Myopic Times
The other night Stephen Colbert had Harold Ford Jr. on as a guest. Colbert pressed Ford, a Tennessee transplant vying to represent the state of New York in the US senate, on his shifting of politics more than his shifting of geography.
Harold E. Ford, Jr.
Ford is a high-profile Democrat with serious money connections who’s thinking of challenging Kirsten Gillibrand - the incumbent senator – in the Democratic primaries. Gillibrand was a congresswoman from an upstate district until governor Paterson appointed her to temporarily fill Hillary Clinton’s senate seat when Clinton resigned her seat to become secretary of state last year.
Kirsten Gillibrand
She took her seat in the senate and pretty much aligned herself with the rest of her caucus, diligently preparing for the special elections she faces this coming November, even slightly tempering her NRA-endorsed positions on gun control, and raising a whole lot of money. In support of the new senator, the Democratic establishment has been effectively pushing aside potential primary challengers as soon as any emerged and the New York Times was very good about reporting about it as far back as last July. There seemed to be some genuine public interest since one of the two senator representing the great state of New York was not elected by the people she represents, and challenging her in an open Democratic primary would be the only fair thing to do.
Jonathan Tasini
All this time, there was another primary challenger lined up – Jonathan Tasini. As soon as I read about where he stands on the issues I care about a few months ago, I knew that he would have my vote if I was still living in NY. He unequivocally supports a national single-payer health care system; having lived in Israel part of his life, and having family there, he seems to have a very measured and constructive position on the the US’s necessary role and attitudes in resolving the Israel-Palestine conflict; he also supports robust campaign finance reform. He is deliberately trying to fight against the domination of the political landscape by big corporate interests and their money. I immediately fan’ed his page on Facebook.
Naturally, The New York Times has had quite a bit to say about the primaries since Ford floated his first feelers. Having a clear preference for another candidate in the same race, I was surprised by the comprehensive absence of any mention of Jonathan Tasini in any of the news items the Times ran about the primary. It is true that Tasini has managed to raise about 1% of the money that Gillibrand has, so it’s reasonable for the mainstream media to consider him a longshot in the race. But still – wouldn’t the Times’ readers be well served to get a complete picture of this primary race, including arguably fringe candidates? How would fringe candidates get any traction if they are not even mentioned in mainstream news media?
I assumed this was an oversight. Maybe the reporters on these stories were just not aware. There must be some mention of Tasini in other stories. So I ran a quick google search last month for Tasini Gillibrand under nytimes.com and found that the only mentions of them together during the last year were in readers’ comments. No reporter mentioned Tasini in any of the stories about any of Gillibrand’s other potential primary challengers. This could not be a coincidence or a simple oversight. The most egregious of these supposed omissions was in the editorial the Times ran explicitly calling for a fair and open primary for the Democratic nomination.
A few weeks ago I emailed several addresses at the New York Times, as well as Tasini’s campaign, to ask them if they had any response to this. Tasini’s campaign agreed with my observation, saying “The Times, like many of the establishment press, does not believe in actually a debate about the issues or evaluating candidates based on their experience. It is all about money–which is the only criteria that computes for The Times.” It turns out that the Times reporter on this story actually hung up the phone on Jonathan Tasini when Tasini called him up. It’s been over three weeks and I’m still waiting for a response from the Times.
Last week they did actually publish a piece about Tasini. It was placed on page A23. It’s a fluff piece; it opens with Tasini having breakfast with his mother. It gives you some information about him, but it clearly doesn’t try to frame his candidacy as one of substance, not even in terms of his positions on the issues. Of course, he’s not mentioned in yesterday’s front page piece about the fight between Ford and Gillibrand over who will get more of the Wall Street money they need to dominate the compaign.
I suggest that if you want to make informed decisions when you vote, you take a few extra steps and seek out news outlets beyond the obvious ones. At least the New York Times, it seems, cannot be fully trusted to report on everything you need to know.
Tags: Democrats, Harold Ford, Jonathan Tasini, Kirsten Gillibrand, Manufacturing Consent, New York, Paterson, The New York Times