Washington, D.C.: I really enjoyed the play-by-play Lott column today, but I feel a little dense. I don't understand this paragraph at all: 'After overhearing chatter among his colleagues, Washington Post reporter Thomas Edsall wrote a story for Saturday, Dec. 7, resisting an editor's suggestion that it be treated as an item. "I sent a note saying that it would demean the story to put it in the political column," he says.'

What is "treating something as an item"? As a story? Is an item part of the political column? Why is a political column demeaning?

washingtonpost.com: A Hundred- Candle Story And How To Blow It (Washington Post, Dec. 16, 2002)

Howard Kurtz: An item means a few paragraphs as part of The Post's periodic Politics column. It would have been demeaning, in Edsall's view, because he felt this was an important story, while the column is usually a roundup of lesser developments, funny incidents and political chatter. And it turns out Edsall was right. Imagine what people would be saying if The Post had devoted only part of a political column to the story that now threatens to topple Trent Lott from the majority leader's job.

San Francisco, Calif.: What do you suppose happened during his appearance on "Saturday Night Live" to cause Gore to decide against being a candidate for president in 2004? It was a wonderful Christmas present to America, sparing us the spectacle of Gore as the Adlai Stevenson (1956) of 2004.

washingtonpost.com: No Gore to Kick Around Anymore (Washington Post, Dec. 16, 2002)

Howard Kurtz: Gore says he made his decision in the last few days. I don't think he reached it while he was in the hot tub with Joe Lieberman during an SNL skit. The timing was odd, though, to announce his withdrawal less than 24 hours after showing America he could indeed be funny. Maybe he'll be pursuing a second career as a comedian.

Long Beach, Calif.: Are you expecting a roast of Trent Lott on BET, or high comedy? I have a hard time thinking about him controlling the evening's agenda to his satisfaction.

Howard Kurtz: I expect it will be a fairly serious and straightforward conversation. I doubt the BET folks will want to trash Lott when he was gracious enough to come on -- at least not while he's being interviewed.

Connecticut: As if we didn't already know, the Trent Lott affair firmly established how utterly useless and self-absorbed the Washington press corps is, more interested in gaining favor with politicians or keeping score 23 months before the election. Zoning out on the speeches because it was a happy talk birthday party is no excuse. At least the conservative press understood what was up while the Democrats et. al slept, which should forever refute the notion of a "liberal media."

Howard Kurtz: I agree that it's no excuse, but not because the assembled reporters were currying favor with Lott. They just blew it. ABC's Linda Douglass offered two observations on my CNN this weekend: One, that some of the younger reporters weren't familiar with Thurmond's segregationist campaign, so the reference to 1948 didn't resonate with them. Two, that she called the Black Caucus and other Democrats but got zero reaction and decided to hold off on doing a story. I disagree with the second rationale. Sure, it's always easier for a reporter when you can say X blasted Y yesterday over Y's remarks. But what Lott said was clearly newsworthy by any standard, even if political opponents were taking the cautious route and staying silent.

Dallas, Tex.: How did the stupid comment by Lott morph into a general condemnation of every single Republican since the '60s? Even if you grant a racist motivation to Lott, how does that reflect on the entire Republican Party? To me, this is rapidly becoming a huge case of overkill, just as bad as the media missing the import at the beginning. Where is the balance? Obviously that's not going to come from the political types themselves, but what about the media? When are we going to get some even-handed analysis? As it stands, the Republicans can't afford to push Lott aside, because it'll only validate the wild-eyed accusations now coming from the left.

Howard Kurtz: I don't agree that the Lott fiasco has turned into a general condemnation of Republicans. In fact, some of the harshest criticism has come from conservatives - notably, Charles Krauthammer, Bill Kristol, David Frum, Andrew Sullivan, the WSJ editorial page, the NY Post editorial page. What the mainstream media has done is to examine how southern Republicans have made use of the race issue, sometimes with coded language, over the last 40 years. (And sometimes not so subtly, as in the 1990 Jesse Helms ad that showed a white pair of hands crumpling a rejection letter because a job went to a black.) But the conclusion, it seems to me, is that the GOP has changed, that George Bush has tried to make the party more inclusive, and that this progress was tarnished by Lott's remarks.

North Carolina: It seems like this is the scandal that shows the political blogs have come into their own.

What would have essentially been a non-story had the bloggers not beat the drum until the mainstream press picked it up has put the GOP in a very awkward situation.

Either they have Lott as Majority Leader (giving the Democrats an appealing target to run against in 2004, and weakening their hand on a number of issues in the Senate), or they face a possible 50-50 split in the Senate as well as a nice round of internal fighting over the Majority Leader.

Ironically, I suspect the best long term outcome would be for Lott to resign, and for Chafee to switch parties, giving the Republicans a chance to run against a Democrat controlled Senate in 2004.

Howard Kurtz: That seems like a real long shot. But I agree that bloggers had a clear impact on the Lott story. The likes of Josh Marshall, Andrew Sullivan and David Frum were hitting Lott hard, and repeatedly, while most of the mainstream media dozed. (The NYT's Paul Krugman, in fact, has called Marshall, who dug out some key details of Lott's past, the most important man on the story.) The piece might have flickered and faded without that kind of sustained attention. I think this is a positive development because it takes the decision on what is a valid news story out of a relatively few hands in big media corporations.

Los Angeles, Calif.: Howard, I don't understand people (politicians, editorial writers, columnists, etc.) calling for Lott to resign from his leadership post. Does this mean they feel his comments/actions are okay for a Senator, but not for the Senate majority leader? I'd love for someone to ask them about this.

Howard Kurtz: The thinking, I believe, is that the people of Mississippi elected Lott and it should be up to them whether to get rid of him as a senator next time around. But there is a different standard for a party leader who acts as a prominent national spokesman, and whether Lott should continue in that role is not up to his home-state constituents but to the Republican senators who elevated him to majority leader. Now that Lott's No. 2, Don Nickles, has called for a new vote (in which he would, coincidentally, probably be a candidate) has made Lott's position more precarious than it was a day or two ago.

Annandale, Va.: Is there any data to show how much influence a paper's editorial page views have on circulation?

Howard Kurtz: Probably zero. Except perhaps in the case of the Wall Street Journal, most people don't buy a newspaper for its editorial page. They might buy it for news, or features, or sports, or movie reviews or ads, but the edit page is not likely to be driving a lot of newsstand traffic.

Washington, D.C.: Not to pick on Helen Dewar, but who decided that when a 31-year old becomes a U.S. Senator (as Nickles did in 1981), his prior career (all five or so years, including two as a state senator and the rest in the employ of his father's company) is still glorified twenty years later by referring to him as a "former businessman." He is a career politician just as much as someone who goes straight from law scholl to office (e.g., Schumer). Is there a statute of limitations on this sort of description?

washingtonpost.com: Four Singled Out As Being Potential Successors to Lott (Washington Post, Dec. 16, 2002)

Howard Kurtz: I don't see any problem with referring to a politician's previous career if he had one. Tom DeLay's work as an exterminator probably was not the defining moment in his life, but it does tell you something about him before he got to Congress. Same with Jimmy Carter having been a peanut farmer, George W. an oilman and baseball team owner, John Edwards a trial lawyer and Howard Dean a medical doctor.

Adams Morgan, Washington, D.C.: How ethical was it for the former CNN vice president to break the story about Lott's fight to keep his fraternity segregated? It seemed driven by payback. It's curious that Lott knew enough about what most folks think of as moderate political ideas to hold their mutual vote over the guy's head when he was a working member of the press, yet professes ignorance to the effect of his little speech at Strom's birthday.

Howard Kurtz: Actually, it was Time's Karen Tumulty who broke that story. She had been told about it by Lott himself in the early 1980s. He was getting in a dig at her then-boss, Tom Johnson, publisher of the LA Times (and later CNN's chairman). Tumulty called Johnson back for more details when she decided to write the story last week.

College Park, Md.: Hi Howard,

I have to say I was absolutely flabbergasted when I saw "Reliable Sources" on Sunday and listened to the three of you discuss a possible reason for the media's lack of aggressive reporting on the Lott scandal (and I say scandal because I believe it is nothing short of scandalous). This reason was the fact that mant reporters are too young and therefore didn't understand the historical/political/social context of the Thurmond/Dixiecrat platform.

I can see some reporters "not getting it," but their editors? I am 29 and I understand that the South before the '60s was blatantly racist and violent toward minorities. As much as Thrumond has changed philosophically, anyone highlighting and admiring his political qualities before the 1970s and '80s would bring up serious red flags for me.

As for those who weren't caught napping, I think kudos goes out to Salon.com for reporting it aggressively AND understanding the hidden meaning of Southern politicians' cloaked reasoning of supporting "states' rights."

Howard Kurtz: It was ABC's Linda Douglas and the Weekly Standard's Stephen Hayes who offered the theory about younger reporters. That may have explained the behavior of some of the reporters who were at the Strom party - their editors would have had no way of knowing what was said - but doesn't explain the days of media silence after Lott's remarks were reported by The Post, NPR, ABC.com and talked about on Meet the Press and Late Edition. So that slow reaction over several days remains, in my view, something of an embarrassment for the media.

Arlington, Va.: Now that Don Nickles has openly challenged Lott for the leadership post, do you think that Lott's planned appearance on BET is irrelevant no matter how Lott fares? Seems to me that the political wheels are in motion, and one more apology isn't going to stop them.

Howard Kurtz: Not sure. I guess it depends on what Lott says and how many GOP senators side with Nickles. Remember that any vote on removing Lott probably wouldn't come until the Senate reconvenes in January, when passions may have faded a bit.

Fox News Sunday: What do you feel about Tony Snowe's editorial comments at the end of Fox News Sunday? After spending part of the show discussing Lott (with Hume predictably defending Lott), Snowe ends the show saying Lott has gotten a raw deal, that the Dems are just playing the "race card" and gave the predictable: I know Lott and he is not a racist.

Is this really what objective journalism should be all about?

Howard Kurtz: I didn't see Snow's remarks, but if it was labeled commentary, that is by definition the opinion of the host and is not supposed to be "objective." Everyone knows Tony Snow has opinions because he worked in the first Bush White House and was a conservative columnist. The question is whether he can be fair during interviews and roundtable discussions, and generally he is.

Mechanicsburg, Pa.: How ironic that a man as honest as Al Gore was painted as a perpetual liar during his last campaign -- doubly so when you consider the constant stream of misinformation that flows from this administration. Now he's out of politics -- seemingly for good -- and our nation is poorer for it. The Washington Post shares the blame with a good deal of our nation's press for being too lazy to deviate from what passed for conventional wisdom during the last election cycle.

I'm hoping there's some soul-searching going on among our nation's journalists, though I'm not optimistic.

Howard Kurtz: I'm not going to defend all the press coverage of candidate Gore, but it wasn't the media that ran what even Gore himself now concedes was a mistake-ridden campaign, or managed to lose three debates against an inexperienced governor. Nor was it the media that pushed Gore out of the '04 race. I'd agree that Gore was not well liked by many reporters and therefore didn't get great press coverage, but he was still an overwhelming front-runner when he decided against a third presidential campaign.

Arlington, Mass.: Howard -
With seemingly hundreds of pundits, columnists, strategists, and consultants floating from channel to channel by way of various newspapers and interest groups, what is the appropriate way to identify a guest on a TV show? Most importantly, are there any rules governing how a guest is presented to viewers if he/she is being paid for the appearance, either on a contract or permanent employee basis?

Howard Kurtz: You either identify the person's main place of employment or the group or cause related to the topic being discussed - preferably both. I also believe that networks should disclose past political affiliations - former McCain campaign aide, former Clinton White House staffer, etc. The insiders usually know of these connections, but lots of ordinary viewers don't, or need to be reminded.

Portland, Ore.: One of the things I'm learned in this whole Trent Lott business is that Senator Robert Byrd of West Virginia used to be a KKK member.

How much of our unsavory past will be dug up by the media? It seems to me that most politicians old enough will have something in their past to be ashamed of. Any chance of "race-fatigue" setting in?

Howard Kurtz: I don't have any problem with the media noting (though not in every single story) that Byrd used to be a member of the Klan. Yes, it was a long time ago, but it's part of who he is, or at least was. Nor is it some personal pecadillo dug up by intrusive reporters (as during the Lewinsky saga, when Republican lawmakers kept getting "outed" for past affairs).

Alexandria, Va.: Doesn't the entire Lott incident show the power of C-SPAN? Since you state that every reporter there was caught napping, had the C-SPAN cameras not been there the general public would have never seen it. Now, we've seen it five dozen times.

Howard Kurtz: C-SPAN was crucial, because it would have been harder for the Lott remarks to have become a television story without the all-important videotape. In part because it doesn't have to worry about ratings, C-SPAN goes to a lot of hearings and events that the other networks blow off because they're too expensive and time-consuming to cover and are unlikely to get on the air. That's why Brian Lamb's network is truly a public service.

Dryden, N.Y.: Yesterday's New York Times critique of Trent Lott was devastating. Still, why was the Washington press so slow in getting it? Had they just decided to live with the radical right wing agenda? Tom DeLay has explicitly shut out non-Christians from his vision of America and the press continues to ignore it. It seems amazing that blogman Marshall and the average Americans who watch C-SPAN had to get the Washington press corps of their collective duffs.

Howard Kurtz: Too many journalists, I think, thought this was idle birthday-party flattery as opposed to news. Clearly, they were wrong. One veteran journalist told me today that perhaps reporters thought it was no big deal because they have heard Lott say other impolitic things over the years. That, of course, is no excuse for this lapse of journalistic judgment.

Southern Maryland: You mean that a dozen reporters were at the Thurmond birthday bash, and did nothing with Lott's comments for days? What were they thinking? Wouldn't the reporters have been on alert for ANY mention about Thurmond's segregationist past?

I first read the Lott quote in Bob Levey's chat on Dec. 6. Since no other media outlet had picked up on the ABC News piece, I was afraid his comment would be lost in the next news cycle. So I e-mailed the ABC News link to Joe Conason at Salon and Mickey Kaus at Slate, hoping that someone would notice the story. Not that I take any kind of credit for spreading the story -- I'm sure hundreds of other people did what I did. I just wanted to do something to make sure Lott faced the consequences.

Howard Kurtz: I don't really have a good explanation for this important lapse by the media. Even after the initial screwup, we're talking about a story that was in The Washington Post on Dec. 7 and talked about on Meet the Press and Late Edition on Dec. 8. Yet the next day, there was still no story in the NYT, LAT, WSJ, USA Today, nothing on NBC Nightly News or ABC's World News Tonight. Yet within days the NYT editorial page was calling on Lott to step down as majority leader. Go figure.

Madison, Wis.: Other than John Nichols of The Nation, I have not seen anyone discuss the possible entry into the presidential race of Rep. Dennis Kucinich, which has been discussed for months on the Democratic left. As Kucinich himself has not discouraged such speculation, can you explain the silence of the media about him?

Howard Kurtz: Basically, there's a hundred Democrats who might run, and until most of them get serious - in terms of raising money, forming a PAC or. like Howard Dean, saying flatly they're going to run instead of pussyfooting around - they're not going to get much ink.

Silver Spring, Md.: "This Week" continues to be less than thrilling for Clinton (oops, I mean Stephanapoulos) running the show in Donaldson's wake. How long can a show with such lackluster performances by George and folks continue? Are there rumors floating about how to retool? Retooling has to be the only option, I'd think, since if ABC News drops this, threatens "Nightline" and is about to ink a deal with CNN, sounds like overall a big win for NBC, eh? Thoughts?

Howard Kurtz: In fairness to Stephanopoulos, he's only been at it for three months, and it's hard for a new host to establish a following after viewers spent years tuning in to Sam and Cokie. There's also a big difference between being an outspoken panelist and having the presence and command to host a show. I thought George was too stiff and cautious at first, but he seems to be loosening up slightly. Also, while he's neck and neck with Face the Nation most weeks for the second spot in the Sunday ratings, his numbers haven't plummeted, so ABC has reason to remain optimistic.

Chicago, Ill.: Many have suggested that the conservative fusillade against the media makes reporters and editors gun-shy. Do you think this might have contributed to a lack of timelier pick-up on the Lott story by outlets such as, say, the New York Times?

Howard Kurtz: That's occurred to me as well. But I actually think the reason was just a combination of laziness and tone-deafness, not trying to make nice to Lott.

Gaithersburg, Md.: It is not surprising to me that the mainstream media missed the Trent Lott story, despite the fact that they were there when it happened. It seems to me that media outlets are now more concerned with packaging a news story, rather than simply reporting the news.

It seems likely to me that this story was missed because an editor decided to present this as a features type story and the reporter went to the event with a preconceived idea about the type of story to be written.

I see many examples of news stories where comments and quotes are sifted through in order to fit into the picture drawn by the reporter. The result of this can be seen in the striking difference between the articles of the Washington Post and the Washington Times.

Howard Kurtz: It certainly wouldn't have been hard to "package" a story about Lott inserting all five toes in his mouth. But keep in mind that reporters went to this gathering with every intention of writing a 100th birthday piece, and certainly not expecting any news to be made. Part of being a good journalist, though, is being agile enough to react when a story takes an unexpected turn.

Washington, D.C.: I know this is tangential to the substance of the story, but I’m suck on one aspect of the media reporting on the Lott comments. According to Thomas Edsall in his December 7 report in the Post, “The gathering . . . applauded Lott when he said ‘we’re proud’ of the 1948 vote. But when he said ‘we wouldn’t have had all these problems over all these years’ if Thurmond had won, there was an audible gasp and general silence.” Other reporters repeated that the audience gasped with Lott’s remarks. Now, it seems to me that either the reporters who attended the gathering were utterly, hopelessly clueless (most people would have picked up on the “audible gasp” as a hint that something was amiss – pun intended), or the reporters who’ve spread the “audible gasp” story are gilding the lily here. Neither scenario speaks well for the press.

Howard Kurtz: I believe the accounts of the audible gasp. That should have served as a warning sign that something potentially offensive had just been said. It did for the ABC producer who fed the story to the network's Web site. Two Knight Ridder reporters mentioned Lott's remark in a single paragraph way down in the story. But the others were just caught napping.

Syracuse, N.Y.: That you can so flippantly and matter-of-factly say that Gore lost all three debates to Bush is a perfect example of the poor -- and biased -- media coverage Gore got in his last campaign. That's now the conventional wisdom, but most pundits (and overnight polls) indicated the exact opposite after the first debate. It was only after the conservative media spin-machine (and anti-Gore reporters) had a few days of spinning did the polls, and the conventional wisdom, change in favor of Bush, who had extremely low expectations to meet.

Howard Kurtz: By any reasonable standard, Gore clearly lost the first two debates and probably was even or a little ahead in the third - a far cry from what everyone (including the press) expected because he was the far more experienced debater.

Rockville, Md.: Gotta ask: when is the media going to start including Al Sharpton's name in the list of Presidential candidates? He has declared. Or are they afraid to hurt their political friendships by noting that another racially polarizing figure is a Democrat?

Howard Kurtz: I guarantee you that Reverend Al will get plenty of media coverage before this campaign is over.

Gaithersburg, Md.: Mr. Kurtz,
You must be kidding when you say people do not buy (or not buy) a newspaper based on its editorial page and philosophy. I would not buy the Wash. Times on a bet, simply because I cannot tolerate their political views. How many "Liddyites" would buy the Post?

Howard Kurtz: I think you have a rather narrow view of why people buy a newspaper. Lots of conservatives read The Post, perhaps in part because they feel they have to, given that it's the capital's dominant newspaper. But the average subscriber is less concerned with political philosophy than in finding information he or she is interested in, whether it be about politics, entertainment, the Redskins, the comics or what's on sale at the local department store.
Thanks for the chat, folks.

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