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Date Posted: 20:09:30 05/31/01 Thu
Author: NKLS Cody
Subject: Thanks for the article, Peach :)
In reply to: Peach 's message, "Propaganda's Triumph" on 11:49:13 05/31/01 Thu

I certainly hope everyone that frequents this board reads down all the way to the part about the lies Republicans told about screwing up the White House. A few "W" keys were removed from the countless amount of computer keyboards at the time of the transition and Bush's handlers got the idea to concoct a story about hundreds of items missing from the offices.

Trashing the White House

This approach to quantifying coverage also misses the journalistic twists of individual stories. The first weeks of the new Bush administration, for instance, were dominated as much by critical coverage of former President Clinton as they were by positive coverage of Bush.

One of the principal tales was the story of Clinton aides allegedly trashing the White House and stripping Air Force One before departing. The story received front-page coverage in The Washington Post and was trumpeted on the pundit shows and across much of the national news media.

In this case, the Bush White House played a clever game. Officially, Bush's surrogates acted magnanimous in urging the press not to make too big a deal of the vandalism. On background, Bush's operatives fed the press juicy tidbits about slashed wiring, pornographic graffiti and looted government property.

Typical of the media’s lack of journalistic rigor when dealing with negative Clinton stories, the Washington press corps did not demand proof of the vandalism, such as photographs or other hard evidence. Instead, the press corps simply published unattributed accounts of vengeful Democrats ransacking government property, a theme that meshed well with Bush’s public call for a restoration of dignity in the White House.

Nearly four months later, the General Services Administration issued a report finding no evidence that Clinton’s aides had trashed the White House. “The condition of the real property was consistent with what we would expect to encounter when tenants vacate office space after an extended occupancy,” the federal landlord agency said.

Unlike the front-page treatment of the allegations, the GSA report was either buried deep in newspapers or ignored altogether. The Washington Post ran a wire story on page A13 on May 18, 2001.

Nine days later, Jake Siewart, Clinton’s last press secretary, wrote an opinion column published in the Post’s Outlook section. “After years of watching the Washington press corps at work, I know it’s pointless to ask for apologies,” Siewart wrote. “Apparently, most of the commentators and reporters who reported this story four months ago have ‘moved on.’ Being a journalist today means never having to say you’re sorry.”

Siewart contrasted the apocryphal damage to the White House to the real damage to the reputation of Clinton aides. “The Clinton staff, who offered the new Bush team detailed briefing books, one-on-one meetings and personal tours to make the transition seamless, got to go home and have their reputations trashed by the people they had helped. All in the name of ‘changing the tone’ in Washington. And the press corps did not just sit back and watch the vandals at work; it lent a hand.” [WP, May 27, 2001]

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