This morning I had the distinct pleasure of speaking with Craig Crawford, author of the recently released book Attack the Messenger: How Politicians Turn You against the Media. Crawford, a columnist for CQ, appears frequently as a political analyst on MSNBC programs such as "Countdown with Keith Olbermann", CBS' "The Early Show", and "Imus in the Morning". Previously, Crawford ran The Hotline and wars a reporter for the Orlando Sentinel. Crawford also maintains a very interesting blog, Crawford's List.
Singer: Do you think there is an inherent bias? Or is it just an attempt to send new messages to activists on the right and left?
Crawford:I think it's human nature to have bias. Anybody who cares about a political system is going to have an opinion. The issue is whether that bias creeps into what's labeled as objective reporting.
I don't think bias is in objective reporting anywhere near the extent that people think. But it has become a classic tool in the toolbox of politicians to accuse reporters of bias when unfavorable stories are done about them.
Singer: In your book, you point to the Dan Rather interview with George H.W. Bush in 1988 where Bush went straight at Rather, making some accusations about walking off the set, if my memory serves me correctly. Can you talk a little bit about how, as you say in Attack the Messenger, how it's grown from that point to where we are today?
Crawford: There's always been a state of simmering war between the politicians and the media. It's a natural state, and probably a healthy one. I just think since that campaign in '88, we've seen an escalation of hostilities between the media and politicians that's gone from conventional warfare to nuclear warfare and reached an unhealthy point, partly because politicians have settled upon this strategy to blame the messenger when they want to avoid answering questions or taking responsibility for anything that goes wrong. And it's working because the media has become such a whipping post that the public has gotten into a frame of mind that the media can't be trusted and can't be believed. And some of that is the media's fault. I just argue in this book that a large part of it is the result of politicians trying to turn the public against the media so they can get their own propaganda out.
Singer: And I think something that perhaps buttresses this claim is if you look at the Washington reporting of either The Post or The New York Times, it's not significantly different in terms of point of view from what your paper Congressional Quarterly would do, or what you would do at The Hotline, or what The Hill or Roll Call are doing. But you don't hear that same type of attack on those papers, do you? Do you get quite a bit of negative feedback to your CQ column every week?
Crawford: I write an opinion column, but I'd prefer to call it "conclusionary journalism." I have this theory that reporters and most especially columnists have a responsibility to repost both sides of a story but go ahead and draw conclusions about who might be right or wrong in a particular debate. That may be a real fine distinction in some people's mind, but it's something I try to do in my column. And as a result, I get hate mail from both sides. I seem to tick off both sides pretty regularly.
Both: [Laughter]
Crawford: I've got the hate mail to prove it. I think journalists are on the front lines of a lot of stories, and sometimes - and in particular columnists - ought to go ahead and say, "I think this side's right and this side's wrong." But not come at it with a preordained philosophy. It's almost like a Supreme Court Justice ought to take each case on its merits and not approach the cases from an overriding ideology.
Singer: Let's take a specific case from the recent past: Hurricane Katrina. You've covered your fair share of hurricanes, I would assume, coming out of the Orlando area. You have a base of knowledge. To hear someone - whether it's a local official, a statewide official or someone as high as [Secretary of Homeland Security] Michael Chertoff blanketly dismissing any lines of criticism when you've seen what you've seen... how do you respond to them just saying, "It's just rumors. You're not really reporting the facts."
Crawford: Coming from my background of covering hurricanes and politicians after hurricanes, I have been as tough on the Bush and the administration in my writings on this as I've ever been in the Bush presidency. And at the risk of getting accused of being a Bush-bashing liberal media blue stater, I have come down hard. But I would swear on a stack of copies of the First Amendment that I would be writing this same thing if this were a Democrat administration, because I think the stonewalling, the blame shifting we've seen is just a classic example of politicians trying to get the media out of the equation so the public just gets their point of view unfiltered.
Singer: There is a danger right now, not just attacking what reporters write, but not even allowing them to have access to the scene in almost unprecedented ways domestically. Certainly it's one thing to keep a reporter away from Fallujah if you feel that they might - as Geraldo Rivera did - give away troop destinations. But it's a whole other thing not to let reporters into New Orleans. What do you feel about that?
Crawford: I think the most dangerous consequence of what I see as the subjugation of the media is that there's too much filtered news which is the media's fault. The phenomenon that we've seen in both 9/11 and Katrina, particularly in the early days after each disaster, is unfiltered reporting that shows Americans what a news media can do and can do for them. The information straight and raw that they can get in the early days after Katrina... we saw television correspondents and print reporters on the front lines with no officials around telling them what they could and couldn't do, then we got the full story. As time went by and the National Guard got there and started pointing guns at reporters telling them what they couldn't take pictures of.
My biggest concern with the news media is not bias, it's wimping out and not standing up to power, which should be its job.
Singer: There is perhaps a contradiction, though, that there is - maybe bias isn't the right word - but a tendency within the media to cover, perhaps, the easier stories. Maybe this isn't as evident today, but certainly jumping from scandal to scandal, whether it's some of the minor scandals covered in this administration or some of the minor scandals covered in the past administration. What do you see along that track? Do you see a tendency now, after Hurricane Katrina, to go after tougher stories and really cover them with the right amount of rigor? Or will they go back to covering what's happening in Aruba or what happened to Laci Peterson, etc.?
Crawford: It's another great danger to our free press. It's a danger that's almost exclusively the media's fault, which is to turn the news into entertainment. It inflates ratings and readers and circulation numbers. The bottom line pressure on the news media to deliver the biggest audience possible to advertisers converts the process and leads to a lot of phony boloney stories that unfortunately the public wants. So there's always this tension between what the public ought to be getting and what they want. At the end of the day, much of that fault is with the public, because no matter how much complaining there is, the public tends to flock to celebrity-driven, personality-driven, scandal-driven stories that ultimately aren't very significant. But it's what the market's telling the news media.
Singer: Let's just shift into a rapid-fire political thing before I let you go. Yesterday in Arizona Jim Pederson, former Democratic Party chair, filed to run against Jon Kyl, who in his two races for Senate really has not faced any strong competition. Is this a race that could turn into a race, or is it too early to tell?
Crawford: I think Arizona is a fascinating state politically because it has its roots of pure conservatism of Barry Goldwater plus you've got the almost contrasting strain of Bruce Babbitt's liberalism. I would like to see that race become interesting, because it will be a real test of where Arizona is going.
Singer: One of Senator Kyl's fellow members of the class of 1994, Rick Santorum, seems to be struggling right now. The new Strategic Vision poll has him down 14 points. His supporters will say Casey was up by about the same margin over Rendell in 2002. Do you foresee Santorum being able to make a race out of this? Or is Casey going to walk to victory?
Crawford: I see that one tightening, but very difficult to predict. I think this is probably the most telling race in the midterm elections of where we might be going in the 2008 presidential race, simply because Pennsylvania is a state that always is close in presidential elections. It's going to be a major test whether the Republican message can carry the day there.
Singer: Is there one Senate race that the inside-the-Beltway types are missing? One race that could pop out of nowhere and surprise everyone?
Crawford: That's a good question. I'm not sure I have an answer to that. The first one that popped into mind was the Florida race, but I think the Beltway crowd is fairly focused on Katherine Harris. But I guess what I'd say is that I think there's a tendency to write off Katherine Harris as not being able to make that a race. I come from a Florida background, and I think she's got a well of support there that might surprise a lot of us. Turn that race into a hotter contest.
Singer: Just a final question. Looking at the House, although redistricting has certainly made House elections less competitive within even the last handful of years, do you see more potential for volatility in the House than in the Senate in 2006?
Crawford: I do. I think there is a possibility of a tidewater effect from Katrina, actually. I sense that the administration's handling of Katrina has connected in people's minds to the overall Republican image as above it all and not in the game for the average people. And if Democrats can successfully make that stick and hold and last, I think we might get some surprises in closer House races and maybe a few that aren't close.
I always think Democrats naturally should have an advantage in the House and the Republicans in the Senate, because Republicans tend to be more elitist in their message and Democrats more egalitarian, and that's what those two bodies Constitutionally were set up to be.
[THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.]