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NYTV
Chris Matthews Goes After New York's Rudy Reporters
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NYTV
On Thursday, Jan. 3, the night of the Iowa caucuses, Chris Matthews interviewed Rudy Giuliani live on MSNBC. “I noticed working with a lot of reporters, even mild-mannered reporters from New York,” observed Mr. Matthews, “they don’t like you much.”
That observation set up the question that Mr. Matthews wanted to explore: “Are you being screwed by the press?” he asked.
Was he? Mr. Giuliani demurred to his host, who proceeded to make the case.
As he had a few weeks earlier on his MSNBC show Hardball, Mr. Matthews trotted out Exhibit A—an article that appeared on Nov. 29 in The New York Times, which, as Mr. Matthews put it, was about how Mr. Giuliani “had failed to give an accurate accounting as mayor of the cost of your security detail when you went off to visit your now wife.” And Exhibit B—a subsequent piece in The Times on Dec. 20, which, Mr. Matthews suggested, exonerated Mr. Giuliani but had been buried deep in the paper.
“The New York Times finally came back on page 35 of the national edition and pointed out that they were wrong,” he said. “But none of the papers ever came back and said, ‘Wait a minute we blew it.’”
“You lost 10 points in the polls because of those stories,” Mr. Matthews concluded. “Are you going to be able to get back that 10 points on the basis of a retraction buried on page 35 of The Times?”
In short, then, Mr. Matthews was accusing The New York Times of running an inaccurate story that, along with others of its kind, did grave damage to the Giuliani campaign—a serious charge.
The Times’ initial Nov. 29 story, by William Rashbaum—about the then-mayor billing travel and security costs to the city during a time when he was having extramarital liaisons in the Hamptons—simply recounted on page 26 of the national section the original news, which had been broken by The Politico. It acknowledged that some questions about how those expenses had been billed to the city remained unclear in the aftermath of The Politico’s scoop—such as how much of the expenses were billed to the mayor’s agency and how much were billed to obscure city agencies.
The follow-up piece by reporter Russ Buettner, published Dec. 20 and labeled a “Checkpoint,” reported that, as it turned out, all eight of Mr. Giuliani’s trip to the Hamptons in 1999 and 2000 had been billed to the mayor’s office—while several subsequent trips in 2001, after Mr. Giuliani’s affair with Ms. Nathan had become public, were billed to a separate agency.
The item did throw cold water on the heated question of whether the mayor was using unusual accounting practices to keep his affair secret. But it did little to alter the basic facts of the larger narrative about (a) the cost to taxpayers of the mayor’s extramarital affair in the Hamptons and (b) his office’s still mysterious practice, as the Checkpoint noted, of shifting mayoral travel expenses “to lesser-known units,” a practice “other administrations frowned on.” And it never presented itself as a retraction or correction of the earlier story.
In an e-mail to NYTV on Monday, Catherine Mathis, a spokesperson for The Times, confirmed that, contrary to Mr. Matthews’ belief, no “retraction” had been offered. The initial piece, she said, “prominently featured the Giuliani campaign’s response, so there was nothing to correct or retract.”
“After reviewing the records ourselves, however,” Ms. Mathis continued, “it did seem fair to further clarify the issue, given the level of attention it had received, and that is what we sought to do with the Checkpoint piece.”
Was the Checkpoint piece unfairly buried? “As to the placement of the piece, it ran on one of the politics pages for the day, which is where our original report on the Politico piece ran,” wrote Ms. Mathis.
And had the overall coverage cost Mr. Giuliani 10 points in the polls, as Mr. Matthews suggested? On Monday, veteran pollster John Zogby told NYTV that it was all but impossible to confirm that notion—but added that in all likelihood many other variables contributed to Mr. Giuliani’s decline, including the former mayor’s difficulties with the base, his strategy of largely ignoring the early primary states, the plethora of other moderate candidates in the field, and Bernard Kerik. “All of those came into play and didn’t help Rudy,” said Mr. Zogby.
Reached on Tuesday afternoon, Mr. Matthews said he stood by his take. “We did it on the air clearly,” said Mr. Matthews. “I edited that piece. I wrote that piece. I’m very confident of that reporting by us.”
And he defended his analysis of the polls. “That is the assessment I make as a political student,” he said. “I watched the process. I watched that story explode over a series of days. And I watched the coincidental decline of his poll numbers. If you go back and check the tabs and check the way the story was bouncing off the tabs on the television, that was the main story.”
But Mr. Matthews’ willingness to go to bat for Mr. Giuliani—and to take a shot at the New York press in the process—wasn’t well received by one of the reporters who has covered Mr. Giuliani closest. Wayne Barrett, the longtime Village Voice writer and author of Rudy!: An Investigative Biography of Rudolph Giuliani, told NYTV he saw Mr. Matthew’s Thursday interview as part of a broader pattern in which the MSNBC host treated Mr. Giuliani with blind admiration. “Chris loves to say all this macho stuff about Giuliani: He has great street cred, he is a man of action,” said Mr. Barrett. “He is not even willing to tolerate or listen to other voices about Giuliani.”
Chris Matthews is such an ass. Loud, bellicose, and obnoxious. Even worse, however, is the fact that he is such a gasbag and he gets paid ridiculous money for it. Maybe Rudy should have taken Matthews to the Hamptons. He would have gotten all the love that he wanted and Chris could have paid all the bills.
This is why the people at the New York Times should be ashamed of themselves. I'm not a big Giuliani supporter, but it's really not about him -- the Times is happy to do this with lots of candidates from both sides. And of course it's not just the Times.
There's very little that will prevent the media from printing a salacious story, certainly not thin evidence. They love selling papers too much. And they love the power too much.
The Times should have run a retraction of page one. But if the editors aren't hindered by consciences, why bother, right?
While the times has disected, bisected and trisected the Clinton marriage, somehow Matthews continues to attemt to make Hillary responsible for her husbands transgressions. And didn't chastise the Times for that. I would bet a dollar to a donut(make that $10. Donuts aren't cheap anymore.)He has had some tough times and tribulations in his own marriage and his wife is still with him. His man crush on Guiliani is weird and uncomfortable to listen to. I think he is losing any influence he thought he had and is trying to be "President Maker." Rachel Maddow and TPM not with standing.
"John Zogby told NYTV that it was all but impossible to confirm that notion—but added that in all likelihood many other variables contributed to Mr. Giuliani’s decline..."
Such as opening his mouth.
I stopped watching Chris Matthews because he is so bullying and won't let any one complete a sentence--and because he kept dissing Hilary. Today he's yelling about the New Hampshire voters lying about who they were going to vote for. Rave on Chris. Soon you'll be talking to a very small audience.
Chris Matthews is obviously gay, that's his choice I suppose but the constant display towards Giuliani is better left for a late night cable porn channel. T
Chris Matthews's comments are a joke. The press has given Rudy a free pass on so many topics, including his creation of Bernard Kerik, the Yankee Stadium giveaway, the huge budget problems he left for Bloomberg to clean up,amd most glaringly, his blunders leading up and including 9/11. Even given the New York Times story, they are not covering 10% of what the Village Voice has revealed about Rudy.
Last night Tom Brokaw repeatedly attempted to tone down Chris Matthews and his cronies who are currently masquerading as legitimate television journalists. The level of pure speculation that they blithely toss out has tarnished journalism and turned this viewer off. I don't believe that the New Hampshire voters lied, but I'm glad they quieted the hounds. I'm also very thankful that the New Hampshire voters sent a strong message to all the pollsters, pundits, and "journalists" to stop thinking you know all the answers. Calm down people. Stop bombarding us with ridiculous predictions that amount to hot air. It's not "all over in New Hampshire," nor Nevada, nor South Carolina. The American people, not these talking heads, elect the President, and we all need to allow that process to move forward without blatant attempts to manipulate public opinion and write off politicians and campaigns before they have had their fair opportunity to attract voters. I watched MSNBC for hours last night because our Democratic process is fascinating, invigorating, and definitely provocative this year, but I am pleading with the television reporters, show hosts, journalists, and pundits to tone it down. Listen to your elders and go back to being real journalists who report the news and don't try to interpret the news.
I like Matthews' NBC show but he obviously has a man-crush on Rudy. On that program, he's loathe to say anything bad about him and tries to coax his guests to praise the guy. Sometimes this happens to the detriment of real news- right after the Iowa caucuses were over, he barely mentioned Huckabee at all on his program even though the guy won the state.
I'm betting that at some point, Matthews is just going to lose all perspective about his journalistic obligations and introduce Rudy at a some political rally.
Matthews runs third consistenly in the 5 p.m. (EST) time slot behind Blitzer on CNN and Gibson on Fox.
Nuff said.
I follow politics pretty closely and enjoy a good political show. I watch Chris Matthews at his hour because I am not a fan of Wolf or Fox, except for Shepard Smith. I look for hosts on political shows to provide some journalistic and objective perspective. I watch Matthews because he often has good guests - I can't understand why they come on his show. It is so frustrating - Matthews asks a question and then quickly answers it himself when he doesn't get an answer he likes. I have definitely noticed that he demonstrates a hugely negative bias against the Clintons, who don't appeal to me. I don't know why - apparently they did him wrong at some time in the past and he has a long memory. He is one of the very worst political interviewers I have seen. I guess I'll have to start watching John Gibson on Fox.
Matthews obviously has issues with women. He develops these rather disturbing and uncomfortable to wintess crushes on various men (eg. he said Bush looked great in his flight suit, literally swooned that Fred Thompson smelled of Aqua Velva - apparently a compliment in Matthews' mind - constantly gushes over McCain, loves to hang out with the odious Tom Delay, and, as pointed out in this article, can barely take his tongue out of Rudy's rectum long enough to speak. And when he does, it's to insult and demean Hillary Clinton. What pathetic and sad lives closet cases like Chris Matthews and Larry Craig live, being forced to get married and even have kids with women they clearly hold in disdain, but feeling it would hurt their careers to come out of the closet.
charlie, I just wish you would not praise Chris Matthews so much!
"...an ass. Loud, bellicose, and obnoxious...gasbag".
It is liable to go to his head and we'll get even more of the same. Nonetheless I am surprised that he is capable of seeing the bias, and pointing it out, even though he does it quite selectively, ignoring the vast ocean of liberal bias (including his own).
Chris Matthews is loud and obnoxious, but he is NOT gay. He's been married to the same woman for about 25 years. In the early 70's, I had one date with him when we were both working for US Senators. Believe it or not, he was even more obnoxious in his 20s.
I think it is highly likely that many of the New Hampshire voters wanted to appear "progressive" and stated they were going to vote for Obama, but when they got into the privacy of the voting booth they pulled the lever for the white woman. I have to question the mentality of anyone who considers this such an outrageous proposition.
As far as dissing Hillary, if you remember back to the Monica mess, Matthews was very anti-Clinton, so much so that many people thought he was a Republican. So Matthews has a history of not liking the Clintons (justifiably). Also, since Hillary was so deeply involved in many of the Clinton "transgressions" (Whitewater; cattle futures; health-care debacle with a $13 million cost overrun; Travel Office firings; the coverup after Vince Foster's death; FBI Files; the "misplaced" billing records that were under subpoena; illegal fundraising, which is obviously ongoing; suppressing bimbo eruptions dating back to Arkansas; plotting to discredit Gennifer Flowers, Linda Tripp and Kathleen Willey; charges of a VRWC fabricating stories about her husband, when in actuality they were all true, etc.) she does indeed bear responsibility for the bulk of her husband's improprieties, and should be treated accordingly.
Of course, if all you read is "It Takes A Village" and "My Life", you wouldn't even be aware that Hillary is somewhat tainted goods.
Rudy will make a great president- he gets things done! Leftwing NY hated Rudy-still does, but the people who work, live and play there know the difference before and after Rudy- night and day.
The left press went after him because they know he'd slaughter Hil in the general.
Chris is a hater--Bush or any Repulican. Not quite as bad as Olbermann but he makes a fool of himself by spitting on guests.
Chris Matthews makes clueless Larry King look like a political genius! Regardless of his political biases or alleged and irrelevant gayness (who cares?), Matthews is just plain and simply a MORON!
The press seems to forget far too quickly the odious Russell Harding who embezzled much money from NYC when he headed Housing Presevation Department, taking sex tours to Thailand with his tukhus buddy so he could shtup young boys on the city's tab, giving a ciry-owned car to his buddy, and doing all sort of other things on the city's expense.
His father repaid about half of what he had embezzled.
Russell Harding got about three years in the slam for what he did which also included time for possessing kiddie porn on his work and home computers.
I shudder to imagine what kinds of appointments a President Giuliani might make. Michael Brown might seem like a fine appointment compared to people Rudy might appoint out of his misplaced loyalties.
It is amazing that Matthews gets paid so much to spew his sexism and misogyny daily- You can get that much bile from rush Limbaugh daily. His personal hatred for the Clintons is beyond the pale, his disdain for "Bill's wife" knows no bounds... I am glad that more people are finally calling him on it and tuning him out!
Wayne Barrett? Is he still around? I mean, he wrote books on Donald Trump, Mayor Ed Koch, and someone else that were just TRASH, just "stories" without attributions or solid research,and, AND SOLD BADLY. Wayne Barrett and the "Village Voice" haven been coasting on things they did thirty and forty years ago! And let's be honest, Chris Mathews is a blank, but so is Tim Russert, and no one calls him out on his mis-representations! And I stopped listening to anything about Washington Week in Review and sometimes the McNeil-Lehrer News Hour a decade or two ago. AND CNN? I MEAN THEY REALLY STINK!