MediaWatch: August 1996
Table of Contents:
NewsBites: Unconcerned About Rape
Just after rape victim Jan Licence addressed the Republican convention on victims' rights on August 13, NBC's Maria Shriver seemed baffled. During combined PBS/NBC coverage Shriver posed to her this question: "But why [speak out] at a Republican convention? So many people have said that they don't think this ticket, or perhaps this party, is supportive of women's issues. Why make this stand here?" Later, during NBC's prime time broadcast, Tom Brokaw interviewed Licence and asked: "Do you think -- this is a party that is dominated by men and this convention is dominated by men as well...Do you think before tonight they thought very much about what happens in America with rape?"
Gumbel Scoldings.
To keep "out what officials call the biased liberal media," the RNC launched GOP-TV to provide complete convention coverage, NBC's Bob Faw reported on the August 13 Today. Faw asserted: "What GOP-TV calls unfiltered, doesn't even begin to pay lip service to balance or fairness." NBC should know. Here's how Bryant Gumbel opened that morning's Today: "Good morning. Retired General Colin Powell, a new recruit to the GOP cause, addressed the delegates in San Diego last night, drawing cheers with accounts of why he became a Republican and why he'll vote for Bob Dole. But although his speech was generally well-received, the reception was restrained, and there were boos whenever Powell steered away from the right. Though they booed and also heckled dissent, Republicans claimed the mantle of inclusion throughout the first night of their convention. We can expect more of the same today, Tuesday, August 13, 1996." Guess which network scares journalists? Faw reported that "Jonathan Alter of Newsweek thinks GOP-TV has started something deceptive and unwholesome." Alter explained: "It is political propaganda, masquerading as news, and that's a problem." Political propaganda masquerading as news? Sounds like Bryant Gumbel.
It's the Republican's Fault.
Calling conservatives "extremists" and lying about budget "cuts" have been Democratic mantra, but two networks blamed the GOP for getting nasty. NBC's Maria Shriver asked Dole California campaign chairman Ken Khachigian on August 14: "You said coming out of this campaign, Clinton is going to have 80 days of hell, that we are going to take Clinton down in California, that we are going to take him down hard. How ugly is this going to get?" About 20 minutes after Bob Dole completed his acceptance speech, CNN anchor Bernard Shaw discovered the beginning of a nasty campaign: "I've maintained that this campaign is going to be one of the nastiest, bare-knuckled, direct-to-the-gut campaigns in America's political history. Listen to this one sentence, quote `It is demeaning to the nation that within the Clinton administration a core of the elite never grew up, never did anything real, never sacrificed, never suffered and never learned, should have the power to fund with your earnings their dubious and self-serving schemes.'"
Decrying Clinton Criticism.
Journalistic sensitivity to any attacks on Bill Clinton quickly came through loud and clear the morning after U.S. Rep. Susan Molinari and Senator Kay Bailey Hutchision spoke. "GOP Unleashes An Attack On Clinton Over Character and His Economic Policies," charged a New York Times headline. "Congresswoman Susan Molinari took on the role of attack dog last night, using her keynote address to attack the President," Bryant Gumbel began the August 14 Today. NBC's morning crew stuck to the Democratic line in their questions. Gumbel asked Tim Russert: "There's an old adage that says what you do speaks so loudly I can't hear what you say. Republicans are speaking tolerance and diversity. Are you seeing any evidence of it or quite the contrary?" Katie Couric inquired of Republican strategist Charles Black: "Chris Dodd of the DNC says this is a huge con game. That the way you're portraying the party as this moderate inclusive party just doesn't gibe with say, the platform, and some of the attitudes of members of the GOP. How do you address that?" Over on Good Morning America, news anchor Elizabeth Vargas asserted: "Some of the harshest words were from Texas Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison, who tried to paint the President as a tax and spend liberal." Co-host Charles Gibson added: "Polls will tell you these days that people do not want much partisanship in their politics, but they got it at the Republican convention last night. There were attacks on President Clinton's credibility, integrity, even his eating habits." ABC's Vargas didn't shy away from stereotyping: "But in addition to a gender gap, Republicans have had problems attracting minorities, a party that has traditionally been home to the angry white man."
Gutless Moderates?
If only the moderates were more aggressive then conservatives could be defeated, Newsweek Senior Editor Jonathan Alter wished in the August 19 issue. He gave pro-abortion Republicans his recipe for political success. In a piece titled "The Passion Gap," he wrote: "Pro-choice Republicans insist it's their party, too. But the high-minded moderates are too polite to take on the hard-charging right. Until they do, the GOP may never truly win over the country." The crux of his wisdom? Attack your loyal supporters: "This is now the fifth nominating convention in which the GOP has applied an anti-abortion litmus test. Ronald Reagan signed an abortion-rights law as Governor of California, then changed his position in time for his presidential campaigns. George Bush was such a supporter of family planning as a congressman that he was called `Rubbers,' but by the 1980s had flip-flopped. Bob Dole is pro-life but has gone back and forth so many times on platform language and planks that he has raised basic questions about his leadership. If he can't stand up to a Phyllis Schlafly, how would he handle a Saddam Hussein?" Alter closed by holding up the Democratic Party, the same party that shut Governor Bob Casey out of its 1992 convention for his pro-life views, as an example of the big-tent the GOP should emulate: "The only real way to change the Republican Party is for...a pro-choice candidate to run for President in 2000....Sometime soon a compelling moderate Republican will take a leaf from the successes of centrist Democrats and enter a few primaries. Then we'll find out if the Republicans can finally pitch that big tent they like to talk about."
Republicans Scare Women.
Supposed GOP intolerance and how Republican policies scare women dominated morning show interviews during the Republican gathering in San Diego. Talking to Susan Molinari, Christine Todd Whitman, and Kay Bailey Hutchison on August 13, Good Morning America's Charlie Gibson laid out why women are turned off by Republicans: "It was the Republican Party that did take the lead on ending federal welfare payments as they have been traditionally paid over the last 50 to 60 years and the prime beneficiaries of that are women. It is the Republican Party that took the lead on reducing the rate of growth in Medicare and Medicaid. It is the Republican Party now that is trying to make an issue of denying education and benefits to the children of illegal immigrants. It is the Republican Party that has rejected in the last week or so, tolerance language on abortion in the platform." He also asked: "There was an attempt by some in the platform hearings to get language included in the platform that simply asked for toleration of dissenting views particularly on abortion. It was language that Bob Dole wanted in the platform. The party rejected him, it rejected your views, all three of you in this, is this a tolerant party, do you feel comfortable in it with its position on tolerance?" Quizzing Colin Powell on Today, Katie Couric queried: "Does the party platform trouble you? Does the fact that some of these governors opted not to speak because they were told they could not discuss their views on abortion, do all those things make you basically doubt that this is a big tent here?"
Buchanan "Destroyed" Bush.
Four years later the media still promote the idea that Pat Buchanan's 1992 speech, not reneging on his "no new taxes" pledge, led to George Bush's defeat. Andrea Mitchell stated on MSNBC August 12 after Colin Powell spoke: "There's a real interesting contrast here because Pat Buchanan set the tone for the Houston convention four years ago with the same prime time starring role on the first night of the convention and that of course was the speech that many people feel destroyed George Bush's chance of winning re-election because it set a very narrow, exclusive and mean-spirited tone and tonight we had the contrast of Colin Powell." Earlier in the day on ABC's Good Morning America, co-host Charles Gibson couldn't let the issue die: "It is this convention that is going to be harmonious. The Republicans are determined that there will be no repeat of Houston 1992, which many saw as a harsh and divisive convention." While never mentioning that raising taxes could have cost Bush the election, ABC's John Cochran opined on World News Tonight: "The one thing that Bush did not have to tell Dole is that at all cost Dole should try to prevent a re-run of that bitter divisive convention four years ago in Houston, that so badly damaged Bush's chances for re-election. Dole knows that only too well."
Delegates Out of Touch.
Early in the first day of PBS/NBC coverage, millionaire Tom Brokaw asked: "The big question, of course, what is the Republican Party these days?...Well on the floor of this convention hall, they are overwhelmingly white and male, male by a factor of about two to one...The largest single income group, more than 38 percent of the people here earn more than $100,000 a year." On the CBS Evening News that night Ed Bradley asserted: "For the most part they are white, male, and they are older than the average American. They are also more conservative than the average American. They are also wealthier - about a third of the delegates earn more than $100,000 a year." Millionaire anchor Dan Rather announced in prime time: "Delegates in this convention have been selected, inspected, detected, categorized by the press, the pols, the pros, and the pollsters. We know they're mostly male, overwhelmingly white, mostly well to the right politically, and almost one in five of these delegates is a millionaire." CNN's Judy Woodruff raised the media-created issue with keynote speaker Susan Molinari: "We look at the statistics of how many women delegates. What? 43 percent in 1992. Only 36 percent of the delegates are women this year. What sort of signal does that send to the country, you think?" Woodruff also complained: "We talked to Jack Kemp a little while ago and asked him about, among other things, the fact that not only not just the language in the platform - only three percent of these delegates are African American. Only 36 percent of these delegates are women. This is not a convention that is necessarily representative even of the broader Republican Party, the people who vote Republican, much less the electorate overall." A Washington Post survey of delegates determined that while 56 percent of Republicans reported an income of over $75,000, so did 46 percent of Democrats.
