MediaWatch: April 1996
Table of Contents:
Bryant Gumbel, a Conservative?
Denying While Displaying
The March 21 Radio & TV Correspondents Dinner drew a lot of pressattention to the remarks of talk show host Don Imus, but the betterstory came from Marc Morano, Rush Limbaugh's man in D.C. He asked reporters in attendance about liberal bias, and the reporters only demonstrated their liberalism.
Former CBS anchor Walter Cronkite admitted: "Everybody knows that there's a liberal, that there's a heavy liberal persuasion among correspondents." Cronkite argued, however, this is justified: "Anybody who has to live with the people, who covers police stations, covers county courts, brought up that way, has to have a degree of humanity that people who do not have that exposure don't have, and some people interpret that to be liberal. It's not a liberal, it's humanitarian and that's a vastly different thing."
When asked about the new Whitewater book, Blood Sport by James Stewart, ABC's John Cochran felt the book was beneath him: "I haven't read it. I'm just now going through Elizabeth Drew's book, which is about the battle between the Gingrich Congress and the Clinton White House and it's fascinating. It has nothing to do with gossip or Whitewater or what happened with Vince Foster or any ofthat, it has to do with what's happening with issues of importance to the American people." CBS's Bill Plante felt the issue was a waste of time: "The problem with the media coverage of Whitewater is that it has been done over and over and over again. I haven't read the book yet, but I understand that there's nothing basically new in it."
CNN's Judy Woodruff retorted to a query about Bernard Goldberg's comments about liberal bias: "I think Mr. Goldberg went a little bit too far...I don't think there's any blatant, rampant bias in the news media. If there were, then we wouldn't last in the jobs that we have." Most incredibly, Today weatherman Al Roker claimed:"I don't think there's a liberal bias in the media. Let me put it this way, I've never worked with a liberal anchorman, they're all very conservative." This from the man who shares a studio with Bryant Gumbel.
