MediaWatch: August 1994

Reporters Hold Anti-Clinton Ads to Higher Standard of Disclosure, Accuracy

Harry and Louise Get the Shaft

More than $50 million has been spent on ads in the war over socialized medicine. Conservative ads charged the Clinton plan will reduce doctor choice, lead to rationing and new bureaucracies, and cost more taxes, lost jobs and reduced wages. Liberal ads have focused on the crisis of the current system which leaves sick and dying Americans uninsured, and how greedy insurance companies are stopping reform. So did reporters monitor all sides for accuracy -- conservatives, liberals, industry?

MediaWatch analysts identified 19 examples of print and TV reporting on ad accuracy in the last year, and found the ad watches were often reserved for Clinton's critics. Of our sample, 11 stories attacked anti-Clinton ads exclusively, six stories critiqued both sides, and only two focused solely on a liberal ad.

Harry and Louise. The Health Insurance Association of America (HIAA) aired their first round of multi-million dollar "Harry and Louise" commercials before the Clinton plan was unveiled. The White House quickly attacked the ads.

So did CBS. On September 22, 1993, CBS This Morning reporter Hattie Kauffman did a story featuring Families USA chief Ron Pollack, who denounced the HIAA ad as "unethical to the worst degree" for listing the Coalition for Health Care Choices as the sponsor. CBS did not point out that the HIAA ads exceeded federal disclosure requirements for type size and disclosure of funding, and their disclosure outdid many liberal ads. CNN criticized the ad from the same angle on October 19.

Newspapers also critiqued the HIAA ads. In the first of two New York Times evaluations, on October 21, 1993, reporter Elizabeth Kolbert didn't declare the ad inaccurate, but found it had "a melodramatic, overacted quality that may make viewers suspicious. And once they learn the ad is sponsored by the insurance industry, these suspicions are only likely to increase."

In the November 15, 1993 issue, Newsweek media critic Jonathan Alter added his two cents: "Although one commercial wrongly claimed the Clinton plan limits choice, it wasn't any more misleading than the average election year spot."

Time's Margaret Carlson sneered in the March 7 issue this year that the HIAA ads "play on the credibility of successful middle-aged yuppies who have no more pressing concerns than the specter of bad coffee or bad regulation....Harry and Louise shed no more light on health care than their counterparts selling Taster's Choice shed on instant sex or coffee." Carlson quoted Kathleen Hall Jamieson: "Harry and Louise invite false inferences...They frighten people about reform, while insisting they are for it."

Conservatives and Republicans. CNN's Brooks Jackson attacked the Republican National Committee in an October 22 story for an ad estimating 3 million jobs would be lost under the Clinton plan. Jackson reported "independent experts say the GOP ad is just wrong," even though no plan had been implemented.

On April 29, 1994, a Wall Street Journal story was headlined "Truth Lands in Intensive Care Unit As New Ads Seek to Demonize Clintons' Health-Reform Plan." Reporter Rick Wartzman charged: "Many of the groups twisting the facts are hard-line conservatives, bent on stopping any government presence in health care." Wartzman singled out Americans for Tax Reform, whose ad he said "isn't true. Neither the Clinton health care bill nor any of the alternatives on Capitol Hill would force people to call for government approval before visiting a doctor or rushing to the hospital." Wartzman ignored that most reform plans push more Americans into HMOs, which require pre-authorization of doctor or hospital visits.

On May 27, The New York Times carried a story headlined "`Liars' Try to Frighten Elderly On Health Care, Groups Say." Reporter Robert Pear began: "Two large consumer groups charged today that conservative direct mail organizations were scaring elderly people with inaccurate attacks on President Clinton's health care plan." The "consumer groups" were the American Association of Retired Persons and the union-affiliated National Council of Senior Citizens (NCSC). Pear did not evaluate the ads of AARP or HealthRIGHT, which is supported by the NCSC.

Mixed Reviews. The MacNeil-Lehrer NewsHour let the advertisers debate each other on October 21, 1993 and July 18, 1994. On November 2, 1993, NBC's Robert Hager critiqued HIAA ads for suggesting the Clinton plan would contain global budgeting (which was considered). But Hager also declared it a "half-truth" for Families USA to claim doctor choice is guaranteed when it may require paying more for fee-for-service care, and described HealthRIGHT's contention that health costs are the leading cost of personal bankruptcy as "bizarre."

When the Democratic National Committee misquoted Gov. Carroll Campbell (R-S.C.) in an ad ("you shouldn't say there's no health care crisis" became "there's no health care crisis"), Lisa Myers pointed it out February 17. But Myers also critiqued an RNC ad which claimed "you will have to settle for one of the low-budget health plans selected by the government." Myers responded: "The Clinton plan gives consumers the option of continuing to see any doctor they choose for a higher price." But the RNC quoted Elizabeth McCaughey's February 28 New Republic article citing doctors as confident that "fee-for-service [care] will seldom be available."

The New York Times' Catherine Manegold evaluated ads by the liberal AARP and the conservative Citizens for a Sound Economy on July 17. Both ads cited fear of the future. In the AARP ad, "Because the actors are convincing and the concerns they articulate are common, the advertisement hits home." But Manegold panned the CSE ad: "While the ad plays effectively on many peoples' fears, its Darth Vader tone works against it. It has an overblown quality that slips dangerously close to the tone of a spoof."

Liberals and Democrats. Few outlets covered the DNC's Carroll Campbell error. The Washington Post did the story, but it didn't make CBS, U.S. News & World Report and major newspapers like the Los Angeles Times, USA Today (which promoted the ad in a February 10 story), and The New York Times. CNN's Brooks Jackson did cover the Campbell story, but reviewed no other liberal ad.

While CBS and CNN critiqued the HIAA's ads for inadequately underlining their funding, with Families USA's Ron Pollack leading the attack, the Health Care Reform Project's pro-Clinton commercials were never critiqued. But its ads don't declare they are paid for by Families USA (which won't disclose its donors) and by businesses like American Airlines, Ford, and Chrysler, which support socialized medicine as a way to pawn their health costs off on the taxpayer.

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