From WNYC in New York, this is NPR's On the Media. I'm Bob Garfield.

And I'm Brooke Gladstone. On October 6th, the White House announced that the president would be giving a major policy address on terrorism.

All three cable news networks ran the speech in its entirety.

When it turned out the president had nothing new to say about terrorism and the event was just

another stump speech, a slate article suggested that the networks had been snookered into giving

the president an hour of free ad time. Burned. Live and yet don't learn. Early Monday morning,

the cable news anchors told us to stay tuned for a significant speech by the president on the

war on terror. So we did, and this is what we heard. The senator who claims the world is more

dangerous since America started fighting the war on terror,

is the same senator who said that Ronald Reagan's policies of peace through strength actually

made America less safe.

MSNBC ran the president's speech uninterrupted for 43 minutes. CNN showed 36 minutes and Fox 47 minutes. But equal time was the order of the day,

at least on some cable channels. I want to take you now live to Florida, where John Kerry now

addressing another campaign rally. MSNBC and CNN gave the Democratic nominee nearly equal time.

Fair and balanced Fox switched him off after nine minutes.

But when it came to nuance, the president won hands down on all the channels.

The media called his a major policy address,

while Kerry, well, he was just campaigning.

Such are the advantages of incumbency.

And if it works for the president, it works even better for politicians lower down the electoral food chain.

Between the media and redistricting, challengers don't stand a chance, as WNYC's Bob Henley reports.

While the country deals with the tension of a potential presidential

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