MediaWatch: December 1992
Table of Contents:
- MediaWatch: December 1992
- Networks Select One "Year of the Woman" Over Another
- NewsBites: Clinton Tilt
- Revolving Door: Too Randy
- Post-Election Economic Numbers Embarrass Negative Media
- Post-Election Gushing
- Martin's Money
- Herbert's Hunger Hype
- Janet Cooke Award: Gumbel Consults Only Far-Left TransAfrica
Revolving Door: Too Randy
Sexual harassment charges led former CBS News reporter Randy Daniels to decline the nomination for a Deputy Mayor position under New York City Mayor David Dinkins. Before his late October decision, Daniels was about to take over as media and political adviser to the Democratic Mayor. A CBS News correspondent in the late 1970s and early 1980s, Daniels helped cover the 1979 hostage crisis from Tehran.
After helping set up a television operation in Nigeria and teaching at the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism, in 1986 he joined the staff of New York City Council President Andrew Stein as Press Secretary.
Replacing Mrs. Rollins
Ed Rollins' decision to sign-on with the Ross Perot campaign prompted his wife, Sherrie Rollins, to resign her position as Assistant to the President for Public Liaison, a job she took after leaving ABC News where she had been Director of News Information. At the Perot campaign, husband Ed Rollins hired Liz Noyer Maas to handle press relations.
Now, after a six month vacancy, Maas has replaced Rollins at ABC. In 1988 Maas was Deputy Director of Pete DuPont's presidential campaign in New Hampshire, a duty she accepted after two years as an assistant to Marlin Fitzwater, then Press Secretary to Vice President Bush. In 1990 Maas handled press for Bay Buchanan's unsuccessful run for Treasurer of California.
Crier to 20/20
After three years with CNN, anchor Catherine Crier will join ABC in January as a correspondent for 20/20. A Republican-elected civil district court judge in Texas, Crier had no TV news experience when she joined the network in October 1989. She handled her final CNN anchoring duties for Crier & Company, Inside Politics, and The World Today just before Thanksgiving.
Moyers Revolves Back?
PBS omnipresence Bill Moyers seems to have returned to his role as a Democratic political adviser. A Press Secretary to President Lyndon Johnson and a commentator and reporter for CBS News for over a decade, Moyers hosted the weekly Listening to America series on PBS this year.
On November 17, Washington Post reporter Howard Kurtz described how Moyers "went at Clinton's invitation" to Little Rock "to discuss ways to 'revitalize' the White House, the President-elect told a news conference yesterday. (The two men also caught Robert Redford's new flick, A River Runs Through It, and Moyers spent the night at the Governor's Mansion.)" Moyers told Kurtz that Clinton "wanted to know about decisions Johnson made on Vietnam, how the staff system worked. I found him a really good student."
When it was revealed that George Will had coached Ronald Reagan before a 1980 debate, a firestorm of media criticism erupted. No such reaction this year from the journalistic community.
Transitional Press
Helping out with the transition effort: Marla Romash, an Associate Producer for Good Morning America in the mid-'80s. Press Secretary to Senator Al Gore since 1989, she's now Deputy Director of press for the transition's Washington office.
@RDHEAD = Oakland Editor.
On December 1 the Oakland Tribune became part of the Alameda Newspaper Group, a division of the MediaNews Group, the publisher of the Houston Post. On the same day, the owner of four Oakland area dailies named Pearl Stewart the Editor of the Group's newly acquired Tribune. Since the beginning of 1992 Pearl served as an aide to Democrat Mary King, President of the Alameda County Board of Supervisors. For 12 years ending in 1991, Pearl covered the East Bay for the San Francisco Chronicle.
