CNN Says It Overplayed Dean's Iowa Scream

[kskiska]

NEW YORK (AP) -- It probably means little now to Howard Dean, but CNN's top executive believes his network overplayed the infamous clip of Dean's ``scream'' after the Iowa caucuses.

``It was a big story, but the challenge in a 24-hour news network is that you try to keep all of your different viewers throughout the day informed without overdoing it,'' said Princell Hair, CNN's general manager.

The breathtaking media explosion turned the former Democratic presidential front-runner into a punch line and arguably hastened his campaign's free fall. It's also an instructive look at how television news and entertainment works today.

Whatever handwringing there may be in retrospect -- and there's only a little -- comes with a sense that repeats are inevitable.

``It was unfair,'' said Joe Trippi, Dean's former campaign manager, who lost his job in the fallout. ``It was totally unfair. I don't think there was any question about it.''

more…
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/arts/AP-AP-on-TV-Deans-Scream.html

[Darth_Kitten]

1. Oh, so NOW they regret it......

:eyes:

[Bertha Venation]

3. DK, I love your new sig pic.

:bounce:

[Darth_Kitten]

7. Thanks.

:)

[ldf]

43. no, they don't regret it.

they accomplished exactly what they wanted to accomplish.

now they can make sufficient noises so that people will think they actually care.

they don't.

[Bertha Venation]

2. Imagine that.

Now that the damage is done, they admit they were assoles. Typical. :eyes:

[lebkuchen]

14. So CNN says, as it holds its post-coital cigarette to the fire

Viewers who wrote in complaining of the Dean hatchet job thought "CNN dick-on-a-stick" was more deserving of the flame.

I was one, and sent more than one e-mail. The more livid viewers are, the more articulate they become. The message eventually gets heard.

[Just Me]

25. Hmpfff,...too little too late ya' buncha' cheap products,....

,...ya' treat the American people like a "product" (as mere consumers) and I have concluded you are such cheap products, just like the rest of the big corporate media "HOs", that I ain't buying you no more!!!!

[progressivebydesign]

4. Tell that to the folks in the caucus yesterday that were turned off by it!

Geez. In our caucus yesterday, there was so much negativity about Dean because of that scream thing. Doesn't have the temperment.. Doesn't act presidential.. etc. All because of that scream video. Has anyone in the media shown proof that Dean is 1) angry 2) unstable 3) not presidential??? No. Now they apologize. Sorry guys.. we don't get to have a do-over. The media, in their quest to sensationalize everything, trashed a vital campaign.

[abracadabra]

52. the people deserve it if they fall for this shit

Damn all these idiots to hell!
Let this country rot befrore our very eyes. If the majority is THAT stupid then bring it on!
We deserve exactly what we get !!

Keep on Sheepin on

[SammyWinstonJack]

61. Exactly!

Right on!

[LoZoccolo]

5. My favorite part of this was the people here...

...that joined in in the collective hallucination that they saw him throw some sort of out-of-control fit, thus furthering our sensationalistic soundbite-and-headline culture rather than fighting it. Hope it doesn't sting you later in the general!

P.S. Kerry belongs to Skull and Bones!

[RapidCreek]

59. I myself am not a supporter of Dean

I will say, however that I cannot see what is wrong with the man giving a spirited speech.

I believe I was watching an interview with one of the high muckety mucks at the Washington Post...or maybe one of the big New York papers. He slipped and said something about how the "media defines candidates". It was one of those arm chair quarter back primary deals. I was amazed that the interviewer let it pass.

RC

[Skidmore]

6. Maybe someone should drop a large piano sized hint on MSNBC that

they are guilty of the same thing--especially slap Tweety hard for assisting in subverting democracy.

[kskiska]

8. Here's the kicker, at the end of the article

Slavin said his only regret was not airing an intriguing Diane Sawyer report on the coverage earlier. Sawyer reported that Dean was using a special microphone that night that filters out crowd noise to heighten his voice; other videotapes taken illustrate that his ``scream'' was barely audible to his live audience.

To Trippi, Sawyer's report felt like a Super Bowl referee admitting -- after the game -- that he blew a call that decided the outcome.

``Unfortunately, no one ran that 633 times,'' he said. ``ABC, to its credit, did it once.''

[Just Me]

33. The REAL kicker,...CNN is the lesser of media evils to choose from! *eom*

[0007]

55. CNN is just a confiscated whore - no difference

[lebkuchen]

9. A flumoxed Wolf just stated that Dean went from 22% in Jan to 6%

He can't figure out why.

The US media is nothing more than legalized prostitution. Wolf is the Madam.

[Ctuser]

63. wolf

you mean bull shitzer looks at something on his own? he had to be reading from a script

[nothingshocksmeanymore]

10. That is a bullshit rhetorical cop out on CNN's part

The job of a NEWS NETWORK is to investigate and report. The morning AFTER they first aired it there were reports that no one heard him scream in the room. At THAT point they should have investigated the source of the charge. Every media network has engineers with first class FCC licenses that MUST pass a test on electronics to GET those licenses. I KNOW THIS to be a fact becuse I took that test back in the 80's. This is pure unadulterated bullshit.

Any MORON with a cursory knowledge of modern electronics should have known that his microphone might have been an issue. Even some of the ON AIR personalities have taken tests for FCC licenses and have at least a cursory knowledge of micrphones having reported LIVE during war coverage.

[joeybee12]

12. Yeah, but the clip makes for great ratings!!!

You're right, of course, the truth doesn't matter to these whores. I just wonder why I'm still shocked each time they pull s**t like this.

[Dr Fate]

22. The media willingly hid the truth about WMDs & Saddam-9/11 connections...

...and as a result over 500 troops are dead.

If they willingly lie to get us into a war, then I guess we should expect them to lie about anything.

If the media told me "sex is good", I would cut my dick off.

[Just Me]

32. You are right, Fate,...every choice made by big media is "intentional",...

,...including "its" intentional choice to BEEEEE "popular" instead of asking the relevant and reasoned questions (like,..."why?") about what was happening merely a year ago. They SUCK!!!! They are spineless, popularity queens/kings mongering for whatever profit they can get. A "beggar" has more integrity because s/he at least presents him/herself for what s/he they are trying to accomplish,...mere subsistence.

[Barkley]

11. CNN actions were intentional

If Dean were screaming:

"I am going to cut taxes for the rich",
"I will eliminate Affirmative Action" and
"I will appoint anti-choice judges to the Supreme Court".

I bet his coverage would have been very positive.

[durutti]

13. Ya think? n/t

[Robbien]

15. To make it up to us, maybe they should

overplay that footage of Bush punching the air right before he went on the air to declare the invasion of Iraq.

[JohnOneillsMemory]

40. Where is that clip of W? I read about it and want to see it nonstop.

For those who didn't know:

On the evening that W went on TV to announce the official beginning of the Iraq invasion the BBC opened their feed to the UK 'a little early' and showed a warming up pResident punching the air like a frat boy at a football game and ejaculating the words "FEELS GOOD!"

This was even worse than his unfortunate challenge to insurgents to "Bring It On."

I want to see that on TV every day until the general election intercut with images of US soldiers arriving stateside in 'transport tubes' and being buried.

[SoCalDem]

16. And just to show you what we mean....

We're gonna play it again (for those who missed it).. cue tape..boost sound :(

[Dr Fate]

17. Why was that a "big" story, but not Bush's WMD lies...

...I mean Bush's WMD lies as a "big" story BEFORE 500 troops were killed.

Thanks for murdering 500 troops, CNN!!!!! I personaly blame YOU- becuase you had the power to expose the truth, but you refused. I hope the 500 dead troops are worth the advertsing $$$ you made during what your programmers called "America's New War"...

[phunktify]

18. Still...why did Dean scream if he knew it would be on live TV

[Bunny]

19. Sigh.

How bout reading up a little more on this and then come back and see if you need to ask this again.

[Raster]

20. I DON'T GET IT...

...I really don't:

"It was a big story, but..."

WHY, WHY, WHY was it a big story. So Dean was exuberant, so what?
I've yelled and war-whooped before. So have you. Just what was the problem? And what made it such a big story?

[Judi Lynn]

21. This is simply dirty power playing, nothing less

From the article:

(snip) News networks can do the same thing for footage that many consider positive, like when President Bush landed on an aircraft carrier to declare the combat phase of the Iraq war over, Lukasiewicz said.

Only 39 percent of Dean's coverage on the network evening news was positive during the week after Iowa, according to an analysis by the Center for Media and Public Affairs. By contrast, rival John Edwards' coverage was 86 percent positive during the same period, and new front-runner John Kerry's was 71 percent positive, the center said. (snip)

Really, really vile way to conduct business, isn't it? How can they look anyone in the eye?

[dbt]

23. Memo To CNN:

Burn in hell.
BURN, motherfuckers.

:grr:
dbt

[UpInArms]

24. I believe all of the networks and newspapers

owe it to the Dean campaign to waive advertising fees and run only "pro Dean" articles for 25 days -

They killed his campaign (not him) and they should be responsible for bringing it back to life.

[Sibanetta]

26. Um...

He still did scream though, didn't he? It was not a pretty thing. I really don't think it's productive to blame our notoriously biased media for a colossal boo-boo on Dean's part! I am from the "Show it like it is" school of politics...Dean has fed off and campaigned on our righteous anger what this administration has done to us...but bottom line, America elects optimists...not guys who are perennially pissed off...and certainly not guys dumb enough to go off half-cocked in front of millions of people. Sorry!:shrug:

Sibanetta

[UpInArms]

27. no, Sibanetta,

he did not "scream"

He cheered his supporters on - in a loud room with a microphone that muffled the crowd noise -

the "messengers" fucked up and Dean is paying the price

If the country gets more of the same insider washington bullshit for another 4 years - I shall lay the blame at your feet for believing propaganda and lies.

I would like to think that the members of this board can see through such cheap tricks and understand how much we have already lost as a nation without climbing on the bandwagon of the corporate whore media and singing their tunes by heart and with fervor.

[Sibanetta]

35. Whoa...I'm that powerful!

You will lay another Bush victory at my feet! EEk! If I were that powerful, the Dubya wouldn't be in power my friend.

Didn't Howie go on Letterman and acknowledge his "scream"..or was that another example of the media misrepresenting him? Get a grip!
Listen, if Howie had been the nominee I would have voted for him...but I never have thought that he could beat Bush...even before the "Ski-ing in Aspen" revelations. I'm all about getting rid of Bush, and it isn't going to be the media who will do that....WE have to do that. There isn't time to cry over what might have been, Dean's done..face it!

General Clark is the only candidate who can beat Bush. He has the smarts, he has the resume, and he has the "Stuff"...the moral fortitude to stand against Rove and his hit-men. The Bu'shists won't go anywhere miltary records...although Four Star General Clark's is awesome...and Clark doesn't have thirty plus years of wheeling and dealing in the Senate to be nervous about.

Obviously you are totally bummed by your candidate's sudden loss of position...suck it up, get behind a viable candidate, get rid of Bush...who knows, Howie may live to fight again!

Sibanetta

[Occulus]

50. Please listen to what we're saying here.

It isn't that he screamed. It's that the microphone he was using filtered out backgroung noise, and thus seemed more boisterous than it actually was.

CNN played it a whole bunch of times, and many people came away from seeing it so often that they felt Dean is "too angry" to be President. In reality, he wasn't yelling any louder than his supporters were.

CNN acknowledges they overplayed this clip, without noting that Dean would have come across as much louder on the tape than he actually was given the recording equipment being used.

This is a rankly amateurish oversight, one not even I as a nonjournalist would make. That they are now apologizing for overplaying it- demonstrably too late for the Dean campaign- smacks of supportable accusations of an attempt to subvert our democratic process.

I don't think CNN dropped the ball. I think someone saw Dean as a threat and decided to discredit him. Who did that would be an open question.

Yeah, I'm suspicious of politics in general right now. You?

[Judi Lynn]

"Dean has fed off?" I don't think so. That's truly disrespectful.

How do you think it would sound if a person who was in a 3,000 person choir were spotlighted by a hand-held mike which picks up ONLY that person's voice, and only that voice replayed?

How about a fan in a stadium, and a hand-held mike picked up only his voice?

Not buying what you're selling. It was in no way a "colossal boo-boo." He was set up and misused in a colossally crude attempt to de-rail him.

[Sibanetta]

47. Hey, I'm only expressing my opinion

I saw Dean do the scream thing, then a couple of nights later on Letterman, he was admitting he shouldn't do it again...the guy's face was purple, and his neck veins were sticking out...what does that have to do with the crowd noise? I'm sorry that your candidate is out of the running. He had a lot of good things to say...and his last visit on Hardball was really good...but please, don't dump on me for expressing my opinion. I'm not being mean or malicious...I'm just being honest.

Sibanetta

[librechik]

28. unintended consequences

Uhoh, we forgot the RNC wanted Dean to be the candidate before we screwed him. Now we have to fight Kerry! Damn! People LIKE Kerry!

[Sven77]

29. We're going to break up the giant media enterprises

Excerpt:
On December 1, 2003, Howard Dean was ahead by twenty points in the polls when he appeared on Hardball
with Chris Matthews and said, “We're going to break up the giant media enterprises.” This pronouncement went
far beyond the governor’s previous public musings about possibly re-regulating the communications industry, and
amounted to a declaration of war on the corporations that administer the flow of information in the United States.
It was an extraordinarily noble and dangerous thing to do: when he advocated a truly free press, Dean was
provoking the corrupt media conglomerates that control what most Americans see and hear and read,
and thereby control what most Americans think.
The media giants quickly responded by crushing his high-flying campaign with the greatest of ease.
from
http://makethemaccountable.com/podvin/media/040201_TheScream.htm
http://www.bartcop.com/

[Judi Lynn]

30. Thank you, Sven77. This article is wonderful.

From the Make Them Accountable article:

(snip) The scream that had the greatest impact on the Democratic presidential campaign was not Dean’s gonzo yell in Iowa, but the deafening roar of deceit that emanated from Corporate America’s media subsidiaries. The downfall of the Democratic frontrunner was not self-induced; it was self-defense. Dean had threatened to mess with General Electric, Viacom, Disney, the New York Times Company, the Washington Post Company, et al., so they messed with him first.
(snip)

(snip) When you control what people think, there is no need to point a gun at them. (snip)

(snip) Americans used to laugh at banana republics, where the ruling elites are so shamelessly debauched that judges go on duck hunting trips with the politicians whose cases they are scheduled to review, but it doesn’t seem quite so funny anymore. (snip)

(snip) In 2004, the mainstream media is rapidly disqualifying all the candidates who fail to honor the business agenda, thus eliminating the need for another controversial judicial intervention. (snip)

Couldn't get more accurate than this. I hope a LOT of people will read it.

[UpInArms]

31. those excerpted

paragraphs speak volumes.

Thanks for getting "front and center" so that anyone foolish enough to buy into the "scream" machine (and I mean the media) bullshit will have to justify their blindness - at least it might cause some mental exercise in otherwise lifeless skulls.

[wabeewoman]

36. My wish is that all DUers read that article.

It was embarassing how many people who recognized the corruption of the media immediately began singing along with it. I guess you can fool some of the people all the time....

[daleo]

34. This is a calculated ploy. CNN is doing a little mea culpa

So that they can go on to slag Kerry, Edwards, or whomever the new front runner is. The fact that they have done a tiny bit of positive re-balancing on the Dean reporting means that they can now go negative on someone else.

[demgrrrll]

37. I agree. The damage is done and CNN cannot really fix what happened.

This little OOps we screwed up is completely meaningless.
It is kind of like someone who keeps doing the same rotten
thing over and over and then saying "I'm sorry." Doesn't
cut it. If anything this apology makes me madder than
I was before.

[ozone_man]

38. No, I think Kerry is the annointed one.

They will not touch him until after things sewn up. Dean was assassinated just as surely as was RFK. Whoever controls the media are the real killers. Dean threatened to break up media monopolies. What we have now is a race between status quo candidates, between skull and bones candidates, between Iraq war advocates, the list goes on.

[spanone]

39. Just when you think it's paranoia, you find it to be the truth.

The bush* legacy.

[thethinker]

41. CNN is not the only guilty party

I was truly puzzled why the media (all of it) attacked Dean over, what seemed to me, nothing at all.

Then it occurred to me, he had said he was going to "keep the media on a short leash". The media hates him, or should I say the media fears him.

Every television station, large newspaper and radio station got in on the game until they destroyed his campaign.

They have done the same thing to Dennis K. by not covering his campaign at all. They fear him and his message also.

I am bothered by the fact that most Democrats don't see this. They are going to the polls all over the country and voting for who the media is telling them is going to win.

[UpInArms]

58. doesn't it seem a lot like

when they were stealing the 2000 election and all the talking heads kept saying "the American people are right to be patient while the USSC decides" who will be our ruler?

[leesa]

42. They apologise AFTER it destroyed hi campaign. Sleeze bags!

Even though he has been drummed out of the race by the GOP and their media, we owe a great debt of gratitude to Dr Dean for having the courage to rail against these criminals. Shame on the corporate controlled DNC/DLC for not supporting him. But how could they get their juicy piece of the corporate pie if they had.

[reprobate]

44. Oh, come on people. This was a KKKarl rove trick.

Dean was the one they feared most from the start. He had the grassroots and they were deathly scared of him.

When rove saw that bit on the tube he must have called cnn immediately and told them to push it. It was his chance to destroy the dean campaign. All they needed to do was spin it as unbalanced and the sheep of america lapped it up.

Said it before and I'll say it again. The media answer to the RNC. Simply and clearly, the american media is part of the coup.

See you at the barricades.

[Name removed]

45. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[alittlelark]

49. Rincon's cruisin the posts tonight!

Good mimic of 'the scream'. You never answered me about who you voted for in 2000.

[Occulus]

51. To be fair,

he doesn't have to. It's a secret ballot for a reason.

I, for one, believe it should stay that way. For the record, I think your question is very much off-limits.

Nothing personal. I just think the anonymity of the vote is paramount to a secure democracy.

[yellowcanine]

46. When do they apologize to Gore?

When can we expect CNN and the other media whores to apologize for playing into the Gooper strategy of depicting Gore as a liar in 2000?

Yeah, I know, no flying pig sightings are expected anytime soon.

[OutlawCorporatePolls]

48. Did you know that...

...Henry Luce, the founder of TIME (the now parent company of CNN, time-warner) was Skull and Bones? And not only were both Bush and Kerry, but so was Theresa Kerry's first husband, John Heinz...

http://www.geocities.com/CapitolHill/8425/BONES.HTM

welcome to the ruling elite.

[imax2268]

53. Well DUH...!

after you ruined the mans chances and made him look like a nut to the entire country...now you regret it...

assholes...

to redeem yourself...report on everything about BushCo and I'll feel better...

[bleedingheart]

54. Doesn't matter now

unfortunately Dean didn't get abused because of substantive reasons, he got abused because he was excited and motivated.

[goobergunch]

56. It's a little fucking late.

Apology not accepted.

[Habibi]

57. Well, they certainly made it difficult for people to

hear Dean's message. However, one thing I wonder about is *why* did Dean come in third in Iowa? Wasn't he leading?

[RUMMYisFROSTED]

60. Gephardt.

[Endangered Specie]

62. Kinda like saying sorry after shooting someone in the foot... twice