guard commanders, who died in 1984. Burkett admitted lying to USA TODAY about the source of the documents but said he did not fabricate the papers. In earlier conversations with USA TODAY, Burkett had identified the source of the documents as George Conn, a former Texas National Guard colleague who works for the U.S. Army in Europe. Burkett now says he made up the story about Conn's involvement to divert attention from himself and the woman he now says provided him with the documents. He told USA TODAY that he also lied to CBS. Burkett now maintains that the source of the papers was Lucy

"Now, after extensive additional interviews, I no longer have the confidence in these documents that would allow us to continue vouching for them journalistically. . . . We have been misled on the key question of how our source for the documents came into possession of these papers. That, combined with some of the questions that have been raised in public and in the press, leads me to a point Ramirez, who he says phoned him from Houston in March to offer the documents. USA TODAY has been unable to locate Ramirez. When Burkett gave copies of the documents to USA TODAY, it was on the understanding that his identity would not be disclosed. USA TODAY honored that agreement until Burkett waived his confidentiality Monday. "I didn't forge anything," Burkett said. "I didn't fake any documents. The only thing I've done here is to transfer documents from people I thought were real to people I thought were real. And that has been the limitation of my role. I may have been a patsy." The White House on Monday welcomed the network's admission but said it "raised more questions than answers." Communications director Dan Bartlett called for an investigation that includes "whether the president's political opponents were behind these attacks." He added, "Since CBS News and USA TODAY had both obtained these forged documents, we now urge them to lead the way in finding the truth."

where — if I knew then what I know now — I would not have gone ahead with the story as it was aired, and I certainly would not have used the documents in question. "But we did use the documents. We made a mistake in judgment, and for that I am sorry. It was an error that was made, however, in good faith and in the spirit of trying to carry on a CBS News tradition of investigative reporting without fear or favoritism. McClellan said Bush was told of the CBS statement as he flew to Derry, N.H., for a campaign appearance. McClellan said Burkett "is not an unimpeachable source as was previously claimed. Bill Burkett is a source who has been discredited, and so this raises a lot of questions." Burkett's own doubts about the authenticity of the memos and his inability to supply evidence to show that Ramirez exists also raise questions about his credibility. Burkett has strong anti-Bush views. He has posted comments on Internet Web sites critical of Bush and has chastised Sen. John Kerry's organization for what he called its inept campaign. Tired of 'being the bad guy' Burkett's emotions varied widely in the interviews. One session ended when Burkett suffered a violent seizure and collapsed in his chair. Earlier, he said he was coming forward now to explain what he had done and why to try to salvage his reputation. In the past week, Burkett was named by many news reports as the probable source of the documents.

White House spokesman Scott

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"It's time," Burkett said. "I'm tired of me being the bad guy. I'm tired of losing everything we've got," a reference to his financial and health struggles since he left the Guard. Turning to his wife, Nicki, he said: "We've lost it all, baby. We've lost everything." Sitting in a rocking chair in his weathered ranch house south of Baird, Texas, Burkett recounted his continuing efforts — beginning before he was discharged from the Texas Army National Guard in 1998 — to clean up what he saw as Guard corruption and mismanagement. He said that activity led to a telephone call in March from Ramirez and her offer to provide documents damaging to President Bush. Burkett said Ramirez told him she had seen him the previous month in an appearance on the MSNBC program Hardball, discussing the controversy over whether Bush fulfilled all his obligations for service in the Texas Air Guard during the early 1970s. "There is something I have that I want to make sure gets out," he quoted her as saying. He said Ramirez claimed to possess Killian's "correspondence file," which would prove Burkett's allegations that Bush had problems as a Guard fighter pilot. Burkett said he arranged to get the documents during a trip to Houston for a livestock show in March. But instead of being met at the show by Ramirez, he was approached by a man who asked for Burkett, handed him an envelope and quickly left, Burkett recounted. "I didn't even ask any questions," Burkett said. "Should I have? Yes.

Maybe I was duped. I never really even considered that." By Monday, USA TODAY had not been able to locate Ramirez or verify other details of Burkett's account. Three people who worked with Killian in the early 1970s said they don't recognize her name. Burkett promised to provide telephone records that would verify his calls to Ramirez, but he had not done so by Monday night. An acquaintance of Burkett, who he said could corroborate his story, said he was at the livestock show on March 3. The woman, who asked that her name not be used, said Burkett asked if he could put papers inside a box she had at the livestock show. Often, she said, friends ask to store papers in her box that verify their purchases at the livestock auction. She said she did not know the nature of the papers Burkett gave her, and he did not say anything about them. A political hurricane The documents story exploded into view Sept. 8, when 60 Minutes aired a report alleging that Bush had been shown political favoritism in getting into the Texas Air National Guard and that Killian had doubts about his performance as a fighter pilot. The network interviewed Ben Barnes, a former speaker of the Texas House, who said he used his contacts to help Bush get into the Guard and avoid being drafted for Vietnam service. But that interview was eclipsed by the controversy over the rest of the report, which was based on documents supposedly retrieved from a personal file Killian kept and supplied to CBS by Burkett.

About an hour after the 60 Minutes story aired, Burkett also gave the documents to a USA TODAY reporter who had flown to meet him in Bozeman, Mont., where he said he was visiting friends. Burkett had twice before been an on-the-record source for USA TODAY stories: a Dec. 18, 2001, story on inflated troop counts in the Guard nationwide — so-called ghost soldiers — and a Feb. 12 story this year in which Burkett recounted what he said were efforts by top Texas Guard officials to "cleanse" Bush's military record of embarrassing information in the summer of 1997. Burkett's comments about cleaning up Bush's file were widely reported. The White House called the accusation "outrageously false." In the Sept. 8 segment on CBS, Bartlett rebutted the charges that Bush failed to fulfill his Guard obligations, but he did not challenge the documents' authenticity. Within hours after the report aired, though, Internet sites began to raise questions about whether the papers were real. Two former FBI forensic document specialists enlisted by USA TODAY to examine the documents said they probably were forgeries. The critiques focused on several factors: individual typed letters in the memos showed variable spacing, a feature rare on 1970s-vintage typewriters, and some terminology wasn't consistent with language used in the Air Guard at that time. Handwriting experts found discrepancies between Killian's signature on the memos and samples of his writing in Bush's publicly released files.

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Knox, 86, said. "I had been with the military a long time. I know how they think, and I wasn't deaf." She said she liked Bush personally but doesn't approve of him as president.

White House: Questions still 'need to be answered' Excerpt from Scott McClellan's statement: "There are a number of serious questions that remain unanswered, and they need to be answered. Bill Burkett, who CBS now says is their source, in fact is not an unimpeachable source as was previously claimed. Bill Burkett is a source who has been discredited, and so this raises a lot of questions. There were media reports about Mr. Burkett having senior level contacts with the Kerry campaign. That raises questions. What were those contacts and what was discussed with Bill Burkett? Who was the original source of these documents and who was responsible for forging these documents?"

Last Tuesday, doubts about the documents' authenticity grew when Killian's former secretary, Marian Carr Knox, told The Dallas Morning News that she didn't type them and that the papers appeared to be fakes. She repeated the account on CBS the next day. But she said in an interview with USA TODAY that Killian had written similar memos, which she had typed, and kept them in a locked drawer in his office at Ellington Air Force Base. Killian, a stickler for rules, was having trouble keeping Bush in line, she said. "I was in a position where I heard a lot, and a lot was said in front of me,"

Burkett said he began to have doubts about the papers' authenticity as evidence piled up suggesting they were fabricated. He said that by last Wednesday, he had begun to believe that he had been misled. Finally, he agreed in extended interviews with two USA TODAY reporters to give up his insistence on anonymity and to tell the story of how he says he became a conduit for the documents. USA TODAY spoke with him daily from Thursday through Monday. Intense political feelings Testaments to Burkett's intense feelings about politics are all over his house. On a side table is a copy of the book Bush's Brain: How Karl Rove Made George W. Bush Presidential. In the front entry is a photograph of Republican Sen. John McCain of Arizona, whom his wife supported against Bush in the 2000 Republican primaries. After he received the documents in Houston, Burkett said, he drove home, stopping on the way at a Kinko's shop in Waco to copy the six memos. In the parking lot outside, he said, he burned the ones he had been given and the envelope they were in. Ramirez was worried about leaving forensic evidence on them that might lead back to her, Burkett said, acknowledging that the story sounded fantastic. "This is going to sound like some damn sci-fi movie," he said. After keeping the copies for a couple of days, he said he drove to a location he would not specify, about 100 miles

from his ranch, to put them "in cold storage." Burkett said he took the action because he believed the papers were politically explosive and made him nervous. "I treated them like absolute TNT," he said. "They looked to me like they were devastating." Reporters who knew of Burkett's role as a Bush critic continued to call as they searched for files that could fill in details on a gap in Bush's service record. Bush was a well-regarded pilot but stopped flying fighter jets in 1972 and moved to Alabama, where he worked on a political campaign and apparently missed required Guard drills. Ultimately, Burkett decided to turn over the documents to one of the most persistent journalists, CBS producer Mary Mapes, sometime in August. He and his wife met Mapes and CBS reporter Mike Smith at a pizza restaurant a few miles from their ranch. At first he gave them only two of the six documents, which Mapes said she planned to have analyzed for authenticity, according to Burkett. Burkett said he passed the rest of the documents to Smith around Sept. 5, at a drive-in restaurant near Baird. As Burkett told his story, he appeared overwrought, fatigued and unsure of how to deal with what he characterized as the extreme pressure of national attention. He spoke of being under a severe strain. At one point Thursday, as he spoke on a cellphone to his San Antonio lawyer, David Van Os, Burkett's voice froze in midsentence and his body convulsed in a violent seizure. He was helped to the floor and then to a couch. He has had such bouts sporadically over the past several

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months, but this one was worse, his wife said. The next day, Burkett resumed the interview. He lay on the couch with a wet cloth on his forehead. Conn, the Texas Guard friend Burkett initially identified as the source of the documents, denied any connection in an e-mail exchange with USA TODAY. He wrote: "Know absolutely nothing about the Killian memos." Conn declined to be interviewed further. Pressed about the inconsistency between his initial account and the story of Ramirez, the mysterious Houston source, Burkett confessed that the Conn story had been a lie to throw reporters off the trail. "I just pushed too far," Burkett said. "I implied that

George had something to do with this. I lied to you." He said he told the same story to CBS, but asserted that all his other dealings in the documents case had been honest. "I honest to God can't remember anything else I feel bad about," Burkett said. Burkett voiced frustration that his effort to call attention to what he believes are legitimate questions about Bush's military service is now being obscured by a new story line: "that I am some kind of nut." "The only reason I'm going on the record is because I've got to tell the story to save my name."

Moniz and Johnson reported from Texas, Drinkard from Washington. Contributing: Blake Morrison

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Kerry stumps with Sharpton, Jackson; Bush ads blasts rival's views on terrorism By Judy Keen USA TODAY CRAWFORD, Texas — President Bush's campaign intensified criticism of Sen. John Kerry's views of the war on terrorism Sunday and the Democratic challenger fought back forcefully as the two candidates prepared for the final debate on Wednesday. At church services in Miami on Sunday, Kerry sought support from minority voters and equated his campaign with the civil rights movement. "We have an unfinished march in this nation," he said at Friendship Missionary Baptist Church. Jesse Jackson, stumping with Kerry, urged the congregation to go to the polls. "The power is in your hands, hands that once picked cotton," he said. Bush received 9% of African-Americans' votes in 2000; their support is key to Kerry's hopes of carrying Florida.

Meanwhile, Bush's campaign put out a TV ad blasting Kerry for telling the New York Times Magazine in an interview published Sunday, "We have to get back to the place we were, where terrorists are not the focus of our lives, but they're a nuisance." He spoke of illegal gambling and prostitution as similar problems that don't threaten lives every day. "Terrorism, a nuisance?" the Bush ad asks. "How can Kerry protect us when he doesn't understand the threat?" Kerry's campaign responded with an ad reminding voters that Bush, asked in August by NBC's Matt Lauer if the war on terrorism will ever be won, said, "I don't think you can win it." Democrats seized on the remark. Bush said a few days later that he meant the United States will not get an official surrender from a defeated al-Qaeda. "In this different kind of war, we may never sit down at a peace table," he said. "But make no mistake about it, we are winning and we will win." Kerry's interview and comments on Iraq in Friday's

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debate in St. Louis gave Republicans an opportunity to try to show voters that Kerry doesn't take the war on terrorism seriously enough to be president. During the debate Bush pounced on a suggestion by Kerry that a summit be held to improve the situation in Iraq. "And what is he going to say to those people who show up at that summit?" Bush asked. "Join me in the wrong war at the wrong time in the wrong place?" Wednesday's debate in Tempe, Ariz., will be solely on domestic matters. But Nicolle Devenish, communications director for the Bush campaign, says the president will try to keep the focus on his "record and vision vs. Kerry's liberal record and inability to articulate a post-911 vision for fighting and winning the war on terrorism." On Fox News Sunday, Sen. John Edwards assailed Bush's rationale for the war. Last week's report by chief U.S. weapons inspector Charles Duelfer gives Democrats a new opportunity to challenge Bush's assertion that the war with Iraq was essential to the war on terrorism. Duelfer concluded that Saddam Hussein had no weapons of mass destruction or facilities to make them. But he also

concluded that Hussein intended to restart his weapons programs as soon as U.N. sanctions against Iraq were lifted. Edwards said Bush invaded the "axis of evil" member that posed the least nuclear threat. "Iran's moved forward with their nuclear weapon program on this president's watch," Edwards said. North Korea, he said, has "gone from one to two nuclear weapons to as many as six or seven nuclear weapons." On ABC's This Week, Bush campaign manager Ken Mehlman said Kerry would be a timid leader of the war on terrorism. "The difference between George Bush and John Kerry is that in a post-9/11 world, John Kerry will wait till there's a smoking gun to defend America," he said. Kerry arrived in Santa Fe, N.M., Sunday evening to prepare for the final debate. Bush spent Sunday at his Texas ranch.

Contributing: Martin Kasindorf and Jill Lawrence with the Kerry campaign.

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Media have become the message in a bruising political year Politicians have been using the media as scapegoats for By Peter Johnson decades, but in this year's presidential race, the candidates hardly needed to lead the attacks: Media issues and missteps often have managed to overshadow the campaigns.

The media mix

News companies and journalists who work for them are constant targets, but even more so during this hotly contested election, says Ken Auletta, a veteran media writer for The New Yorker magazine. "There's this giant echo chamber which desperately needs new information, and everything we do is grist for

that mill," he says. "We have to be on our toes, just like the presidential candidates. Nothing is private anymore." The competitive world of 24-hour cable news has a hand in this: It needs a fresh supply of news to survive. And viewers, increasingly skeptical of the media, according to polls, are drawn to stories of news outlets or personalities tripping up. A politically divided country is also at work, with partisans relentlessly pushing their agendas on news outlets that thrive on controversy. Internet bloggers have been the driving force behind some recent scandals, sending out a blitz of information that media pass along,

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sometimes before checking accuracy. "It's reflective of where the country is," says Jim Murphy, producer of The CBS Evening News. "There are millions of people who are very deeply engaged in the political process. They know that media coverage can shape that, and they want to make sure their side wins, so they beat up anybody they perceive to be leaning the wrong way — even if there is no lean." It has gotten very personal. Amid charges by Fox News producer Andrea Mackris that Fox star Bill O'Reilly sexually harassed her, Fox executives have countercharged that Mackris' lawyer is a Democrat. Behind his client's allegations, Fox says, is a political agenda directed at the network. Cable competitor MSNBC, syndicated entertainment shows and the New York tabloids can't report enough on this scandal. Elsewhere, attention has focused on reporters from Time and The New York Times, who face jail for not disclosing sources. That case has political overtones because it involves the media disclosing a CIA agent's identity, possibly with the help of a White House staffer. Other media-centered uproars: v Sinclair Broadcasting changed its plan to air an anti-Kerry film on its stations after heat from liberals, Wall Street and John Kerry's campaign. Instead, on Friday, Sinclair aired a more balanced report on Kerry's Vietnam activities. Earlier, Sinclair had

fired its D.C. bureau chief, Jon Leiberman, for publicly protesting the chain's plans. v In "Memogate," conservatives, who have long suspected CBS News and anchor Dan Rather lean left, charged that both rushed bogus memos onto the air to question President Bush's National Guard service. Rather apologized for running the story but denies political motive. CBS is investigating. v USA TODAY took heat from conservatives in August for choosing film director Michael Moore, a liberal Democrat and Kerry supporter, to write columns about the Republican convention. v Conservatives charged that a recent internal e-mail from ABC News political director Mark Halperin showed that he leans left. Meanwhile, liberals attacked Fox News correspondent Carl Cameron for a gag story he wrote mocking Kerry that ended up on Fox's Web site. v Anti-war groups pointed to a private e-mail that Baghdad-based Wall Street Journal reporter Farnaz Fassihi sent to friends in late September, talking about her security concerns there, saying it was an example of how the situation in Iraq has deteriorated. Just a few years ago, many of these issues would have been fodder for low-circulation academic and trade journalism magazines. Now, those topics get headlines and airtime in

major news outlets, driven by partisans who keep a particularly close watch. "The press is living a mirror image of the politicians we cover," says Auletta. "There's something healthy about that: Maybe it'll teach us some things about what it's like to be a target, make us more sensitive and improve our journalism." But Auletta says some coverage has gotten out of control. "Cameron was being a wiseguy, but now he's 'unfair' and 'biased.' And while people say that (Fassihi) is anti-war, what she was actually saying is, 'I'm scared I'm going to be killed and I can't do my job.' Go figure." All of this is "potentially a good thing: the media keeping an eye on each other, keeping each other straight," says Dale Harrison, a journalism professor at Auburn University. "But it has gotten blown out of proportion. Each error that a member of the media makes becomes political fire." Perhaps that's why during the last debate President Bush took a swipe at the media after Kerry said "two leading national news networks" reported Bush had mischaracterized Kerry's health plan. "With all due respect," Bush replied. "I'm not so sure it's credible to quote leading news organizations about — oh, never mind."

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Presidential campaigns let fly a barrage of combative ads By Mark Memmott USA TODAY President Bush and Sen. John Kerry would have to wrestle at mid-stage during their debate tonight to exceed the intensity of the TV ad wars underway between their campaigns. For a week now, each campaign has released about one ad per day, a frenzy of activity that far outpaces the one or two ads per week released throughout most of the campaign. Twice in the past week, the KerryEdwards campaign has followed a Bush-Cheney commercial or conservative group's ad with a "response ad" a few hours later. The frenetic pace continued Wednesday with the release of two more Kerry-Edwards commercials. One says Bush "can't tell us why he went to Iraq. But it's time he tells us how he's going to fix it." The other has Kerry saying "alternative fuels and the cars of the future" could help make the USA "independent of Mideast oil in the next 10 years." Some of the ads may not be seen by many viewers. The Associated Press reported Wednesday that the Kerry campaign has released some ads to get attention in the news media and then run them only a few times or not at all. Also Wednesday: v A newly formed anti-Bush organization called RealVoices PAC

released the first commercial to spotlight a parent of an American soldier killed in Iraq. The mother, Cindy Sheehan of Vacaville, Calif., tearfully asks why Bush hasn't "been honest with us" about the reasons for going to war with Iraq. v Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, a group that opposes Kerry's presidential bid, said it will start running an ad today on national cable TV and in the closely contested states of Pennsylvania, Nevada and New Mexico. In the ad, two wives of former American prisoners of war in Vietnam say Kerry's anti-war activities in the 1970s "gave aid and comfort to the enemy." Experts who study campaign advertising say the rapid-fire release of commercials is likely to continue until Election Day, Nov. 2. "The elbows will only get sharper, and the messages will only come quicker," predicts Evan Tracey, chief operating officer of TNSMI/Campaign Media Analysis Group, which tracks political ads. "Now they really have to go after those remaining 'undecided' voters. The campaigns want to get them involved in the conversation, and they'll use ads to help do it."

commercials and get them out quickly that we'll only see more," says John Geer, political science professor at Vanderbilt University in Nashville. "It used to be, just a few years ago, that campaigns would respond to each other with faxes. Then it was e-mails. Now it's also ads." The 2004 presidential race has smashed the previous record on television spending. In 2000, the Gore and Bush campaigns spent about $200 million on TV commercials during the general election. This year, the Bush and Kerry campaigns have topped that figure and are headed above $300 million. Their spending has mostly been to run the ads in up to 20 hotly contested states and on some national cable TV networks. Although each campaign has produced a large number of different spots (at least 35 so far from the Kerry-Edwards campaign and 47 from the Bush-Cheney campaign), the themes are generally consistent. "Most are restatements and repackagings of things they've said before," Geer says, "just as what they say in the debates will probably be restatements of what they've been saying on the campaign trail all along."

Neither side wants to let a commercial or allegation go unchallenged, for fear of looking weak to supporters and undecided voters. "It's gotten so cheap and so easy over the years to produce

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AS SEEN IN USA TODAY NEWS SECTION, MONDAY, OCTOBER 11, 2004, PAGE 7A

As the presidential campaign nears its Nov. 2 finish, both major candidates and their supporters are flooding TV airwaves in key states with even more ads. Today, the Democratic National Committee formally The Democratic unveils an ad that's unlike any National Committee other this year. The 30-second message, called "On the Road," is the first major ad to target young voters, a key bloc for John Kerry. The commercial ran this weekend during NBC's Saturday Night Live in 13 close states, New York City and Washington, D.C. Today, it starts a one-week run during Comedy Central's The Daily Show with Jon Stewart and on VH1. It's one of three DNC ads that the party will spend about $8 million to air this week.

Election ad

The script Narrator: "We're on the road asking folks: What makes George Bush tick? Like, why does he support corporate tax breaks for shipping jobs overseas?" Man: "He just doesn't care." Woman: "He doesn't get it." Narrator: "We've lost a million jobs to other countries. And George Bush thinks outsourcing is a good idea." Man: "He sure isn't on my side." Narrator: "Log on to WhatMakesGeorgeTick.com and vote: He doesn't get it; he doesn't care; or he's not on your side. You could win a backwards-running watch!"

Analysis The vibrant orange and yellow graphics make it look more like an ad for a trendy clothing company than a candidate. The music is bouncy. The images flash by quickly. There's a recreational vehicle, decorated with "What Makes George Tick?" signs, rolling on country roads. The three "real people," who DNC officials say are unpaid Kerry supporters, are cheerful even as they take jabs at Bush. The image of a "backwards-running watch" with Bush's face on it has an irreverent look that's in stark contrast to most ads this year, which have been serious attacks. Knowing that just 37% of 18- to 25-year-olds voted in 2000, the DNC is going after them with an ad it hopes will get their attention. The ad will air on programs that many young voters enjoy — and get political "news" from. As for the ad's claims, they're debatable. Bush has never said he thinks "outsourcing is a good idea." Kerry himself admitted during Friday's debate that there's no way to prevent corporations from shifting at least some jobs to less costly overseas operations. Kerry has said he would give corporations tax incentives to keep jobs in the USA. Bush emphasized during Friday's debate that he thinks cutting taxes, cutting regulation and legal reform all would help keep jobs from going overseas. Analysis by Mark Memmott

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AS SEEN IN USA TODAY NEWS SECTION, MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 27, 2004, PAGE 15A

Voters in Ohio give political ads a thumbs down Millions are being spent on TV ads, but how effective are they in swaying voters? USA TODAY went to a key state to find out. By Mark Memmott USA TODAY COLUMBUS, Ohio — Key voters in this key state don't like and don't trust many of the TV ads that President Bush and Sen. John Kerry have spent more than $300 million to air this year. That's the basic lesson to be drawn from testing of political ads and interviews of voters conducted here by USA TODAY. The finding raises questions about whether commercials will help persuade still undecided voters in tightly contested states such as Ohio to stay home or vote on Nov. 2. Those voters, depending on whom they end up supporting, could determine who wins a close election. In Ohio, 20 of the 270 Electoral College votes needed to become president are at stake. Last Thursday evening, USA TODAY assembled 35 Columbus-area residents. Most were undecided between Bush and Kerry. The registered voters were shown 15 ads — six from each campaign and three from independent groups. The goal was not to produce a definitive ranking of the most popular or effective commercials, though the results did offer clues to what kind of ads do best in reaching these voters. The objective was to gain insight into voters' opinions of political ads. In a discussion after the showing of

the ads, the oldest member of the group summed up what she and the others said they want to see from Bush and Kerry during the last five weeks of the campaign. Ads should be "realistic," said Edna Pace, 77, who hadn't decided between Bush and Kerry. "The American people are not dummies. We need to be talked to as though we are intelligent people." What works, what doesn't During the testing, a computer tracked the volunteers' second-bysecond reactions to the ads, most of which they had seen previously on the air. Since 1989, USA TODAY has used this "Ad Meter" technology to rate commercials shown during each Super Bowl. Among Thursday's results:

v None of the ads, which were rated on a scale of 10, scored high. Winners of the Super Bowl Ad Meter typically score 9 or above. A Bud Light beer commercial won in 2004 with a 9.04 score. The top-rated campaign ad, a Kerry commercial called "Time," scored 6.02. v Negative or attack ads fared worst. A Bush commercial called "Family Priorities," which criticized Kerry's positions on abortion-related issues, scored lowest at 4.07. v Issue ads, in which the candidates talked about their plans, scored best. Kerry's "Time" ad shows him pledging to be "a president who stands up for the middle class" on economic, health and energy issues. Bush's highestscoring ad, called "Agenda," shows him pledging to "keep American jobs here in America."

v While the voters said they disliked negative ads, the commercial that had the most effect on whom they might vote for was an attack ad. That Kerry commercial takes a jab at Vice President Cheney for his ties to Halliburton, the company Cheney once headed. Three-quarters of the group said the ad made them at least slightly more likely to vote for Kerry. The result seems to confirm what researchers have said in recent years: While voters say they don't like negative ads, the commercials can be effective. One Columbus participant, Bernie Ranney, captured the mood of the group. Asked if he was more "confused" than ever about presidential politics because he lives in a state that's been bombarded by campaign ads since early March, Ranney, 68, had the other volunteers laughing in agreement with his response. "A better word is annoyed," said Ranney, who hasn't yet chosen between Bush and Kerry. "I hope the high interest in the election will counterbalance the feelings among those voters about the ads" and that they'll still go to the polls, said William Benoit, a professor of communications who studies political advertising at the University of Missouri-Columbia. No more Vietnam, please Of the 19 men and 16 women participants, 20 said they were undecided between Bush and Kerry. Eight said they were leaning toward voting for Bush. Six said they were

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AS SEEN IN USA TODAY NEWS SECTION, MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 27, 2004, PAGE 15A

Ohio voters say they're fed up with attack ads leaning toward Kerry. One didn't plan to vote for either man. The youngest was 19. The 15 ads that the group watched were chosen by USA TODAY. They were a mix of positive and negative commercials. As they watched the ads, the voters held dials that allowed them to register whether they liked or disliked what they were hearing and seeing. All agreed they're sick and tired of attack ads. "They're spending so many dollars and so much of my time telling me negative things and I want positive answers to what's really going on," said Nancy Campbell, 59, who's leaning toward Bush. "If either one of the candidates would do more positive ad campaigning . . . it would just make that candidate shine more and would make me more likely to go with that candidate," said Christina Leezer, 31, who also is leaning toward Bush. When they do see an ad they think has some valuable information, the volunteers said, it stands out in their minds. "I actually liked the ad, simply for the fact that it did give me some type of a game plan," Marcus Jennings, 32, said of a Bush commercial called "Agenda" in which the president talks about creating more jobs. Jennings hasn't decided who'll get his vote. None of the 35 want to see any more ads about either Kerry's or Bush's military records. "I don't really see what that's got to

do with who could lead the country the best between the two of them," said James Welsh, 67, another undecided voter. Religion and politics also don't mix, according to the volunteers. Bush's "Family Priorities" ad, the lowest-rated of the 15, "reminded me of what I don't like about Bush," said Kevin Bauman, 51, who's undecided. "His imposition of his religion into the presidency." Despite all their talk about not liking negative ads, the group agreed that the most memorable commercial was a sarcastic Bush ad called "Windsurfing." It shows Kerry being blown in different directions. "I can't say the ad would persuade me one way or the other, but we all remembered it," said Joyce Lecaptain, 58, who's leaning toward Bush.

Dowd, the Bush campaign's chief political strategist. "But in the end, voters want to know about you and the other person," he said. "Ads that give people choices and a sense of each person will be effective" even if many voters see them as negative. Tad Devine, a top adviser to Kerry, agrees. "We understand the voters want us to debate the issues," he said, "and they can expect to see more ads doing that in the weeks ahead. "That said, in the midst of a campaign sometimes you have to deal with the dynamics in front of you," Devine said, and that can mean airing ads that many voters consider negative.

"But it was so cartoonish and childish and elementary that it was insulting. I thought it did a lot for Kerry," said David Hawk, 45, who's leaning that way. "I liked it. It would make me think about voting for Bush," said Linda Danna, 42, who's leaning toward voting for the president. "It made me sad," said Kathy Donavan, 46, who's undecided. "The fact that we're voting for one of the most influential men in the world and we're making such light of it." The Bush and Kerry campaigns say they're not surprised at what the voters here said. "People are often cynical about politics. It's a combination of things that causes it — the ads and the reporting in the media," said Matthew

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DISCUSSION QUESTIONS

FUTURE IMPLICATIONS

1. Because the election came down to Ohio, and because it was a huge swing state, the political campaigns spent millions of dollars on ads in Ohio. What characteristics of an ad would be able to persuade you if you were an undecided voter?

The Media is and will continue to be a driving force that controls and regulates the flow of information and ideas. This past presidential election the media played a huge role in relaying information to the American public. Facts about the candidates and their views were often skewed to support a certain political position. This will continue to be the case until the majority of Americans are aware of media bias, and seek more accurate references. Some media sources have pointed out other sources' misinterpretations, manipulations and lies. But are these corrections accurate or just another way for the media; for this reason, it is imperative for all voters to seek additional information about issues that affect them and many other American citizens.

2. As a young voter, how would your vote be affected if you knew a candidate was using manipulative advertising techniques to gain your vote? 3. While searching on the internet for candidate information, are you likely to believe every website that you come across? Why or why not? 4. Which ad producing organizations are you more likely to believe? Republican? Democratic? Non-affiliated? 5. Do you trust the news organizations? If so, why? If not, what will they have to do to gain your trust back?

ADDITIONAL RESOURCES Cavanaugh, J. (1995). Media effects on votes. (xxi, 8, 10, 14, 15). Lanham: University Press of America, Inc. CNN Crossfire. Oct 15, 2004. Featuring: Begala, Paul; Carlson, Tucker; Stewart, Jon. Dennis, L. (11 September 1999). How has TV affected politics? News and current affairs. http://www.fl.net.au/~lyndenal/203essay.htm Franken, A. (2003). LIES(and the lying liars who tell them) a fair and balanced look at the right. New York, NY: Penquin Group. Miller, J. (18 July 2004). In presidential race, T.V. can't lose. Chicago Tribune. Retrieved October 21, 2004, from http://www.med.sc.edu:108/tvcantlose.htm O'Reilly, B. (2004, May 4). Dissent stinks if it exploits the pain of GIs; "Nightline" was within bounds, but the rabidly partisan "Doonesbury" crosses the line. Los Angeles Times. Retrieved September 21, 2004, from http://proquest.umi.com/ Paletz, D.L. (2002). The Media in American Politics. New York, NY: Addison-Wesley Educational Publishers Inc.

For more information, log on to www.usatodaycollege.com

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