MediaWatch: April 1992
Table of Contents:
- MediaWatch: April 1992
- House Bank: Networks Miss Plenty
- NewsBites: A Book Gone Wrong
- Revolving Door: Fox Guarding the Democratic Coop
- TV, Magazines Avoid Covering Clinton Finances
- Reporters Take Cue from Left-Wing Class War Specialists
- Look Who's Advising PBS
- Thomas Trashed Again
- The Watchdog Yawns
- Janet Cooke Award: CBS on CBO: Numbers Fumblers
Thomas Trashed Again
COURT JESTERS
Some Supreme Court reporters continue to reduce complex legal issues to tabloid simplicity. In February, MediaWatch reported how USA Today reporter Tony Mauro lambasted Clarence Thomas for ruling against a black county commissioner in a voting rights case. Mauro avoided the legal issues, instead focusing on race and who benefitted.
In a March 10 article headlined "Thomas Ultraconservative on Death Penalty Case," Mauro used a different spin. Thomas issued the lone dissent from the Court's decision that a white prisoner's membership in a racist prison gang could not be used against him during sentencing. Thomas would look good to his simplistic critics -- he'd ruled against a racist.
But Mauro wrote: "New Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas has come under attack recently for his near-total adherence to the views of the court's most conservative members -- Justice Antonin Scalia and Chief Justice William Rehnquist. But in a case handed down Monday, Thomas parted company with Scalia and Rehnquist. He took a stand more conservative than theirs."
When liberal Judge Leon Higginbotham wrote to Thomas accusing him of forgetting his roots, Washington Post reporter Ruth Marcus subtly endorsed Higginbotham's view: "But in a plea that has taken on added poignancy as Thomas's initial votes on the court have placed him among the most conservative justices, Higginbotham at moments sound almost beseeching as he urges Thomas not to join a majority that `will continue to retreat from protecting the rights of the poor, women, the disadvantaged, minorities, and the powerless.'"
