The first amendment was conceived to preserve a healthy, vibrant, diverse political dialogue. It is amazing that an organization such as ABC News, while certainly not censoring speech, blatantly limits access and attention to those IT does not want to hear from.

Dennis Kucinich was absolutely right on Tuesday when he complained to Ted Koppel that the reason he was dismissed by Koppel and the rest of the major media was that he was "inconvenient." He's one more candidate to cover and he presents a whole bunch of nuanced positions that require explanation. That's too much to ask of Koppel and company. They want a dog fight about simple issues--a national, political WWE Smackdown. That's easy to cover--just stick a microphone in the face of the contestants and let the magic happen.

It was interesting to watch the Democratic debate on Tuesday as Koppel wound it down. Kucinich did get to make a final statement, Mosely-Braun was directed to keep it short and save time for Koppel to wrap up, and Sharpton never got to speak! These folks have paid a price for being "inconvenient" but the public has paid a bigger price in the diminution of ideas about how to deal with Iraq, health care, the economy, weapons proliferation and trade. ABC let it be known that you play nice with Koppel or you get your ass kicked. Here's some evidence:


ABC News Pulls Reporter off Kucinich Campaign

For Immediate Release: December 10, 2003
David Swanson, Kucinich for President

The day after Presidential Candidate Dennis Kucinich took ABC debate moderator Ted Koppel to task for avoiding questions that would be useful to voters in favor of questions about endorsements, money, and polls, ABC pulled its fulltime "embedded" reporter from the Kucinich campaign, a reporter who had been given no warning that such a move was coming and who had discussed at length yesterday with the Kucinich campaign staff her plans and her needs for the coming months.

ABC has reportedly also pulled its reporters from covering the presidential campaigns of Rev. Al Sharpton and Ambassador Carol Mosley-Braun.

This appears to be another instance of what Kucinich criticized at the debate, namely the media trying to pick candidates, rather than letting the voters do so. In a democracy, it should be voters and not pundits or TV networks who narrow the field of candidates.

This move, before any state's caucus or primary, appears based on a belief that viable candidates can be predicted 11 months prior to an election, a belief that flies in the face of the historical record. Time and again candidates dismissed as "fringe" have wound up either with the nomination or with a significant impact on the convention and in the primaries.

This action by ABC, as well as Koppel's comments during the debate, can only serve to disempower Americans, communicating to them that someone other than they is deciding elections and that their votes don't mean much.

This action also seems to conflict with the network's interest in boosting ratings and Koppel's expressed interest in making the debate exciting, given that Kucinich received the loudest applause of the evening.

ABC presumably has no vested interest in discouraging voting or in lowering its ratings. It may, however, have an interest in whether Koppel's prediction of the viability of various candidacies proves true.