MediaWatch: April 1990
Table of Contents:
NewsBites: All for Advocacy
ALL FOR ADVOCACY. Anyone who thinks TV reporters do not allow personal passions to decide what becomes news must not have watched NBC's April 1 Sunday Today. Left-wing activism was the theme that day. Consecutive stories were aired about a priest fighting to end U.S. aid to El Salvador and liberal consumer advocate Ralph Nader. As the show ended, host Garrick Utley noted, "We're talking a lot about activism, getting involved... everybody should do it." Reporter Katherine Couric responded "Sometimes I think the best way for us to get involved is to do stories that we want to draw attention to." Utley replied: "That's right."
ISSUE ONE: WHERE'S THE LEFT? Heaven forbid any talk show not provide a forum for far-left views. That's the opinion expressed by Eric Alterman in his piece on The McLaughlin Group. He writes regularly in Mother Jones, but this article appeared as the March 18 Washington Post Magazine cover story.
In the midst of bashing host John McLaughlin, Alterman also ripped into the show's conservatives. While demeaning Pat Buchanan and Robert Novak as stock characters -- "the tough Irish cop" and "Joe Six-Pack, a beer-bellied tough guy" -- "centrist" Jack Germond "was by far the most attractive character of the lot." Ignoring the likes of Germond, Kenneth Walker, and Newsweek's Eleanor Clift, the article complained "by keeping true liberals off the show, McLaughlin helped to delegitimize liberal solutions to national problems...Ronald Reagan's brand of genial reactionary politics was made to appear downright reasonable. Centrist solutions became 'liberal' by virtue of the show's political landscape." The program's current lineup, to Alterman, "has done little to moderate the show's jingoist orientation... America is good, foreigners are bad."
TIME PAYS? Noting the unpopularity among readers of Time's decision to make Mikhail Gorbachev "Man of the Decade," the weekly trade publication Media Industry Newsletter recently reported that Time's 1988 decision to slant the news may be cutting into its subscriptions. The newsletter speculated that given Time's outspoken editorial stances, "the decline in its circulation and rate base in two bites of 300,000 each in the past 12 months (while the competition grew) makes one wonder."
ON THE ROAD WITH CBS. Dan Rather's network took immediate offense on March 8 when the Bush Administration released its plan to shift some transportation costs to state and local governments. Jerry Bowen's report included no one in favor of the President's federalist plan, but quoted three local officials and a lobbyist upset that local governments might actually have to pay for roads. Bowen described traffic jams as "ghostly reminders of a system straining to make it. And Mr. Bush's new transportation policy, say critics, doesn't seem likely to." Bowen insisted "it's argued that more, not less, federal money is required."
MARIAN'S MINIONS. U.S. News & World Report falls into the trap of liberal advocacy less often than its competitors. But it fell hard in its March 26 lead story on Marian Wright Edelman, the founder of the Children's Defense Fund (CDF). Described as "a leading liberal voice against Reagan Administration budget cut proposals for the poor," Edelman has adamantly refused to abandon her far-left views in order to compromise with liberal Congressmen George Miller and Tom Downey. Nonetheless, reporter Joseph Shapiro made Edelman's case: "If to some critics that means she is stuck in the 1960s, so be it. As Edelman sees it, she is simply laying the groundwork for getting real help to all the children in pain."
To U.S. News, Edelman has been "a vital source for lawmakers dealing with children's issues and journalists writing about them. She bent entire government agencies, it seemed." And her organization "has become indispensable in helping America understand the disturbing facts about its children." Ignoring the many conservatives against federal regulation of babysitters, Shapiro asserted: "There is hardly a soul in Washington now who doesn't believe that the federal government must help families secure decent child care. The dispute is over how best to do it."
NO NEWT IS GOOD NEWT. When the House ethics committee announced March 8 that it could find "no adequate basis" for investigating Minority Whip Newt Gingrich's finances, the networks, which found plenty of time to air the allegations, were conspicuously quiet. Gingrich was reprimanded for two minor rules violations, neither of which was the focus of an expensive investigation requested by Rep. Bill Alexander (D-Arkansas).
The March 9 Boston Globe reported that Alexander was admonished by the committee for "assertions [of] pure speculation." ABC and CBS ignored Gingrich's vindication. A brief piece on NBC Nightly News hardly cleared Gingrich's name, and omitted criticism of Alexander. Tom Brokaw noted Gingrich "led attacks that forced Speaker Jim Wright, a Democrat, to resign," and called the committee's decision a "vindication for Gingrich, of a sort. The House ethics committee said it is dropping its investigation of Gingrich, but it criticized him for abusing his free mailing privileges and for failing to report a real estate deal."
MUM ON MITCHELL. When Senate Majority Leader George Mitchell condemned President Bush for sending his aides to China shortly after the Tienanmen Square massacre, The Washington Post and the rest of the media gave it up-front attention. But when Post reporter Charles Babcock uncovered the Majority Leader's hypocrisy -- Mitchell had sent his aide Sarah Sewall to China during the same period on the Chinese government's tab -- the Post ran the story in its first two suburban editions on February 23, then spiked it in later editions. The spiked story, brought to light by Bangor Daily News Washington bureau reporter John S. Day, was pulled for a story on AIDS in Islamic countries and Eastern Europe. Post national editor Robert Kaiser told Day he found the story itself and the comparison between Bush and Mitchell "marginal." So did the rest of the media: none of the news magazines or networks bothered to report it.
USA TODAY AND THE NEA. USA Today Inquiry Editor Barbara Reynolds' unchecked liberalism is regularly displayed in her From the Heart column. It also came through in her March 28 Debate feature questions on the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA).
Reynolds saved her toughest questions for Phyllis Schlafly, representing the case against subsidized obscenity: "Isn't it possible, though, that artists with great potential might never get the training or the backing to develop successfully?...You've mentioned communist countries which impose censorship. What makes your proposals any different from what they are doing?"
But when talking to NEA Chairman John Frohnmayer, USA Today tossed up softball after softball, including: "Isn't it similar to what happened through history -- some of what we consider classics caused great outrage when they were introduced?...You say that the attacks are almost totally without merit. How does that make you feel?"
JOHN CHANCELLOR RIGHT. In March, NBC commentator John Chancellor offered some views rarely heard on a network newscast. On March 22 he put aside Gorbymania: "The Soviets have been modernizing their submarine fleet for the last ten years, and [it] has continued under Gorbachev...more than 900 missiles are on Soviet subs. Each missile contains several warheads, which means that thousands of nuclear weapons are aimed at American cities right now...The Soviets have kept the world's largest submarine fleet in place within striking distance of American targets."
Chancellor was equally surprising on Central America, where the networks often samba past the misdeeds of the left. He blasted Ortega March 9 as a "crook...[whom] Al Capone would have cheered" when the Sandinistas voted themselves houses, TV stations and immunity from future prosecution. Chancellor conclued, "Anyone who thought that Daniel Ortega was a patriot fighting for independence now must think again."
CHANCELLOR LEFT. Then again, vintage Chancellor was on display March 8, yelping for more government. For Chancellor the postage rate hike wasn't enough: "Thirty cents is a bargain when you compare it to what other countries charge....It is a little like the price of gasoline, which is cheaper here than almost anywhere." Chancellor's recommendation: "A bigger federal tax on gasoline would bring down the deficit, but our leaders say it is politically impossible to raise the taxes."
Returning to the same theme on March 20, Chancellor argued: "The federal government desperately needs more revenue, but the Republican President has been saying no new taxes, and the Democrats have been going along," Chancellor complained. "West Germany and Japan have higher tax rates, and they're in better shape than the United States. What is striking about this is that some of the smartest, toughest people in the country say taxes ought to be raised." Some of his smart people: Felix Rohatyn, Dan Rostenkowski and Jimmy Carter.
RANDALL SCANDAL. Fresh from its February tribute to Jimmy Carter, The Washington Post's "Style" section celebrated Randall Robinson, Executive Director of the radical group TransAfrica, on March 13. Post reporter Donna Britt described how "Robinson's voice laps over you like a warm wave...It's a voice particularly suited to taking the edge off things, to making uncomfortable messages more palatable."
Among Robinson's more uncomfortable messages: that Fidel Castro's Cuban occupation force "provided a tremendous service to Angola," and his warm welcome of the dearly departed communist dictator of Grenada, Maurice Bishop, as his guest at TransAfrica's annual dinner in June 1983.
Britt explained that "Some of his enemies have questioned Robinson's patriotism and have implied that he is as Marxist as some of the governments with whose leaders he communicates. (Actually, Robinson describes himself as nonpartisan)." The same day, the Post reported on page A13 that Robinson was urging Secretary of State Baker to fund the Marxist African National Congress (ANC) "in the same way we funded the Solidarity movement [in Poland] and opposition parties in Nicaragua."
ZERO FOR ZULU. For anyone relying on the TV networks for South Africa coverage, this will be the first you've heard of a visit to the U.S. by the leader of the largest black organization in South Africa. Chief Mangosuthu Buthelezi, head of the 1.5 million member Inkatha movement and leader of South Africa's largest tribe, the Zulus, visited President Bush on February 28 to discuss prospects for peace in South Africa. Despite the importance of this visit, the story was ignored not only by ABC, CBS, and NBC, but also by The Washington Post. The New York Times excerpted 71 words from an AP story on the visit.
Buthelezi has long opposed sanctions, an issue he raised with Bush. As Buthelezi told AP, U.S. sanctions policy "minimizes economic growth and maximizes black misery." Instead of covering Buthelezi, ABC, CBS and NBC were busy covering Mandela's visit to Zambia. Ironically, Tom Brokaw reported on March 1, the day after ignoring the Buthelezi-Bush meeting, that Mandela had met with a delegation of U.S. Congressmen and told them "that the United States must continue its economic sanctions against South Africa, despite recent reforms. He called the sanctions a tremendous achievement."
DR. DENTZER'S DECLARATION. To U.S. News & World Report Senior Writer Susan Dentzer, the Declaration of Independence, written in resistance to the heavy hand of government and the burden of overtaxation, would today become a manifesto for national health insurance.
In an article on "America's scandalous health care" in the magazine's March 12 edition, Dentzer declared "If the Founding Fathers were engaged in statecraft today, would they add the phrase health care to their stirring list of unalienable rights? Americans squeezed out of the U.S. health care system face a tyranny nearly as great as the one the founders overthrew...A nation that leaves so many citizens unprotected from the ravages of illness is clearly depriving them of the pursuit of happiness -- and at times, even of life itself."
Dentzer then detailed how today, the founding fathers would see the need for creeping medical socialism. "Government could clearly devote several billion dollars a year -- not the millions spent now -- to research aimed at determining the effectiveness of medical services." The government should "expand Medicaid to finance care for far more children and low-income families... next, the nation could construct a broader safety net for the rest of the uninsured." To pay for it all, Dentzer advocated hefty payroll tax hikes, not to mention hikes in estate taxes, corporate taxes, and income taxes, placing herself on the wrong side of 1776.
