by David Domke and Devon Mills

Gloria Steinem’s words in Austin, Texas, this past week about John McCain have been twisted and used to launch a partisan attack — on her and on Hillary Clinton by extension. No surprise there, perhaps. We know this because one of us, Devon, was there and David, who is the head of journalism at the University of Washington, has watched partisan media do this kind of thing all the time.

Don’t believe us? Fine. Watch the video. We’ve got her words on tape.

First, here’s the context. Steinem was in Texas stumping for Clinton. At a small gathering in Austin, the New York Observer — apparently the only traditional media outlet that reported the event firsthand — noted that Steinem said this:

“Suppose John McCain had been Joan McCain and Joan McCain had got captured, shot down and been a POW for eight years. [The media would ask], ‘What did you do wrong to get captured? What terrible things did you do while you were there as a captive for eight years?’ … I mean, hello? This is supposed to be a qualification to be president? I don’t think so.”

The Observer rightly included some context for Steinem’s remarks, writing that she “raised McCain’s Vietnam imprisonment as she sought to highlight an alleged gender-based media bias against Clinton” and that her “broader argument was that the media and the political world are too admiring of militarism in all its guises.”

The Observer got all of that correct. But the paper blew it with its headline: “Stumping for Clinton, Steinem Says McCain’s POW Cred Is Overrated.”

That’s not what she said. Of course she’s pro-Hillary and opposed to McCain — neither of which characterizations apply to us, to be clear. And we disagree with Steinem about whether military service should be valid criteria for a presidential candidate. But nothing she said equaled the Observer’s screaming headline. And it’s the headline that created a firestorm. Chances are high that an editor, not the reporter, wrote the headline. In any case, it’s not accurate.

Steinem was highlighting the often potent sexism that flows through American culture — and particularly through political and media discussion. It’s an argument Steinem’s been making for decades, of course. But the Observer headline spun it as a dissing of McCain’s POW valor. It wasn’t that at all.

Watch the video and make your own call. The video is exactly 3 minutes long because that’s the length the camera could shoot. We didn’t crop it before or after her words; that’s just what we happened to capture.

Because there were no other traditional media outlets apparently at the event, the Observer’s headline served as the ultimate framing tool. The conservative New York Post ran with it: “Steinem Mocks Mac’s POW Ordeal,” said its headline. Like-minded opinion columnist Michelle Malkin chimed in with “The Death Cry of Gloria Steinem,” in which Malkin said Steinem “launched into a full-scale tirade about McCain’s war heroism” at what she described as “a grieve-a-thon in Austin, Texas.” And from there things have only spiraled further in the conservative blogosphere.

Steinem’s context for her comments, the video shows, was to make an argument that Clinton has been held to a “double standard” on her Iraq vote in part because she’s a woman. One can disagree with Steinem’s argument, but the first job of journalism is to represent her words accurately. Or at least, that’s the first job of quality journalism.