Media Find Current TV Electrifying
Stories downplay negatives, fawn over ‘Al Gore, businessman’ as ‘out to change the world.’

By Dan Gainor
August 9, 2005

     What do you call a politician whose new business venture relies on money from someone he once criticized? If your name is Al Gore, then Time magazine calls you an “activist entrepreneur,” shamelessly promoting your new business.

     In an era where media coverage emphasizes the downside of company CEOs, Gore received what amounted to a media love letter. Time’s Aug. 8 coverage was part of a media stampede that showed Gore’s new television network, Current TV, “generating some buzz” and even compared the venture to the billion-dollar success of Google. Gore was received kid-glove treatment in print and on TV and only one media outlet mentioned that he had received aid from “media baron Rupert Murdoch whose Fox News Channel Gore once called a ‘fifth column,’” as Time explained.

     Journalists referred to the former presidential candidate as “reincarnated” in two separate publications, and Time magazine’s story “Al Gore, Businessman” called him “a businessman who is out to change the world.” Time gave fellow Democrat John Edwards similar treatment during the 2004 campaign.

     A new Business & Media Institute analysis showed that most of the major media have done the Current TV story in some positive fashion in the months surrounding the August 2005 launch. CNN went so far as to ask the opinion of former Gore-Lieberman 2000 campaign manager, Donna Brazile, without mentioning her connection. All they included was this Joe Johns comment, “So Donna Brazile, you know Al Gore very well. What’s he up to with this?”

     Brazile was true to form and called the network “a great new concept” and a “great venture.” Johns, adding to the reincarnation theme, said, “He’s sort of remaking himself, once again.” That wasn’t the only spin included in the Gore coverage. Here are a few highlights:

• Liberal ‘virtues’: The Time story, by Karen Tumulty and Laura Locke, mentioned Gore’s investment partnership, Generation. “Generation aims to find and invest in companies that will pay off by virtue of enlightened approaches on energy, the environment, employee relations and other policies that will benefit society as well as their bottom lines.” That’s not a Generation press release – that’s directly from the story. There was no explanation of the “enlightened approaches,” but it’s safe to guess they reflected ideas the reporters agreed with.

• It won’t be political…maybe: Time admitted that “nearly all” of Gore’s investors “are also big Democratic contributors” but relayed Gore’s claim that there is “close to zero-percent chance” that he would run for office. Other media made a similar claim, although an Aug. 1 Washington Post story by Ariana Eunjung Cha said otherwise. According to Cha, the “viewer-contributed videos” will be “opinionated.” “Bias and opinions in these ‘citizen’ reports will not only be tolerated but desirable,” said Cha.

• No bias at all….Newsweek reporter Brad Stone downplayed the potential left-wing politics of the new network in his April 8 report, repeating Gore’s claim that “he had no interest in that.” Stone disclosed that he had applied for a job with the 1992 Senate campaign of Gore partner Joel Hyatt, the former national finance chairman for the Democratic Party in 2000. Stone’s comments started out negative, but quickly went far the other way. “This week, I told former Vice President Al Gore why his new cable-television venture would never work,” Stone began. “But first, an admission. When I first saw Google in the ‘90s, I thought to myself: What, another search engine?”

• Nothing new: This wasn’t the first time the media welcomed Gore with open arms. The Aug. 8, 2000, “CBS Evening News” said of Gore and his running mate Sen. Joe Lieberman (D-Conn.), “They represent the future, not the past, and they are the ticket of high moral standards most in tune with real mainstream America.”

• Age before legality: Several media made references to the youth of the Current TV staff, but none of them raised any questions about it. As Phil Rosenthal of the Chicago Tribune put it in a July 31 story, “But the network is selling itself as ‘the first national network created by, for and with an 18-to-34-year-old audience.’” Cha also focused on the youth of the staff, without questioning it: “The company is filled with promising but as yet mostly unknown media figures; most of Current’s 120-plus staffers are under 40.” Cha raised no questions about age discrimination. She might have simply referred to another Washington Post piece from June 14, 2005, by Abigail Trafford: “But the ism of age goes on, unchecked. Geezer-bashing is socially acceptable.” Trafford went on to say, “Ageism also harms younger people by exacerbating their fears of growing older.”

• You gotta be hip: The Washington Post’s Aug. 1, 2005, Ariana Eunjung Cha article focused on how Gore was reincarnated to a man in a “hip, open-at-the-collar, all-black ensemble.” When Gore said the project “has been a blast,” Cha commented, “A 21-year-old hipster couldn’t have said it better.”