MediaWatch: April 1993
Table of Contents:
- MediaWatch: April 1993
- Dan Rather's Greatest Liberal Hits
- NewsBites: Gumbel's Blame Game
- Revolving Door: Brokaw Balks at Babbitt
- Media Ignore Politicized Clinton Justice Department
- ABC Reports on Bias
- Toilet Troubles
- Gumbel Wants it Both Ways
- Janet Cooke Award: Still Fighting the Salvadoran War
Janet Cooke Award: Still Fighting the Salvadoran War
Ed Bradley Ignores Critics In Tribute to New York Times Reporter
Still Fighting the Salvadoran War
The war in El Salvador may be over, but Ed Bradley and CBS are still fighting it. On 60 Minutes March 14, Bradley revisited the 1981 massacre at El Mozote, and used it as a forum to attack Reagan Administration officials and media critics who questioned the quality of reporting from El Salvador. For attacking media critics without giving them any time to respond, CBS earns the Janet Cooke Award.
60 Minutes timed the story to air the day before the release of the United Nations "Truth Commission" report. It claimed the Salvadoran government was responsible for a majority of the deaths in the grisly ten-year civil war, including El Mozote. Bradley used the new charges to vindicate two reporters, Raymond Bonner of The New York Times and Alma Guillermoprieto of The Washington Post, who first wrote the El Mozote story.
Bradley focused his complaint on critiques of Raymond Bonner's story from El Mozote: "An ultra-right wing media newsletter [Accuracy In Media's AIM Report] said he was worth a division to the communists in Central America. Time magazine also attacked Bonner, as did a Wall Street Journal editorial which called him overly credulous." Bradley revealed his bias when he called AIM "ultra-right" but labeled El Salvador's Cuban-inspired communist guerrillas simply "left-wing."
Bradley then turned to Bonner, who charged: "That [Wall Street Journal] editorial and the attacks that followed turned around the press...I think it made people more reluctant to report on human rights abuses by the government." Bradley left the completely false impression that media critics and Reagan officials were cynically criticizing his reporting because it was too painfully accurate. Bradley excluded anything that might suggest Bonner wasn't perfectly accurate.
Had Bradley aired a spokesman from AIM, they might have explained that their "worth a division" quote was based on 51 of Bonner's reports from El Salvador, not just the Mozote story. Wall Street Journal editorial writers could have told viewers that they praised the more measured stories of Washington Post reporter Alma Guillermoprieto, also featured in Bradley's story.
Time critic William A. Henry III, who is no conservative, might have explained the context of his brief comments about Bonner in a 1735-word article. Henry called Bonner "probably the most energetic and most controversial reporter on the scene. Some peers vigorously defend him; others say he is readier to believe the guerrillas than the government." But Bradley allowed no trace of nuance, and left important questions unanswered:
1. How qualified was Bonner as a reporter? Bradley didn't tell viewers, for example, that Bonner started his entire journalistic career with The New York Times in El Salvador, despite the Times' usual practice of hiring only experienced reporters. This was not so in the case of Bonner, an amateur journalist fresh from lawyering for Ralph Nader. Bonner was so green that the Times officially posted him on their metropolitan desk, and sent him into El Salvador only when the news heated up.
2. What about Bonner's feelings about the communists? Was Bonner too supportive or willing to accept guerrilla claims? Bradley didn't explore, for example, Bonner's reluctance to label the FMLN. Bonner said at one symposium: "I have always stayed away from calling groups `Marxist-led,' because I don't know exactly what that means...[even] calling them `guerrillas' has negative connotations...calling them leftists has negative connotations." Why did Bonner worry about negative U.S. public relations for the FMLN?
3. What about Bonner's credibility? All of Bonner's critics attacked a story Bradley didn't mention, an untrue story Bonner had to renounce. Bonner and the Times reported a gruesome story about teenagers tortured by Salvadoran soldiers on the basis of an unreliable Salvadoran army deserter named Antonio Gomez. Bonner misled the public with harrowing stories about torturing children based on one dubious source, the worst kind of yellow journalism. Bradley also left out that Bonner forwarded without challenge FMLN assertions that they got no weapons or training from Cuba or Nicaragua, despite plenty of evidence to the contrary.
4. How many people were murdered at El Mozote? None of the media critics claimed there was no massacre at El Mozote; but the size of the actual death toll is crucial to determining the credibility of Bonner's reporting. In his story from El Salvador, Bradley reported that forensic anthropologists found 146 bodies in one grave at El Mozote, but began by claiming "more than 700" were killed. Until the anthropologists can verify 700 skeletons, what proof does Bradley have of his estimate?
To this day, media reports vary from 200 to "almost 1,000," Bonner's favorite estimate, and one he used in his book Weakness and Deceit. The New York Times itself varied in its 1990s reports: on October 30, 1990, the Times cited "about 1,000"; on January 2, 1992, "at least 794"; "almost 1,000" again on November 1, 1992; "more than 200" in a caption on March 21, 1993. Bonner's reporting should not be hailed as "vindicated" if he doubled or tripled the actual death toll; it only underlines his credibility problem.
MediaWatch tried to contact Bradley's producer, David Gelber, for comment. Gelber replied: "Actually, I'm not in a position to do that right now. Can you call me tomorrow?" Despite repeated calls over the next week, Gelber failed to call back.
Bonner complained to Bradley: "Washington didn't want reports coming out of Central America that showed massacres by the Salvadoran government soldiers. And when the facts didn't fit, when the facts didn't fit the policy, when the facts that reporters, we in the field were sending back to our newspapers, television, then they engage in smear campaigns by charging people with having a leftist bias, a political agenda."
Instead of telling the whole story about the bulk of Bonner's reporting, Bradley seemed to be practicing the method Bonner attributed to conservatives: when the facts didn't fit, he engaged in smear campaigns by charging people with having an "ultra-right" bias, a political agenda.
Both sides in this journalistic tiff are biased, but the question isn't simply bias, it's evidence: How can you prove what you report? If Bradley had been interested in solid, balanced reporting, whether it came from CBS or The New York Times, he would have allowed Bonner's critics time to respond. But Bradley's report wasn't about setting the record straight; it was about getting even.
