MediaWatch: February 1991
Table of Contents:
NewsBites: Kudos for Quayle
KUDOS FOR QUAYLE. Dan Quayle played an important role in pushing the Patriot missile through to completion. If you rely solely on the networks or the major wire services, that should be news to you. Gannett News Service reporter Richard Whitmire wrote on January 22: "It was Quayle who fought the funding battle inside the conference committees, say Senate staffers who were involved. And it was Quayle who worked to make sure the Pentagon followed through with the projects." USA Today ran a reduced version of the Whitmire story on the same day. The Los Angeles Times mentioned Quayle's role twice, but the story never made The New York Times, The Washington Post, AP, UPI, or the networks.
MORE WAR GORE. Add Walter Cronkite to the list of media manipulators who want graphic pictures of grotesque death so that Americans will be sickened out of supporting the Gulf War.
On January 24, Cronkite told the Chicago Tribune about Vietnam: "During that war, we were getting complaints from viewers that 'We don't want to see all that bloodshed at dinner time...Well, my attitude about that is if we've voted to send our young men into battle, we've got a duty to watch what they do. It ought to be almost compulsory to sit in front of the television set and have to view the horror that they're enduring. The military and the politicians don't like that kind of domestic exposure. If we start seeing, live, on the air, people dying in combat, it's going to have one terrible effect."
That's funny. We don't recall any media figures demanding pictures of aborted fetuses so people can better understand that issue. Nor any reporters demanding pictures appear of the randier artistry of Robert Mapplethorpe and his band of urinators, which could add something to the NEA debate.
BLOOD SACRIFICE. Cronkite also told the Chicago Tribune he understood the military's interest in keeping the networks away from providing troop movement information to the enemy. "I don't understand how the military can be expected to permit that kind of coverage," he said, but "I think the networks will attempt it. I think the networks ought to attempt it as a matter of making arrangements with the military to cover as much as they can."
So: American soldiers might be killed by the hundreds thanks to the networks, but hey, it might get the Pentagon to loosen those restrictions. And while the soldiers die, Cronkite no doubt hopes we all see it live.
JORDANIAN TWIST. When Allied pilots bombed a number of Jordanian trucks on the road from Iraq to Jordan, CBS portrayed the drivers killed as innocent victims. "Jordan buried its first war dead today: three truck drivers whose vehicles were attacked by Allied warplanes on a highway in Iraq," began CBS reporter Doug Tunnell in a February 5 Evening News segment. "They were all civilians from a nation that is officially neutral in the Gulf War."
Between January 30 and February 4, CBS aired eight Evening News and This Morning reports that failed to mention that the Jordanians were driving oil trucks, or question why a "neutral" country was blatantly violating the U.N. sanctions.
Paula Zahn finally asked the million dollar question February 5: "Weren't the Jordanians violating the U.N. sanctions in the first place by bringing in oil from Iraq?" Reporter Betsy Aaron dutifully replied: "Some people think that that's the case, but the Jordanians don't think that they're violating any of the sanctions. They think that they were given an exemption. They're not paying the Iraqis for any of this oil. The Iraqis owed them a lot of money and this is just a payoff of the debt, so no money is really changing hands."
WAILING WALLACE. February's Commentary magazine cover story is must reading for devotees of Mike Wallace and 60 Minutes. Jerusalem Post editorial editor David Bar-Illan's article painfully exposes Wallace's manipulative December 2 report on the Temple Mount incident point by point. Most importantly, Bar-Illan contends that 60 Minutes ignored evidence that Israeli police did not fire on the assembled Palestinian crowd until a riot began.
Bar-Illan also demonstrates the story was simply the latest evidence of Wallace's anti-Israel bias. The Commentary article includes transcripts of Wallace's fawning interviews with PLO chief Yasser Arafat and Syrian President Hafez Assad. In a letter responding to Bar-Illan's criticism of a 1989 Arafat interview, Wallace avoided the subject, defending himself with a transcript of a tough interview he did with Arafat in 1979. Equally entertaining is a letter from 60 Minutes producer Barry Lando, who admitted that his crew traveled to Israel just before the Temple Mount incident not to report the news, but to present "the Palestinian side" of the Arab-Israeli story.
WAR MONEY WASTED. As the war continues, some reporters are finding new reasons to oppose it. In the words of CBS reporter Wyatt Andrews, the war "will wipe out any chance of a peace dividend, and reduce the chance of any new fully-funded domestic programs."
The night of President Bush's State of the Union address, ABC's World News Tonight aired four stories urging Bush to adopt liberal domestic policies. Carole Simpson began the third piece: "National family welfare experts agree on what should be the number one family issue on President Bush's domestic agenda: parental leave." Since it would not propose new spending programs, Simpson lamented, "The Bush Administration is expected to have little to say to the nearly 32 million poor Americans."
Over on NBC Nightly News, reporter Lisa Myers dedicated a story to how supposed federal budget cuts have devastated cities. She concluded: "Some argue that when the Gulf War is over, the United States should embark on the equivalent of a Marshall Plan. Not to re-build Iraq or Kuwait, but to re-build this nation's cities."
DEMOCRACY DOUBLESPEAK. Christian Science Monitor writer John Battersby has a rather fluid idea of what democracy means. In a December 28 article on transforming Angola from a Marxist thugocracy into a democracy, Battersby quoted Methodist Bishop Emilio Miguel de Carvalho: "A multiparty system is not the African method of conducting politics." Battersby noted: "The outspoken bishop, a committed advocate of peace, reflects a broad skepticism here about the desirability of multiparty rule."
However, in a January 14 piece headlined "Cleric May Be Angola's Bridge to Democracy," Battersby proclaimed that "As Angola reaches out toward democracy, the enduring values that de Carvalho represents could provide a vital bridge between the old order and the new...and [he] could emerge as an honest broker as this tragic land begins to heal itself." But Battersby also called de Carvalho "an independent voice in a Marxist-Leninist state" while de Carvalho praised the Cubans ("The Cubans have made a tremendous contribution to Angola since 1975 -- both in education and military assistance -- in a way no other country has done") and denounced the UNITA freedom fighters ("Nobody trusts UNITA because they kill"). Orwell would be proud.
NOBEL NOT NOBLE. On January 13, Yelena Bonner, the widow of Nobel Peace Prize recipient Andrei Sakharov, wrote the Nobel Committee requesting that her husband's name be stricken from the list of laureates. Why? According to UPI, Bonner declared: "I deem it impossible that [Sakharov's name] be ranked alongside the name of the Soviet Communist Party General Secretary Mikhail Gorbachev, who as head of state is responsible for the bloodshed [in Lithuania]."
A search of the Nexis news data retrieval system determined Bonner's letter was reported by AP, UPI, Reuters, The Washington Post, the Los Angeles Times, The Washington Times and U.S. News & World Report. Bonner's brave stand went unnoticed by the networks' evening news. Time, continuing to stand by their Man of the Decade, passed over Bonner without a word.
SPIKING THE RIGHT. In response to the left-wing slant of Sonoma State University's "Project Censored," an annual list of "underreported" news stories, Joseph Farah, Editor of the Sacramento Union, asked several conservative media observers help him create "Operation Spike."
On his list of underreported stories: "Why SDI Is More Necessary Than Ever -- In the midst of war with Iraq and the danger to American lives, few reports raised the issue of how Saddam Hussein's potential nuclear capability was a perfect argument for completing and deploying the Strategic Defense Initiative." Also included in the list were the absence of free-market environmentalists from Earth Day coverage; the fact that reported federal budget "cuts" were not really cuts; and that supply-side economics successfully increased government revenues.
Dr. Carl Jensen, director of Project Censored, responded to Farah's effort in the January 26 issue of Editor & Publisher: "I regret that Farah falls into the trap of accusing Project Censored of being a left-wing organization. We are apolitical." But among Jensen's top 25 this year were stories such as "Guatemalan Blood on U.S. Hands"; "The U.S. Is Poisoning the Rest of the World With Banned Pesticides"; and "The U.S. Presence Is Destroying the Environment in Central America." And who could forget an "apolitical" gem from 1987: "Oliver North's Secret Plan to Declare Martial Law."
APOCALYPSE NOW. Carl Sagan is back with a new book on nuclear winter. Although astronomer Sagan's theory has long been repudiated by climatologists, including global-warming guru Stephen Schneider, that didn't stop Good Morning America from giving him a chance to hawk his book.
Sagan told Joan Lunden on January 7: "It's the most serious threat to the human species that we face. It's more serious than AIDS, it's more serious than global warming." Asked how much of the world's nuclear stockpile should be cut, Sagan declared, "We're talking about something like a 99 percent cut. These obscene arsenals..." Lunden interrupted: "Is that realistic?" Sagan said: "Well, is it realistic to pose a threat to the human species and to global civilization?...Nuclear weapons are not snowballs."
Lunden limply queried: "There are critics who disagree with that. What do you say to them?" Sagan mocked them: "All the competent calculations worldwide have converged on the same answer, so I don't think this is a matter of dispute." Lunden ended with a plug for Sagan's book: "It's a bleak book that all the world leaders should have as required reading."
ACID RAIN ATE MY BRAIN. When asked why he didn't report on the landmark National Acid Precipitation Assessment Project (NAPAP), Washington Post environmental reporter (and hype specialist) Michael Weisskopf had a quick answer. According to a January 14 story by Post media reporter Howard Kurtz, Weisskopf "said he was on vacation when the report was released. But he said many people involved in the acid rain debate told him it had little news value." A ten-year government study that finds acid rain is causing no discernible damage to crops and forests has little news value?
Weisskopf doubly confirmed his loafer's approach to reporting in the next paragraph: "This is such a dynamic city, with so many pressure groups pushing their point of view, you don't have to do investigative reporting to find these reports. If they are truly important, they are promoted and put forward." (Read: I don't do stories that aren't flacked to me by environmental activists.) No doubt Weisskopf is still waiting for the Sierra Club press release.
CONDOM NATION. In an effort to deal with the issue of teenage sex, Time magazine has once again decided to throw more condoms on the problem. Referring New York City's plan to distribute condoms without parental consent in high schools, Time Associate Editor Susan Tifft wrote in a January 21 piece, "many teenagers do not use them properly or consistently. That makes it necessary for schools to step in to safeguard the public's health and that of their charges. Parental consent is desirable, but unrealistic."
Tifft scoffed at the idea of chastity, saying, "There is little evidence...that sexual abstinence is an attractive option for students." Going one step further, Tifft testified that the condom distribution in schools would be "attractive" for parents too: "In fact, many parents seem relieved to have the issue taken out of their hands."
Condom distribution in high schools was not enough for Tifft, who ended the article: "According to many experts, there is a growing need to make condoms available in junior high schools, where student sexual activity is on the rise."
CHIDING CHAMORRO. Assessing post-Sandinista Nicaragua, ABC reporter John Quinones turned tough on the new government, but offered only propaganda in his criticism. On the December 24 Nightline he proclaimed, "Ten months after free elections swept Violeta Chamorro to the presidency, the shiny gloss of capitalism is growing dull in Nicaragua. Today almost half of all Nicaraguans are jobless, the annual inflation rate has hit 11,000 percent...[In] Managua for the first time in years, there are beggars, drug addicts, and prostitution."
Quinones concluded: "The bottom line? Nicaragua's economy is now at least as bad off as it was during the worst years of Sandinista rule...today the war is over, the embargo is lifted, this new government has no one to blame but itself." Quinones cited no statistics from the Sandinista regime, which makes sense as they were even worse. For example, inflation at one point was 36,000 percent. And while playing taps for capitalism, Quinones neglected to mention that the Sandinistas still run the army and labor unions, and have done everything to undermine free-market reforms.
OH WOW, MAN. PBS found the perfect way to compliment its trendy-left supporters: a six-part January 19-21 navel-gazing series titled Making Sense of the Sixties. Produced by Washington PBS affiliate WETA, viewers were treated to revelations like this: "You mean the spiritual impulses I have, these inklings -- I smoked the marijuana and I lay on the grass, and suddenly I realized: the grass is alive, the grass has a spirit. You mean this is political? This is political? What a mind-blower! What a mind-blower!"
Viewers also learned of the moonlighting Margot Adler, labeled "Correspondent, National Public Radio" in one soundbite, and described as a "Lecturer on Ecofeminism" in another. Author Annie Gottlieb theorized that "the Reagan era was paying us back for doing it in the streets, and next time, we'll try to make our revolution a little more serious and substantial and deal with social issues."
Many spent the '60s as "idealists," like a student leader who described Vietnam protests: "We're using the incredible might of the American military machine to destroy these people, and there was a sense of almost a lament about 'what are we doing?' It was like a pain, it was more motivated from pain and shame, and drawing back on Hitler times, and the Nazis. We don't want to be connected with something that's so evil." Try making sense of that.
