MediaWatch: December 1989
Table of Contents:
- MediaWatch: December 1989
- Reporting the War on FMLN Terms
- NewsBites: Bias Realized
- Revolving Door: Taking on a New Project
- Renouncing the Reagan Decade
- More Moyers
- Janet Cooke Award: PBS: America's Century
Revolving Door: Taking on a New Project
Taking on a New Project. Liz Galtney, a reporter in the now defunct U.S. News & World Report investigative unit, is the new Director of the Project on Military Procurement (PMP). Galtney joined U.S. News in mid-1988 after several years with UPI in Austin, Texas. Founded in 1981 by Dina Rasor, an ABC News Washington bureau editorial assistant in 1978-79, PMP is funded by the liberal Fund for Constitutional Government. "I find weapons repulsive," Rasor told the Christian Science Monitor in 1982.
Switching to City Hall. December 8 was Albert Scardino's last day as a New York Times "Business Day" section reporter covering magazine publishing. On January 2, after a few weeks of vacation, he begins work as Press Secretary to New York City's newly elected Mayor, liberal Democrat David Dinkins. The New York Post reported that Scardino, who began his reporting career with the Associated Press in the early 1970's, participated in a "brainstorming session" with Dinkins in July.
Times Change. Since 1983 Jack Burby has served as Deputy Editorial Page Editor of the Los Angeles Times. In November, the Press Secretary to former California Governor Edmund G. (Pat) Brown, switched jobs with editorial writer Frank del Olmo. After Ronald Reagan beat Brown in 1966, Burby moved to Washington to become a special assistant to Alan Boyd, the first Secretary of Transportation in the department created by President Johnson. Before jumping into politics, Burby was a reporter for the San Francisco Chronicle, Honolulu Advertiser and United Press International.
Bush's Democratic Choice. President Bush's choice to fill a Federal Communication Commissioner slot reserved for a Democrat, Ervin S. Duggan, reported metro and feature pieces for The Washington Post in 1964 and 1965 according to Washington's City Paper. Duggan has also served as a special assistant to Senator Adlai Stevenson from 1971 to 1977 when he began writing speeches for HEW Secretary Joseph Califano. From 1979 until Carter left office Duggan worked in the State Department policy planning office.
The White Stuff. John C. White, Press Secretary to District of Columbia Mayor Marion Barry from May 1987 until he grew tired of denying allegations of Barry's cocaine use in September of this year, has signed on with Washington's ABC affiliate, WJLA-TV, as Director of Investigations. White came to D.C. from City Hall reporting for the Philadelphia Daily News. He previously held reporting jobs with the Chicago Tribune, Washington Star and Baltimore Evening Sun.
Time Serves Presidents. Henry Anatole Grunwald, Editor in Chief of all Time Inc. magazines from 1979 until his late 1987 ambassadorial appointment by President Reagan, resigned as U.S. Ambassador to Austria as of January 1. At Time, he succeeded Hedley Donovan, who left the publishing conglomerate after 15 years to become a Senior Adviser to President Jimmy Carter.
