Twisting and Spinning of Values
Reported by Eleanor - July 9, 2004 -
Today Rick Folbaum on Fox News (July 9, 12:07 p.m.ET) did back-to-back coverage of the campaigns of Kerry and Bush. The contrast could not possibly have been greater.
Carl Cameron covered the Kerry campaign by discussing his "glitzy gathering" with the stars, showing a video of Kerry on a noisy stage surrounded by actors and singers. According to Cameron, the rhetoric coming out of this campaign stop is "raising hackles;" it was full of "vitriol;" and presented the president as a "thug." Cameron then went on to say that Kerry's latest message is a "values attack against Bush." He then showed a video of Kerry talking about values, saying it's what you do and how you live. Cameron then remarked that "if they intend to stick to values, the heartland sensibilities are much different." Thus, he effectively tied the rhetoric coming out of the "glitzy gathering" with Kerry's values.
Immediately following Cameron's assessment of Kerry's values, James Rosen showed Bush speaking to a polite crowd in Pennsylvania. He went from Bush talking about recent job growth to a shot of Bush's daughter campaigning with her father and asking him to "change his shirt." A photo op of "family values."
Comment: Rarely does Fox cover both campaigns at the same time, but someone saw this as a golden opportunity. The contrast was specifically intended to trash Kerry's values while putting Bush up as a family man with "real" values without actually saying it. The pictures carried the message more effectively than the words. Fox is expert at mind games, and I suspect most viewers got the not so subtle point, but missed the deliberate manipulation involved in this juxtapositioning of the two campaigns intended to influence their opinions in favor of Bush's "values."
