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Business
& Media Institute...
Networks
Target Romney’s Wealth 13 Times More Than Richer Sen. Kerry
2004
Democratic candidate married to Heinz heiress, far wealthier than his
2012
counterpart.
By Mike
Ciandella
5/18/2012
The nomination
is several weeks away, but the party has its “inevitable” candidate.
With
hundreds of millions of dollars at his disposal, opponents raise
concerns about
whether that vast wealth had completely disconnected him from the
reality that
most Americans face every day.
The year
was 2004 and the candidate Sen. John Kerry. But the major networks gave
Kerry’s
great wealth nowhere near the attention that they have given to Gov.
Mitt
Romney’s millions in 2012.
From
January to April 2004, the ABC and CBS evening news shows only
mentioned
Kerry’s wealth once each. And NBC didn’t mention Kerry’s finances or
his wife’s
wealth at all. Those same three networks have discussed Romney’s wealth
a total
of 27 times during the same time period in 2012. That’s more than 13
times more
than the coverage given Kerry’s wealth (27 stories to 2 stories).
In 2012,
NBC News anchor Brian Williams described Mitt Romney’s wealth as
“unimaginable,” the product of “vast investments after a successful
career in
business, much of it spent buying and selling companies,” during the
Jan. 24,
edition of “Nightly News.” In the first four months of 2004, NBC didn’t
even
note Kerry’s far more substantial wealth.
According
to Forbes estimates from 2004, Kerry himself was worth about $240
million.
Teresa Heinz Kerry, his wife, was heir to the Heinz empire and worth
anywhere
from $500 million to $1 billion more. Romney’s estimated net worth is
$250
million – or one third to one-fifth the wealth Kerry and his wife had
at the
time.
Kerry’s GOP
critics raised the issue during that time period, but the networks
didn’t bite.
Ed Gillespie, the chairman of the Republican Party, argued that Teresa
Heinz
Kerry’s personal wealth was relevant to the campaign, according to a
April 25,
2004, New York Times article, entitled “Privacy of Wife’s Fortune Casts
a
Shadow Over Kerry.” The article pointed out that “Mr. Kerry borrowed $6
million
against the equity in a Boston town house they jointly own to keep his
campaign
afloat earlier in the year” and “Mrs. Heinz Kerry has said that she
will dip
into her personal fortune if she and her husband deem it necessary.”
Though even
The New York Times considered the issue newsworthy, the broadcast
networks did
not. CBS correspondent John Dickerson admitted on the Jan. 17, 2012,
edition of
CBS Evening News that the tactic of using Romney’s wealth to make it
look like
he does not understand the plight of ordinary Americans was “a version
of the
attack that Republicans used against John Kerry in 2004.” The most
notable difference
there, however, was that the Republicans did not have the three major
networks
reporting their arguments.
ABC, CBS
and NBC have echoed the Obama administration’s portrayal of Romney as
“wealthy.” An ABC “World News with Diane Sawyer” report from Feb. 1,
2012,
labeled Romney as a “wealthy businessman out of touch” with the needs
of the
common man.
The stories
on Romney have covered everything from the push for him to reveal his
income
tax returns to discussion of his wife’s two Cadillacs. But the Kerrys’
wealth
was also enormous. A March 22, 2005, USA Today article detailed a
vacation the
Kerrys took on Heinz-Kerry’s private jet to a ski resort where her late
husband
had a private cabin. (Her private jet, “The Flying Squirrel” was
apparently
named for a ski trail there). That story wasn’t covered on ABC, CBS or
NBC.
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