| John Ziegler at KFI AM640 in LA writes a piece about how he and his radio station got the Kerry quote from a local TV station that rolled the tape but otherwise ignored what Kerry was saying (can't say that I blame them). Ziegler recognized the importance of the quote, and he and his team made sure it got out. |
The way that the story of John Kerry’s comments about education and getting “stuck in Iraq” became blockbuster news is rather humorous and tells us a lot about the nature of our modern news media. Believe it or not, there was a very excellent chance that Kerry’s comments could have been made without creating anything close to even a minor incident. There are many reasons why that rather likely scenario was not allowed to occur. Here is how it really all went down.
My showÂ’s standard policy is to be taping at least one local TV newscast in the hours before my program just in case some extraordinary happens. On most nights we tape the local NBC affiliate (Channel 4 in Los Angeles) mostly because they are right across the street from KFIÂ’s studios and we know a lot of the performers who work there. On some nights we forget to roll any tape at all or there is a technical problem with the tape itself.
On Monday evening around 6 pm I was prepping for my show when I saw a report on KNBC from Conan Nolan (an excellent reporter who has been on my show before). The taped package focused on a Phil Angelides campaign event that including, among others, Senator John Kerry. I listened to the story with only half interest because Angelides has zero chance of being Governor and is usually so boring I often fall asleep before he is finished speaking. Nolan’s package was presented in as routine a fashion as possible with absolutely zero indication that anything out of the ordinary had occurred. He stated in his voiceover that Kerry had told the crowd at Pasadena City College that if more Democrats got elected that more kids could go to college. Immediately after that lead in, the packaged piece played the now infamous clip of Kerry appearing to say that if you don’t study you could end up being a failure, forced to join the military, and “get stuck in Iraq.” Nolan’s report rolled on as if Kerry had said nothing more noteworthy than “the sky is blue and the grass is green” and no further mention of the remark was made. |