Ron Paul Has Company: Now ABC Crops Out Kucinich, Buries Poll

Well, no one can accuse ABC News of being biased in the way it metes out its destructively biased reporting: MediaBloodhound has published a chilling account of what ABC did to Dennis Kucinich in its reporting of the Democratic debate that took place on ABC News' This Week with George Stephanopoulos on August 19 in Iowa.

ABC cropped Kucinich out a photo of the Democratic candidates, and buried its own online poll which had Kucinich leading. Followers of the abusive reporting ABC News has been giving Ron Paul will be all too familiar with these techniques. ABC News is clearly an equal opportunity abuser when it comes to reporting on the Presidential campaign, and doing the job expected and required by the American people.

What do Dennis Kucinich and Ron Paul have in common that they should attract such mistreatment? Both are forthright against the war. Kucinich has a good record of respecting the Constitution (though, unlike Ron Paul, Kucinich forgot about the First Amendment and voted for legislation to make flag desecration illegal - Kucinich forgot that the First Amendment is not about protecting communication you like, which needs no protection, but about protecting communication you do not like).

But Dennis Kucinich and Ron Paul's greatest mutual sin in ABC's eyes, apparently, is that ABC does not take them seriously as candidates. And this leads ABC - maybe in a desperate, misguided attempt to be relevant - to commit grievous lies of omission in its reporting on these candidates.

What has gone so wrong at ABC? At least four cases of distortive reporting about Ron Paul, and now this about Kucinich? ABC was once, not that long ago, a pretty good news operation. Nightline with Ted Koppel was on the cutting edge.

It's at least partly due, I think, to ABC being pretty much out of it on cable and online news. Whoever is calling these shots at ABC News doesn't understand what it is obvious to CNN, Fox, and MSNBC: there is a whole new world of politics out there.

But, whatever the reason, ABC is forfeiting whatever right it once had to be taken seriously, or even to keep reporting the election. I would call upon the FCC to look into revoking its licenses, but that would be unconstitutional.

So I'll confine myself to expanding the section on media misreporting I'll be teaching at Fordham University starting in September - if ABC keeps this up, I'll have enough material for an entire course - and urge the American people to stop watching this benighted network.

Tom Snyder: Progenitor of Cable and YouTube

A note to mark the passing of Tom Snyder into the realm of the ultimate rerun. He died on July 29, at age 71.

Synder was of course best known for his work on NBC's Tomorrow show, from 1973-1982. Synder was brilliantly spoofed by Dan Akroyd on Saturday Night Live, did lots of work on radio, and even showed for a while on local TV news here in New York.

He was easy to laugh at, but, in his own way, was probably more important than Cronkite, Huntley and Brinkley, and any of those classic network news guys. This was because Snyder showed, on The Tomorrow Show, that there was a powerful appetite for new news and cutting edge interviews in the middle of the night - or after Johnny Carson on The Tonight Show.

If that sounds familiar, or commonplace now, that's because you see it every night on Fox News, CNN, and MSNBC - not to mention ABC's Nightline. All of that and more are the progeny of what Tom Snyder brought into being.

Indeed, by stretching the notion of the possible in television news and interviews, Synder not only set up our world for cable, but for YouTube, Obama Girl videos and all that makes our current news world so vibrant.

God speed, Tom. My wife and I saw you on the first Tomorrow show in 1973, and we'll all be poorer for your leaving.