CyberAlert -- 08/10/2001 -- Dan Rather: Replace CBS With a Newspaper

"Very Limited Research" Rued; Dan Rather: Replace CBS With a Newspaper; Limbaugh Naysayers; "Dying" vs. "Abortion Opponents"

1) Post-Bush speech analysis. ABC's Charles Gibson and CNN's Aaron Brown both characterized Bush's decision as allowing just "very limited research." Conservatives are "really going to be upset" and outraged, ABC's John Yang insisted. But FNC's Jim Angle contended: "Anti-abortion forces should be somewhat heartened by the President's words." Forrest Sawyer, on MSNBC, heard from Bush "a thoughtfully posed analysis."

2) Dan Rather's advice: "If you're really interested in this you'll want to read in detail one of the better newspapers tomorrow," because stem cell research is "the kind of subject that, frankly, radio and television have some difficulty with because it requires such depth into the complexities."

3) Before Bush's speech, the CBS Evening News pushed for him to allow unlimited research. Profiling a Lou Gehrig's Disease sufferer, Elizabeth Kaledin lectured Bush about how for the victim "it's not about politics or ethics...it's a matter of life and death." A doctor warned that "people will die needlessly if there is a delay in getting federal funding into this area."

4) In the media's prism, there's a diverse crowd for embryonic stem cell research battling "conservatives" who oppose it.

5) The networks recognized that Bush's decision could be seen as breaking a campaign pledge. NBC featured a clip from one Republican who portrayed restricting research as "deciding to go with the Rush Limbaugh's and the other naysayers."

6) MSNBC anchor Monica Novotny framed the embryonic stem cell issue as one which "pitted Republicans against Republicans and the sick and dying against abortion opponents."

7) Rosie O'Donnell expounded on Good Morning America about how her depression was fueled by how "the bad guys were winning" on guns and that men like Tom Selleck "could decide that it was alright to, everyone to have guns because they get to make money and own the gun companies and kill all the innocent kids."

8) America's latest peril: A quite serious MSNBC anchor assured viewers on Thursday afternoon that a celebrity "is recovering from an addiction to shopping on the Internet."

1
Every network carried President Bush's 9pm EDT address to the nation live from Crawford, Texas, but CBS and NBC, after less than a minute of post-speech comment, moved on to regular programming. ABC offered analysis for over three minutes before going to Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? CNN and FNC offered a few minutes of analysis before going to guests on their regular shows of Larry King Live and Hannity & Colmes. MSNBC waited over 15 minutes, until 9:30pm, before switching to a half-hour Hardball.

Substantively, the post-speech analysis in some ways matched across the networks and in other ways was in conflict. Below are highlights from every network but CBS (which gets its own item, #2 below), followed by more extensive quotations from the August 9 prime time coverage:

> "Very limited research." ABC's Charles Gibson employed the phrase "very limited research" three times to describe Bush's decision as he approached it from the left. CNN's Aaron Brown agreed, referring to the "very limited embryonic stem cell research" that Bush will allow.

> Scientists will be "disappointed," ABC's Dr. Tim Johnson maintained. On MSNBC, Robert Bazell echoed: "Most of the scientists who are on the front lines in doing stem cell research say this is a severe restriction."

> A fair and thoughtful speech. FNC's Tony Snow asserted: "He presented both sides pretty fairly, I think it's fair to say." On MSNBC Forrest Sawyer described it as "a thoughtfully posed analysis of the conundrum that is brought by embryonic stem cell research."

> Outraged conservatives will "really" be "upset by this" -- or will they? On ABC, John Yang predicted: "We already know that the conservatives, the conservative wing of the Republican Party that supports him so much, is really going to be upset by this. There is going to be a lot of outrage." In contrast, FNC reporter Jim Angle forecast: "Anti-abortion forces should be somewhat heartened by the President's words."
CNN's John King, meanwhile, observed that Bush avoided "the biggest round of criticism from the Republican right, Christian conservatives and the Catholic Church, that would have been if he had allowed the broader research on those embryos still sitting in fertility clinics."

Now, more extensive recitations of the post-speech analysis gathered with the assistance of MRC analyst Brad Wilmouth:

-- ABC News. Charles Gibson: "The President announcing that he will accept very limited stem cell research..."

John Yang, from Crawford: "Well, we already know that the conservatives, the conservative wing of the Republican Party that supports him so much, is really going to be upset by this. There is going to be a lot of outrage. House Republicans have already said they will try to stop the funding, and abortion rights opponents have said that they will raise a ruckus about this."

Gibson turned to Dr. Tim Johnson: "As I heard the President, he is accepting very limited research in these areas. He said 60 lines of cells here exist that can be used, embryos that have already been destroyed, and those are all that can be experimented upon. Is that the way you heard it?"
Johnson was in accord: "That's the way I heard it, too. And that means that it is limited, and some scientists are going to be very disappointed that they cannot go ahead and create new cell lines, at least with government funding..."

Gibson next asked: "So, can you give me some sense of what the reaction might be now from the scientific community that was hoping they would be able to go ahead with embryonic stem cell research."
Johnson: "Well, they're going to be pleased, I think, in part with government funding of even this limited sort, but they're also going to be disappointed, I think, that more embryos cannot be made available with government funding."

Gibson wrapped up with his recitation of the "very limited" theme: "Just to repeat, the President has said that he will accept -- and proceed with great care -- federal funding for very limited research on embryonic stem cells and you heard him spell out his reasons. They'll be more on World News tomorrow and on Good Morning America. I'm Charles Gibson in New York. Good evening."

So much for plugging Nightline, which did focus on the issue.

-- CNN. Aaron Brown, until recently of ABC News, made his CNN debut from New York City last night, though he only got a few minutes of face time -- a couple of minutes both before and after Bush spoke. Afterward, he observed:
"President George W. Bush, from his ranch in Crawford Texas tonight, saying that the federal government, his administration, will support very limited embryonic stem cell research using only the 60 existing stem cell lines that have already been created, but won't allow any new lines to be created. This will make no one very happy, we suspect, or at least not many people very happy. Those people who support broad science here, a broad expansion of stem cell research, are going to say that this is too little. And there are those on the other side of this who will to say any use of these embryos is too much."

John King soon checked in from the White House. He suggested Bush had successfully avoided angering conservatives: "Some in the pro-life, the anti-abortion community, likely to say lives were destroyed to create those stem cells, but the President, avoiding the biggest round of criticism from the Republican right, Christian conservatives and the Catholic Church, that would have been if he had allowed the broader research on those embryos still sitting in fertility clinics."

-- FNC. Anchor Tony Snow's assessment: "It was an interesting speech in that the President seemed to go back and forth. He presented both sides pretty fairly, I think it's fair to say. And people who had a rooting interest in either side probably found their hopes both raised and dashed several times during the President's address."

From Crawford, Jim Angle noted: "Scientists will be disappointed, saying it will hamper medical research. Anti-abortion forces should be somewhat heartened by the President's words."

-- MSNBC. Anchor Forrest Sawyer, also formerly of ABC News, echoed Angle's theme that Bush can't win as he praised the thoughtfulness of the address:
"It's a very difficult, very complicated issue, and it was a thoughtfully posed analysis of the conundrum that is brought by embryonic stem cell research, the scientific promise posed against the ethical dilemma of whether there should be experimentation on what is at least the promise of human life, and that is to say human embryos. So let's explore this just a little bit further, if we can, the political, the medical, and the ethical implications of the President's decision."

Sawyer asked reporter Robert Bazell: "Some 60 odd cell lines, says the President, are presently available for research. Is this enough for there to be significant federally funded research?"
Bazell outlined the concerns of scientists: "Well, the question for us is 'significant.' There certainly is enough for there to be some federally funded research and more than nothing, and I think some of the people who are, for instance, the head of the NIH will be spinning this to say, well, it's better than nothing, it gives us a foot in the door to keep going. But most of the scientists who are on the front lines in doing stem cell research say this is a severe restriction. There's a lot of problems with these stem cell lines, and one of the biggest questions that has to be answered in order to make stem cells possibly work is how to make new lines, how to make lines better so that they keep reproducing, and that, of course, you can't even begin to answer that question if you can't create new ones by using embryos."

-- NBC News. Anchor John Seigenthaler got 45 seconds to summarize before NBC went to a Will & Grace repeat for EDT and CDT viewers:
"President Bush from Crawford, Texas tonight with a compromise decision to allow federal funding for research on stem cells already extracted from human embryos. Now this allows him to keep a campaign promise not to support research that results in the destruction of any more embryos. The President has sought the middle ground here and he's running the risk of criticism from both the scientific community, who may see this decision as limiting, and Christian conservatives who lobbied against any research that involves human embryos."

2

Dan Rather gets his own category today not for liberal bias but for giving up on reporting as he advised CBS News viewers to go buy "one of the better newspapers tomorrow" if they want to learn about embryonic stem cell research and the implications of Bush's decision.

Here's what CBS viewers heard from Rather following Bush's August 9 address to the nation:
"Live from Texas, President Bush explaining that he will do the following: that he will allow some federal funding for some embryonic stem cell research. The President says he will allow federal funds for research on quote, 'existing stem cell lines.' And he added that he will encourage research into adult stem cells and umbilical cord cells. So this is a limited amount that the President is authorizing federal monies to be spent for stem cell research.
"Obviously this is a very complicated subject. It's the kind of subject that, frankly, radio and television have some difficulty with because it requires such depth into the complexities of it. So we can with, I think, impunity recommend that if you're really interested in this you'll want to read in detail one of the better newspapers tomorrow. This has been a CBS News Special Report."

Elapsed time: 53 seconds. Exactly 1:25 after Bush had concluded by saying "God Bless America," CBS started Big Brother 2 for EDT and CDT viewers. (In between Rather's quote above and the start of Big Brother viewers heard Rather plug upcoming CBS News shows and the announcer give the usual line about CBS's "interactive partner" AOL.)

CNN at least tried to explain the subject to viewers. About five minutes after Bush finished, anchor Aaron Brown promised: "We said at the outset tonight that this was an enormously complicated decision. Over the next several hours we here at CNN will try and un-complicate it some."

3

Hours before President Bush's address, the CBS Evening News campaigned for him to allow unlimited research on embryonic stem cells. Profiling a Lou Gehrig's Disease sufferer, Elizabeth Kaledin lectured Bush about how for the victim "it's not about politics or ethics. She says it's a matter of life and death." Kaledin featured one doctor who ominously warned that "people will die needlessly if there is a delay in getting federal funding into this area."

"For Shelby Oppenheimer it's not about politics or ethics. She says it's a matter of life and death," declared Elizabeth Kaledin in opening the one-sided piece which looked only at the benefits of embryonic stem cell research.

After explaining how Lou Gehrig's Disease will eventually leave Oppenheimer unable to walk, talk or breath, Kaledin pointed to a solution: "Scientists like John Gearhart believe embryonic stem cell research could help people like Shelby."
Dr. John Gearhart, Johns Hopkins University Medical Center: "To me, it's absolutely essential that we move in this area as quickly as possible."
Kaledin helpfully noted: "To move quickly, Gearhart has been counting on President Bush to allow federal funding for research."
Gearhart: "People will die needlessly if there is a delay in getting federal funding into this area."

Kaledin maintained embryonic stem cells "hold the most promise" to scientists because they can reproduce indefinitely into stem cell lines and can become any cell type in the body. "To do the research necessary," Kaledin noted in rejecting the policy later proposed by Bush, "scientists say they need at least fifty stem cell lines. Doctor Neil Theise is concerned a compromise limiting the number of cell lines could also limit progress."
Thiese, of the NYU Medical Center, then uttered a matching soundbite.

4

Through the media's prism, in the embryonic stem cell debate, there's a diverse crowd all for it battling "conservatives" who oppose it. That skew is apparent in some of the quotes listed in item #1 above as well as in Thursday night stories on the broadcast network evening shows.

On ABC's World News Tonight, John Yang noted how "social conservatives" protested outside White House. Over on the CBS Evening News, John Roberts twice applied ideological labels to opponents:
"...A staunch opponent of abortion, Frist, like many other Senate conservatives, believes stem cell research is a right to life issue for people suffering from terminal illness....President Bush has plenty of political cover to chart the middle course on stem cells. Yet he is still likely to face scorn from religious conservatives who denounce such research as murder..."

David Gregory reported on the August 9 NBC Nightly News: "At issue is federal support for research on cells extracted from embryos that are left over from fertility treatments or embryos that could be created for their stem cells. Supporters see cures for diseases like Alzheimer's and Parkinson's. Opponents, including anti-abortion conservatives, insist it is wrong to use human embryos for research because they are destroyed in the process."

5

The networks acknowledged on their evening shows that Bush's expected decision could be seen as breaking his campaign pledge to conservatives. And NBC featured a soundbite from one Republican who portrayed Bush's choice as between putting "meat on the bones of compassionate conservatism" and "deciding to go with the Rush Limbaugh's and the other naysayers."

ABC's John Yang somewhat condescendingly remarked on World News Tonight: "During the election, candidate Bush flatly opposed federal funding for the research. Since then President Bush has found the issue more complicated."

Dan Rather opened the August 9 CBS Evening News: "Good evening. President Bush has made what could be one of the most important decisions of his presidency, and CBS News breaks the story. In what some may interpret as the breaking of a campaign pledge, the President apparently will support some federal funding for some embryonic stem cell research with what he calls 'strict limits.' The President will make the official announcement in an address to the nation tonight. This is a decision with huge implications -- medical, ethical, and political. Supporters say the research offers the possibility of developing new life-saving treatments for disease. Opponents believe stem cell research on human embryos involves taking a human life."

On the NBC Nightly News David Gregory played a clip of White House spokesman Scott McClellan talking about how stem cell research is on the cutting edge of science. From that, Gregory suggested: "The statement points to a modification of Bush's campaign pledge to oppose any research that led to the destruction of embryos. It's a decision even some Republicans believe will define the Bush presidency."
Viewers then heard this remark from Ken Duberstein, former Chief-of-Staff to President Reagan: "Whether or not he puts meat on the bones of compassionate conservatism by reaching out and allowing federal funding, or deciding to go with the Rush Limbaugh's and the other naysayers of the world."

6

The "dying" versus those darn "abortion opponents." That's how MSNBC news reader Monica Novotny on Thursday framed the policy debate as she previewed Bush's upcoming address.

She announced in starting the 3pm EDT news update on August 9: "In just a few hours the nation will hear President Bush's decision on an issue that's pitted Republicans against Republicans and the sick and dying against abortion opponents."

7

Daytime TV Talk show host and anti-gun rights crusader Rosie O'Donnell contended on Thursday's Good Morning America that the Columbine shooting drove her into depression. She even claimed that her three-year-old asked her: "You want to watch Rugrats? Mommy, there's no guns in it." O'Donnell recounted how she saw those with which she disagreed on guns, such as Tom Selleck, as people who want to "kill all the innocent kids."

MRC analyst Jessica Anderson took down some of O'Donnell's comments to Diane Sawyer on the August 9 ABC morning show. Discussing her battle with depression, O'Donnell maintained:
"Everything that had happened to me, when it started to get really bad, which was right around the time of Columbine, felt it was happening to me personally. And you know, everyone would say to me, 'This is not happening to you. This is not in your family. You don't know any of these people,' but it felt to me like it was happening to me, like all children in the world were in danger. And this is not at all to minimize what I believe about gun control -- I still firmly agree with everything I said at that time, only it doesn't resonate with me in the way it did then."

She described her breakdown: "I couldn't go to work, I was crying during the show, I was crying during meals and at dinner. There was one Friday, I remember, I was sitting in my room all day....And my son crawled in my bedroom and said, 'You want to watch Rugrats? Mommy, there's no guns in it,' because he knew I was so upset about guns -- he was only three or four, but he knew."
Diane Sawyer: "But, a couple of points, the legendary episode with Tom Selleck."
O'Donnell: "Yes."
Sawyer: "In which the two of you were really having at it, you really believed that, but you're saying in this particular period you were also just, what, just inflamed by this sense that it was all personal to you, too?"
O'Donnell: "Yes, and that the bad guys were winning, you know, that men could decide that it was alright to, everyone to have guns because they get to make money and own the gun companies and kill all the innocent kids and children and it's too bad and there's nothing we can do about it. And it was an overwhelmingly depressing thought to me, and I assumed everybody would think what I thought. I assumed every rational, logical person would say, 'Well, this is really bad. We have to do something to save our kids,' but not everyone did."

Sounds like one angry white woman. So much for finding common ground.

For more about the infamous Selleck appearance on her TV show and/or to view a RealPlayer clip of the encounter, go to: http://www.mrc.org/cyberalerts/1999/cyb19990521.asp#4

8

Latest peril in America: An addiction to Internet shopping. This is not a joke. On Thursday afternoon a quite serious MSNBC anchor assured viewers a celebrity "is recovering from an addiction to shopping on the Internet."

Just before 3pm EDT, after viewers watched a taped interview with tennis star Venus Williams conducted by MSNBC anchor Rick Sanchez, the new deep-voiced guy, he relayed this item about Venus's sister:
"There is word today, by the way in a related story, that her sister Serena Williams is recovering from an addiction to shopping on the Internet. Serena admits, according to the report, that she would try and avoid shopping in public and began buying and buying and buying items online. She says that she's better now, but still gets tempted whenever a catalog arrives in the mail."

Will we soon need a Jeff Bezos Clinic modeled after the Betty Ford Clinic? -- Brent Baker

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