Steve Freeman, co-author of Was the 2004 Presidential Election Stolen?, just sat on the “Media and Elections” panel moderated by Paul Waldman of Media Matters for America. (It was hard to concentrate as there was intermittent a-hollerin’ and a-whoopin’ coming out of the next conference room. Apparently Phil Donahue was saying all the right things about something.)
An academic, Freeman recapped for us his incredulity after the 2004 election. He too witnessed the exit polls on election night predicting a Kerry victory only to turn on cable news in the wee hours to hear the election called for candidate Bush.
And the curiosities just kept piling up: electronic voting systems that make it hard to imagine a system more condusive to fraud; still no substantiated reason for exit polling inconsitencies; and outright evidence of malfeasance (especially in Ohio).
But the biggest story, he said, was the media’s lack of coverage of the story. You probably remember that during that time any coverage given to the issue of the 2004 election being stolen was always from the the ‘conspiracy theory” angle. (It continues today. Mention election reform to a conservative now and you’ll hear, “You won the last election. Quit yer bitchin’.”) Yet Freeman said that at the time he gave numerous interviews to the mainstream media – Washington Post, USA Today, CNN and others – but they simply never appeared in print or on the air.
Why is that our media can readily accept that elections overseas can be fraudulent but yet refuse to acknowledge the possiblity here?
