How the media took an accurate statement by Gore and turned it into "proof" Gore was a "serial exagerator" and just plain nuts:
http://www.dailyhowler.com/dh120302.shtmlWhere does spin come from? Inventing the Internet
CHAPTER I—GORE IGNORED: The press corps’ twenty-month War against Gore began on March 11, 1999. Two days earlier, Gore had given an interview to Wolf Blitzer for a special, weeknight broadcast of CNN’s Late Edition. Gore was the sitting vice president of the United States, and the leading contender for the Democratic presidential nomination. As such, the taped session was previewed and promoted by the network. It was Gore’s “first on-camera interview since filing as a candidate,” one CNN promo said.
A year of impeachment had come to an end; Gore’s informal campaigning was about to begin. And a spin campaign from the Washington press corps would follow in extremely short order. This campaign would be built on a nasty charge—the charge that Candidate Gore was a liar. The theme would dominate campaign coverage for the entire twenty months of the race.
In the Late Edition interview, Blitzer asked Gore to explain what set him apart from Bill Bradley, his opponent for the Dem nomination. Somewhat clumsily, Gore offered a list of career accomplishments. One part of his answer drew more attention than any remark by any candidate in the entire 2000 campaign.
“During my service in the United States Congress, I took the initiative in creating the Internet,” Gore said. “I took the initiative in moving forward a whole range of initiatives that have proven to be important to our country’s economic growth, environmental protection, improvements in our educational system.” On the whole, this was the kind of chest-thumping statement which candidates routinely make on the stump. But as anyone who followed this election will know, Gore’s initial, sixteen-word comment was widely dissected for the next twenty months. Almost surely, Gore’s brief remark about the Net was the most widely-discussed statement of Campaign 2000. The spinning of this one remark drove a nasty War Against Gore—a spin campaign which almost surely decided the 2000 race.
Gore’s remark would be widely attacked. But surprise! At the time Gore made his statement, it received no attention whatever. Blitzer didn’t ask Gore to explain his remark; he showed no surprise at what Gore had said. And in its on-air promotions for the taped interview, CNN showed no sign of thinking that Gore had “made news” with his comment. Meanwhile, major papers which covered Gore’s interview completely ignored the comment. On March 10, for example, the Washington Post ran a full report about the Gore-Blitzer session. But the paper only discussed Gore’s remarks on U.S. relations with China. On March 11, the Washington Times’ Greg Pierce reviewed the interview in his “Inside Politics” column. But Pierce only mentioned what Gore had said about early campaign polling. Similarly, the AP’s dispatches about Gore’s interview completely ignored his Internet comment. And another major organ passed over Gore’s statement. On March 10, the Hotline—the widely-read, on-line digest of the day’s political news—ran extensive excerpts from the Late Edition Q-and-A’s, but omitted the Internet remark altogether. In fact, in the first two days after Gore’s appearance, no press entity remarked, in any way, on what Gore said about the Net. Gore’s comment would be critiqued, attacked, burlesqued and spun over the course of the next twenty months. But it evoked no reaction from the press—none at all—at the time Gore made it. Repeat: No one in the press said even one word about Gore’s statement at the time it was made. No one showed the slightest sign of thinking Gore’s comment was notable.
Why did Gore’s comment provoke no reaction? Perhaps because Blitzer and others knew that Gore had taken the leadership, within the Congress, in developing what we now call the Internet. Gore was explicitly discussing his achievements in Congress, and if “I took the initiative” meant “I took the leadership,” his statement was perfectly accurate. (Extemporaneous speech doesn’t always parse perfectly. Everyone in Washington knows this.) Indeed, as Gore’s remark began attracting wide scrutiny, some journalists reviewed his congressional record—and a wide array of Internet pioneers described his key role, within the Congress, in creating what we now call the Net. In the March 21 Washington Post, for example, Jason Schwartz quoted several Internet pioneers, including Vinton Cerf, the man often called “the father of the Internet.” Cerf praised Gore’s role in the Net’s development. “I think it is very fair to say that the Internet would not be where it is in the United States without the strong support given to it and related research areas by the vice president,” he said. Meanwhile, Katie Hafner, author of a book on the Internet’s origins, penned a short piece in the New York Times, quoting experts who said that Gore “helped lift the Internet from relative obscurity and turn it into a widely accessible, commercial network.” On March 18, Gore tried to clarify his remark in an interview with USA Today. “I did take the lead in the Congress,” he told Chuck Raasch; he described his Internet work in detail. Raasch quoted Gore’s explanation—but it was mentioned in no other paper.
(Much, much more...)
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