WASHINGTON - Presidential hopeful Dennis Kucinich is complaining that political reporters have slapped a voter-advisory "can't win" label on him and have given his presidential aspirations short shrift. The four-term Ohio congressman says this is unfair.

His campaign press secretary, David Swanson, said some members of the national media thought it was their responsibility, not the voters' job, "to narrow the field." He added that the mass media were trying to marginalize Kucinich and belittle his chance of winning.

"The media has a passion for covering elections like a horse race," Swanson said, "saying who is ahead in the polls by an inch, rather than covering the issues, the candidates' platforms and what they will mean for America if elected."

Too many political journalists, he complained, have donned the mantle of "gatekeeper … deciding for their readers which candidates are electable."

For example, earlier this month, after former Vermont Gov. Howard Dean announced his endorsement by three labor unions, several news organizations declared Dean "unstoppable," "pulling away from the pack" and "the man to beat."

Democracy is endangered when the media declare who is and isn't a serious contender even before the first primaries, Swanson said. "Saying who is in the first tier, who is in the second tier, dis-empowers people," he said. "People get the feeling that someone powerful is making the decisions, that their vote won't make a difference, so they lose interest in voting."

News editors counter that their coverage is linked to measurable indices such as poll standings and fund-raising figures. According to leading November polls, when individuals who identified themselves as Democrats or leaning Democratic were asked whom they most likely would support for the party's presidential nomination, Kucinich scored near the bottom. No more than 3 percent of respondents to the CBS/New York Times, Newsweek, NBC/Wall Street Journal and Gallup polls said they would vote for Kucinich.

In those same polls, Dean, former NATO Commander Gen. Wesley Clark, Rep. Richard Gephardt, D-Mo., Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., and Sen. Joseph Lieberman, D-Conn., drew much stronger support.

In the two early-voting states where victory would propel any candidate into a blitz of media and public attention, Kucinich scored only 3 percent support in Iowa and 1 percent in New Hampshire in the latest polls.

Likewise, when it comes to raising money, Kucinich lags far behind. The reported $3.35 million in his war chest compares with $25 million for Dean, $20 million for Kerry, $13.6 million for Gephardt and $11.7 million for Lieberman.

Kelly McBride, who's on the ethics faculty of the Poynter Institute, a journalism training center, voiced some sympathy for Kucinich's complaint. "It's still early in the race," McBride said, "and newsrooms need to be careful about space for candidates and not favor one or two candidates over the others."

However, she added that newsrooms "can't ignore the fact" that there are front-runners.

"It's not a problem to repeat what the polls are saying," McBride said. But it is a problem, she said, when newsrooms "interpret" polls with "loaded" words such as "fringe" candidate or characterize a campaign as a "vanity" run, both terms sometimes pinned on Kucinich.

"I'm not a purist and I know you can't give inch-for-inch coverage," McBride said. "But as journalists, we have to make sure we are covering the Democratic hopefuls rather than covering Clark and Dean."

Still, when nine Democrats are vying for the nomination, balancing coverage becomes more difficult.

"When you have nine candidates, you are going to have complaints about fairness," said Peter Bhatia, the executive editor of The Oregonian, Portland's daily newspaper, and the president of the American Society of Newspaper Editors.

"I read our paper, The New York Times and many other papers when I'm traveling," Bhatia said, "and I think we (newspapers) are doing a good job. … I'm getting a sense of the candidates from what I'm reading."

John Green is the director of the University of Akron's Ray C. Bliss Institute, which specializes in the study of political campaigns. He said Kucinich's complaint of media bias was nothing new.

"It's a legitimate complaint," Green said. "The media, particularly television, cover elections like a horse race. It's who's ahead, who's going to win. … What a candidate has to do is demonstrate progress in raising money or progress in rising in the polls. A 10 percent rise in the polls, and suddenly you become a factor."

Copyright 2003 Knight-Ridder

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