Media Responds to Kennedy Critique

Representative Patrick Kennedy made a splash on Wednesday with his House-floor declaration that the national media is "despicable" for lavishing coverage on former Representative Eric Massa's sexual improprieties and paying scant attention to the war in Afghanistan. From a piece on cbs.com, describing a conversation on its show "Washington Unplugged":

Politico's Craig Gordon [noted] that the debate where Kennedy erupted was centered on Democratic Rep. Dennis Kucinich's proposal to bring the troops back from Afghanistan in the next sixty days.

 

"Certainly Afghanistan is a huge national issue. I think it is fair to say the press pays a fair bit of attention to it. This particular resolution cannot get off the floor of the house if it even gets a vote. So are there going to be fifty reporters packing the House gallery to see sort of a Dennis Kucinich symbolic resolution?" he said.

 

He added, "is it frustrating to people in Washington that the press corps chases a shiny object like the Eric Massa scandal, absolutely. Are we guilty of it to some extent? I won't even deny that. But you can't pretend that we haven't covered Afghanistan."

 

Carol Leonnig of the Washington Post made clear that editors and reporters at the Post are having "a lot of internal dialogue" on the Massa scandal coverage. "We are in constant discussions on when is this lurid, when is this Massa story just lurid and info-tainment and when is it important," she told moderator John Dickerson.

 

"You can't say the Washington Post and Politico haven't covered Afghanistan. We have devoted probably six reporters and three photographers to covering it last year in a very comprehensive way," Leonnig added.