Frontline: The Choice

[Brian Rucker]

FRONTLINE
http://www.pbs.org/frontline/

- This Week: "The Choice 2004" (120 min.),
Tuesday, Oct. 12 at 9pm on PBS (check local listings)
- Inside FRONTLINE: A look back on producing "The Choice 2004"
- Live Discussion: Chat with producer Martin Smith this Wed. at 1 pm
ET

-------------------------------

+ This week

Every four years, since 1988, FRONTLINE has picked one of its most
experienced producers to tackle "The Choice" - the special two-hour
dual biography of the presidential candidates that we present before the
election. This year we chose veteran producer Martin Smith, and as
reporter, Nicholas Lemann, political correspondent to The New Yorker.

I asked Marty if he would share with us what it was like to make "The
Choice 2004" --
-----

"You begin with lots of reading. You construct elaborately detailed
chronologies of the candidates' lives and careers. You make hundreds of
phone calls to their friends and associates. You visit the campaigns.
You go to the video archives. You film locations and long detailed
interviews - more than 50 of them. You open the edit room and start
sorting through the material. At some point, you think you're making
some headway. You think you know something. You might even have an
insight or two, a perceived pattern, a glimpse of who the candidates
really are. How they think. But then, around the time you start patting
yourself on the back, some of the insights seem to morph into the next
day's conventional wisdom. You have to think harder, and quickly. The
election is drawing near and the clang and clatter of the campaign has
become deafening. You soon realize that you're running as fast as you
can just to keep pace with every other news organization, every
political junkie and blogger on the planet. The race is everyone's big
story. Information is cheap. Knowledge is valuable .... Well, along the
way, you realize original insight is priceless.

But how do you get that insight? As is often the case, much of the magic
is in the form, in the design. I remember watching the first FRONTLINE
"Choice" in 1988, a dual portrait of Michael Dukakis and the elder
George Bush. Segment by segment, their lives were laid side by side. I
remember being surprised at how much the form provided a startlingly
fresh context for evaluating the candidates. Even familiar material took
on new meaning.

As we began to piece the puzzling lives of George W. Bush and John F.
Kerry, the repeating patterns emerged - their habits, strengths,
foibles, blind spots. We saw what my colleague Nicholas Lemann calls
Bush's "enormous slumbering ambition" and Kerry's moderation and
caution. We laid them side by side, segment by segment. We discarded
extraneous side bars. We cinched it down. And we were polishing it right
to the very end.

But now it's your turn - to watch, and to make your choice."
-- Martin Smith

----

We hope you'll watch "The Choice 2004" Tuesday, Oct. 12 at 9pm on PBS (check local listings)
and afterward visit our web site where you can explore the report more
closely, read what presidential historians say are the leadership
qualities needed for success in the Oval Office, and express your
opinion about the program at
http://www.pbs.org/frontline/shows/choice2004/

A note: PBS will rebroadcast "The Choice 2004" this Thursday, Oct. 14
and again on Nov. 1.

Louis Wiley
Executive Editor



--------------------------
+ Live Online Discussion on Washingtonpost.com ...

Producer Martin Smith will be online this Wednesday, Oct. 13 at
1 pm ET, to discuss "The Choice 2004."

For details, see:
http://discuss.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/zforum/04/style_frontline101304.htm

From a promotional email.

[Rollory]

We saw what my colleague Nicholas Lemann calls
Bush's "enormous slumbering ambition" and Kerry's moderation and
caution.

This from the unbiased, objective, and most certainly not leftist media.

First Rather uses blatantly forged documents in what can't seriously be described as anything other than a foolish attempt to discredit Bush (and on really idiotic grounds too, when Bush has done so many other things that are WORTH complaining about! If they'd done a hit piece on Bush and illegal immigration I'd have been cheering them all the way). Then the head of ABC sends out a company-wide email instructing employees that Bush is spinning things too much and they need to redress the publicity in Kerry's favor - right before the ABC-moderated second debate. (Although I have to say I thought Gibson did a mostly fair job.) And here PBS doesn't even try to portray them as two men with their own good and bad qualities; it's one guy bad, other guy good, we'll beat you over the head with this clue stick until you think like we tell you.

Oh yeah, there was also the Newsweek editor who admitted a few months back that media bias was probably worth about 15 percentage points in Kerry's favor.

These media organizations are already discredited in the eyes of much of the conservative segment of the population (and Fox similarly with the left, actually). The big problem, however, will show up if/when Bush gets re-elected, and cognitive dissonance sets in with people like Jason and Andrew who can't understand how the hell such a thing can happen in the world as they understand it. Some will be too firmly wedded to their ideas of how the world works to change their thinking, even in the face of overwhelming factual evidence - that's what we call "insanity", boys and girls - but others may slowly come to figure out that somebody hasn't been straight with them, somewhere, about certain details; and a certain amount of doubt will fall on these media organizations. How they'll keep functioning when _nobody_ believes them anymore will be interesting to watch.

Reminds me of an incident from a year and a half ago. An Iraqi brigadier general got into his car one fine morning, listened to the news a bit, and took a drive south of Baghdad. When he ran smack dab into an American force, he couldn't figure it out: he'd just seen on national TV how the Americans were being pinned down and destroyed and were nowhere near this area. He got taken to the airport for interrogation. While there, Baghdad Bob came on the tube, and explained with great fervor how there were no Americans at the airport, they'd been utterly repulsed. The general broke down in tears, turned to his captors, and asked, "How long have they been lying to us like this?"

The general Arab population and certain Europeans - the French in particular - had a similar reaction, as they'd been granting Bob's prouncements the same validity and weight as they gave to those of the US Army - sometimes more to Bob, since everybody knows the US Army is a lying imperialist thug-mob. So Saddam's statue coming down on TV when everyone knew the war was a quagmire and the Americans were totally bogged down and nowhere near Baghdad was really hard to make sense of. You're seeing something similar among the Australian left right now, who don't understand how their idiotic compatriots could possibly ignore what their betters have been telling them and keep John Howard around for another term, particularly when the election result was so different from what the media had been saying the polls were predicting.

The November election may be different. Bush may not get re-elected. It's hard even for a clear-sighted Koontzian genius like me to see through the fog of evil imposed upon us by the dastardly media and perceive the true state of affairs. But if he does make it there's going to be a lot of entirely avoidable befuddlement and incomprehension on this board.

[Jason McCullough]

Why bother? There's no way to convince you that it's not biased, is there?

[steve]

First Rather uses...
So can everyone similarly use those anti-Kerry fake stories to permanently discredit FoxNews?

[Andrew Mayer]

Reminds me of an incident from a year and a half ago. An Iraqi brigadier general got into his car one fine morning, listened to the news a bit, and took a drive south of Baghdad. When he ran smack dab into an American force, he couldn't figure it out: he'd just seen on national TV how the Americans were being pinned down and destroyed and were nowhere near this area. He got taken to the airport for interrogation. While there, Baghdad Bob came on the tube, and explained with great fervor how there were no Americans at the airport, they'd been utterly repulsed. The general broke down in tears, turned to his captors, and asked, "How long have they been lying to us like this?"

What's the moral of this story?

"Don't trust everything you hear in the news?"

Duh.

And that to you is somehow an example of media bias? (Points fingertip at head and moves it in a slow circle.)

[BrewersDroop]

The text of the ABC/Halperin memo:

It goes without saying that the stakes are getting very high for the country and the campaigns - and our responsibilities become quite grave

I do not want to set off (sp?) and endless colloquy that none of us have time for today - nor do I want to stifle one. Please respond if you feel you can advance the discussion.

The New York Times (Nagourney/Stevenson) and Howard Fineman on the web both make the same point today: the current Bush attacks on Kerry involve distortions and taking things out of context in a way that goes beyond what Kerry has done.

Kerry distorts, takes out of context, and mistakes all the time, but these are not central to his efforts to win.

We have a responsibility to hold both sides accountable to the public interest, but that doesn't mean we reflexively and artificially hold both sides "equally" accountable when the facts don't warrant that.

I'm sure many of you have this week felt the stepped up Bush efforts to complain about our coverage. This is all part of their efforts to get away with as much as possible with the stepped up, renewed efforts to win the election by destroying Senator Kerry at least partly through distortions.

It's up to Kerry to defend himself, of course. But as one of the few news organizations with the skill and strength to help voters evaluate what the candidates are saying to serve the public interest. Now is the time for all of us to step up and do that right.

I don't see anything in there to back up the assertion that "the head of ABC sends out a company-wide email instructing employees that Bush is spinning things too much and they need to redress the publicity in Kerry's favor". What I do see is an indication that the networks are finally waking up to the fact that they're being used to spread what amounts to propaganda -- by both sides -- and that it's time for them to start acting responsibly and call bullshit on distortions, misrepresentations and outright lies. If that adversely affects the Bush campaign more than the Kerry campaign, perhaps the Bush campaign needs to reconsider the amount of bullshit they're spreading.

[Anaxagoras]

We saw what my colleague Nicholas Lemann calls
Bush's "enormous slumbering ambition" and Kerry's moderation and
caution.

This from the unbiased, objective, and most certainly not leftist media.
Yup. Sometimes the facts favor one candidate. Shocking, ain't it?

Oh yeah, there was also the Newsweek editor who admitted a few months back that media bias was probably worth about 15 percentage points in Kerry's favor.

Wow. How can we argue with an unnamed and uncited magazine editor? Especially when that editor comes from a magazine as universally reviled and mocked as Newsweek? And when the terms "media bias" and "worth 15 percentage points" aren't clearly defined? I tell you Rollory... you really know how to build an airtight case.

Bush may not get re-elected. It's hard even for a clear-sighted Koontzian genius like me to see through the fog of evil imposed upon us by the dastardly media and perceive the true state of affairs. But if he does make it there's going to be a lot of entirely avoidable befuddlement and incomprehension on this board..

I don't think so. "People are stupid" is hardly a new or revolutionary idea. The fact that roughly 50% of this nation is dumb enough to believe the current administration's lies is well understood on this board.

[Jason McCullough]

They're not stupid. They just a have a different paradigm for thinking about the world. I think it's *wrong*, but hey.

[JeffL]

The text of the ABC/Halperin memo:

It goes without saying that the stakes are getting very high for the country and the campaigns - and our responsibilities become quite grave

I do not want to set off (sp?) and endless colloquy that none of us have time for today - nor do I want to stifle one. Please respond if you feel you can advance the discussion.

The New York Times (Nagourney/Stevenson) and Howard Fineman on the web both make the same point today: the current Bush attacks on Kerry involve distortions and taking things out of context in a way that goes beyond what Kerry has done.

Kerry distorts, takes out of context, and mistakes all the time, but these are not central to his efforts to win.

We have a responsibility to hold both sides accountable to the public interest, but that doesn't mean we reflexively and artificially hold both sides "equally" accountable when the facts don't warrant that.

I'm sure many of you have this week felt the stepped up Bush efforts to complain about our coverage. This is all part of their efforts to get away with as much as possible with the stepped up, renewed efforts to win the election by destroying Senator Kerry at least partly through distortions.

It's up to Kerry to defend himself, of course. But as one of the few news organizations with the skill and strength to help voters evaluate what the candidates are saying to serve the public interest. Now is the time for all of us to step up and do that right.

I don't see anything in there to back up the assertion that "the head of ABC sends out a company-wide email instructing employees that Bush is spinning things too much and they need to redress the publicity in Kerry's favor".

Hmm. It sounds pretty close to that to me. Bush is "trying to get away with as much as possible." Kerry lies too, but not as much as Bush and it's not central to his attempt to win. It's up to his news organization to help the poor public out there evaluate what the candidate's are saying in order to serve the public interest (and what is best for the public is pretty clearly implied.)

Those are all judgements and opinions, and the instructions are pretty clearly that they need to help Kerry out. That just reporting and trusting the public to figure things out isn't sufficient - that they as a news organization are smarter than the public so that they need to help them.

I'd say this if the memo were a mirror of itself and was saying the same things but switching the candidates. I don't like it when the "news" folks decide who is the better candidate and decides to help them out.

[BrewersDroop]

That just reporting and trusting the public to figure things out isn't sufficient - that they as a news organization are smarter than the public so that they need to help them.

The media has a responsibility to report what the candidates say, yes. They also have a responsibility to check whatever factual information the candidates use and point out where that information is wrong. That is their job. That is the entire point of having a free press. If they don't do their jobs, if instead they stick to straight reportage with no analysis, no rooting out of facts and no placing the information in context, they're no different than simple distribution channels for whatever propaganda of the day politicians want to foist on the public. The journalists might as go home and let political press secretaries feed stories directly to the public. I don't know about you but I'm not real comfortable with that idea.

[JeffL]

That just reporting and trusting the public to figure things out isn't sufficient - that they as a news organization are smarter than the public so that they need to help them.

The media has a responsibility to report what the candidates say, yes. They also have a responsibility to check whatever factual information the candidates use and point out where that information is wrong. That is their job. That is the entire point of having a free press. If they don't do their jobs, if instead they stick to straight reportage with no analysis, no rooting out of facts and no placing the information in context, they're no different than simple distribution channels for whatever propaganda of the day politicians want to foist on the public. The journalists might as go home and let political press secretaries feed stories directly to the public. I don't know about you but I'm not real comfortable with that idea.

I hear you, and if the news media spent time equally analysing and reporting each candidate's claims, taking them apart in a factchecks.org manner, and reporting them, I'd be happy. What I don't like is that this report isn`t saying "Each candidate is telling lies, as is the norm in a political campaign, so let's devote a segment each night to analysing each campaign's lies." It's saying "Hey, Bush is trying to see how much he can get away with. and, yeah, Kerry lies too, but Bush relies more on his lies to win, so we even though Kerry can defend himself we need to help him out." It's taking a stand on which candidate you prefer and giving him a hand, apparently because they think he needs the help. I don't like that, and I don't think it's their place. We could argue whether they would ever issue a memo like that to help a Republican candidate out, but I don't think that's the point - even if they would, it's not their job to pick which candidate needs the most help. The statement:

"It's up to Kerry to defend himself, of course. But as one of the few news organizations with the skill and strength to help voters evaluate what the candidates are saying to serve the public interest. Now is the time for all of us to step up and do that right."

strikes me as a clear command to the organization to go out and help a candidate.

[Jason McCullough]

Kerry: Exaggerates spending on Iraq to make a point - includes all of this FY's appropriations to get a $200 billion number.

Bush: Says generals didn't ask him for more troops. Bald-faced lie.

Think there's a bit of a difference.

[JeffL]

Kerry: Exaggerates spending on Iraq to make a point - includes all of this FY's appropriations to get a $200 billion number.

Bush: Says generals didn't ask him for more troops. Bald-faced lie.

Think there's a bit of a difference.

Fine. The send out a memo: "We're going to present a 15 minute segment each night a la factchecks in which we'll take claims by each candidate and hold them up to scrutiny. Perhaps using our power in this way will help candidates realize that they cannot lie with impunity without being called on it." Then you do that and let the chips lie where they will. That's different from "Bush is trying to get a way with a lot, his lies are more important to him than Kerry's lies. let's help Kerry out in the public interest because we have the power to do that." Unless you just want ABC to be the equivilant to Foxnews.

[Brian Rucker]

I suppose it depends on whether you think a news organization is capable of making the judgement on whether a candidate is relying on serious distortions as a cornerstone of the effort to get reelected. If one is and the other isn't then it's fair to call him on that. I think what may have been driving this memo is a tendancy to avoid doing anything controversial by just treating both campaigns as equally culpable and doing a 'one for one' approach to distortions - giving them equivalent weight. I can see an editor making the point, "Look, guys, the Bush Campaign isn't only twisting facts of greater importance than Kerry but he just keeps on doing it even after he should know better. Don't feel compelled to tit-for-tat if that doesn't represent what's really going on." Seems like a responsible journalistic call to me - but then I agree with the assumption, and generally demonstrable fact, that Bush's campaign is going way overboard trying to manipulate the public.

[Sidd_Budd]

I've got no problem with the Frontline blurb -- both "ambition" and "cautious" are traits that you want in moderation. Suggesting Bush may be overambitious and Kerry overly cautious seems balanced to me, and I bet most Americans would see an excess of ambition as less problematic in their President, relative to an excess of caution.

However, I agree with Jeff on the ABC memo; it went too far. Whoever sent it should have just left off the last two paragraphs and it would have been much more appropriate.

[JeffL]

I got home a little early this evening and watched the ABC evening news, just to see how this policy is being translated in practice. If what I just saw was an example, I don't see any problems. The daily coverage of the candidates started with a piece of Bush, stating that he was on the attack, showing the quote by Kerry in big letters on the screen, then showing Bush challenging Kerry's comments and approach. This was followed by a graphic that said that yes, there are some fundamental differences in how the two candidates approach the war on terror: Bush, with bullet points saying that he saw the battle as a black and white war of good vs. evil, and that he saw it as a primarily military campaign. Kerry, with bullet points saying that he also advocated using the military, then points that he also advocated more diplomacy and a law enforcement approach. That sounds pretty balanced. They then followed with a clip of Kerry on the road, showing him attacking Bush with a number of insults. End of candidate coverage. Seemed fair enough to me.

[Rich]

A brilliant documentary about two very fascinating men. A+

[noun]

Agreed, it was a fascinating documentary. I learned a lot about both men. However, this also reinforced my opinion of both men as well, and I'm not sure if that's because of how the documentary was put together, or if it's because of my own prejudicial opinions.

Given my feelings about the whole Sinclair broadcasting fiasco, I'm also somewhat conflicted about whether I should have been able to see this PBS documentary this close to the election.

I'm just generally conflicted today, I think.

[Sidd_Budd]

I watched the first 90 minutes of this 2 hour special. I agree with Rich; I thought it was well-done. I felt it was balanced coverage as well; they covered unappealing aspects of both men (Bush's business failures, Kerry's tendency to use many words when fewer might be just as good).

I know threads have discussed the idea of voting for Kerry based on his appeal, or simply because he's not Bush. Seeing Kerry's involvement in political issues in the 70s, before he ran for office, impressed me a great deal. I'm much closer to a "for Kerry" position now, rather than simply "the human with no outstanding warrants that isn't Bush."