SwiftVets.com

[theflickster]

Times Watch Special Report

Double Standard: Times Tars Swift Boat Vets,
Plugs False "Bush AWOL" Story

September 29, 2004


http://www.timeswatch.org/reports/04/report0904.asp

<excerpt>
Yet when it came to Vietnam-era controversies involving Kerry, the combat boot was on the other foot. When Kerry's purported strong point (Vietnam) came under surprising fire over the summer by a group of veterans who served with Kerry, the Times at first ignored, then dismissed as partisan and "unsubstantiated" the allegations from the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth. The barest hint of Republican ties by the group gave the Times an excuse to ignore the substance of the charges from the 200-plus veterans. Instead, the Times scoured for links between the Swift Boat vets and the Republican Party, even publishing a chart alleging "ties" between the Swift Boat vets and the G.O.P.

After mentioning the group in passing May 4 and covering the group's initial press conference the next day, mentions of the controversy were sparse and sporadic until July 27, when the group's name popped up on the news pages in a pro-Kerry story by David Halbfinger, "In Battle of Patriotic Symbols, Veterans Muster in Kerry Camp."

Throughout the life of the story, the Times tarred the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth veterans group and focused its journalistic resources on discrediting the group rather than investigating the charges it was making. This occurred even while at least one accusation -- that Kerry was not on a secret mission to Cambodia as he'd long claimed -- was proven correct.

When it finally began focusing on the Swift Boat vets, the paper's tone was wall-to-wall hostile, sticking the warning label of "unsubstantiated" on the group's allegations no less than 20 times. By contrast, not once did the Times describe even the wildest "Bush-was-AWOL" charges as "unsubstantiated" (regarding the AWOL smear, one story suggested mildly that it "appears to be exaggerated based on the balance of evidence available to date.").
<excerpt>

You can read the full report at
http://www.timeswatch.org/reports/04/report0904.asp
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If Kerry is the answer.... It must have been a STUPID question.