MediaWatch: December 1991
Table of Contents:
- MediaWatch: December 1991
- "Civil Rights"
- NewsBites: News Fools Tonight
- Revolving Door: To Kennedy's Defense
- Reporters Can't Resist Lumping Republicans With Nazis
- Middle Class Mythology
- DoonesBury's Pet Perjurer
- Abortion Manipulation
- NBC's Hatchet Job
- Janet Cooke Award: Philadelphia Inquirer or National Enquirer
Revolving Door: To Kennedy's Defense
To Kennedy's Defense. Before retiring this past summer, Barbara Gamarekian spent 25 years in the Washington bureau of The New York Times, a job she took after toiling in the Kennedy White House press office. With a Kennedy in trouble, she's come to the rescue. The Kennedy family hired her to serve as press relations representative for William Kennedy Smith, who went on trial for rape in Florida in early December. In the November 7 Boston Globe, correspondent Christopher Boyd summarized Gamarekian's PR line: "She has told interviewers that he attends Mass, is a handyman around the house, and enjoys playing with his six-week- old puppy, McShane."
California Civilities. As the battle over National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) funding raged the last few years, Allan Parachini covered it for the Los Angeles Times. One part of the struggle he wrote about: a 1990 lawsuit against the NEA by the American Civil Liberties Union on behalf of four "performance artists" denied federal subsidies. Parachini reported that one plaintiff, Karen Finley, "has received broad critical acclaim" for an act in which she had "her body smeared with melted chocolate and alfalfa sprouts to symbolize denigration of women by forcing them to wallow in excrement and sperm."
In October, Parachini decided to become more than just an observer. The Times reported that the paper's veteran reporter of 12 years was "named to the newly created position of Director of Research and Public Affairs for the American Civil Liberties Union of Southern California." Parachini's personal views had already slipped into his Times copy: A June 18, 1990 "news analysis" was titled: "Some Observers Say the Uproar Over 2 Live Crew and the NEA Controversy Represent a Much Larger and More Alarming Trend."
Meet the Cuomo Press. In another effort to cut costs, NBC News transferred the Sunday Today staff from Washington to New York so its production could be merged with the weekday show. As a result, Meet the Press moderator and Sunday Today co-host Garrick Utley will stop commuting to Washington, leaving the Meet the Press slot open. Utley's replacement as of the December 8 broadcast: Tim Russert, former counselor and strategist to Mario Cuomo. Russert will continue to serve as NBC's Washington Bureau Chief. As far as MediaWatch knows, it's the first time a political activist turned journalist has been named permanent moderator of a Sunday show.
Hollywood Liberal. Marylouise Oates, who covered the Hollywood party and society scene for the Los Angeles Times during most of the 1980s, is out with her first novel. Making Peace follows a group of activists preparing for a 1967 anti-war protest. It's a topic Oates learned first-hand, as Deputy Press Secretary to 1968 Democratic presidential candidate Gene McCarthy and later as a press aide for the Vietnam Moratorium. She remains politically active. In November 1989 Oates and her husband, Robert Shrum, former Press Secretary to Senator Ted Kennedy, hosted a fundraising party at their home for Patrick Kennedy, a Democratic Rhode Island Assemblyman.
