MediaWatch: February 1993
Table of Contents:
- MediaWatch: February 1993
- Loving the Children's Defense Fund
- NewsBites: Going Nowhere Fast
- Revolving Door: Time's FOB
- Reporters Hound Clinton on Political Missteps, But....
- "Uneducated" Conservatives?
- Cheers to Sam and Diane
- "Censored" Stories
- Janet Cooke Award: Time Calls for Gas Tax Increase at least 24 Times in Four Years
Loving the Children's Defense Fund
The Children's Defense Fund (CDF) is gaining new prominence as the Clinton era begins. The CDF board was headed for many years by the First Lady, Hillary Rodham Clinton, and then last year by Donna Shalala, the new Secretary of Health and Human Services.
But the group has enjoyed popularity with the Washington press corps for years. Media foundations (such as The New York Times Company Foundation) are contributors, and media celebrities like Jane Pauley attend their fundraisers. The only remaining secret to the public at large: the group is extremely liberal.
How liberal? The CDF's own "Nonpartisan Voting Index" routinely grades liberals such as Sen. Ted Kennedy as 100 percent politically correct. CDF founder Marian Wright Edelman regularly scolds the government for not copying Europe's socialist programs. On NBC, she pronounced: "We need to talk about the poverty of values of a country that let its children die because we don't provide [national] health insurance." In 1990, Edelman even attacked liberal Reps. Tom Downey and George Miller for being too conservative on child care spending, saying they were "willing to rob millions of children."
To determine the tone of news stories featuring CDF, MediaWatch analyzed both print and broadcast news stories. Two years ago, analysts used Nexis to survey every news story mentioning CDF in the Los Angeles Times, The New York Times, and The Washington Post for the years 1988, 1989, and 1990. In 228 news stories, CDF was described as "liberal" three times (1.3 percent).
MediaWatch analysts returned to the Nexis files to research every news story in the same newspapers in 1991 and 1992, and added USA Today to the sample. Descriptions of CDF as "liberal" increased marginally, to 19 labels in 343 news stories (5.5 percent). Analysts added USA Today stories from 1989 and 1990 and found an additional 29 unlabeled news mentions. Adding all five years of major newspaper stories together, CDF received 22 "liberal" labels in 600 news stories (3.6 percent). This still lags far behind the labeling of conservative child advocacy groups like the Family Research Council (FRC), whose labeling percentage also grew from 1988-90 (15 of 50, or 30 percent) to 1991-92 (43 of 92, or 47 percent). Put another way, reporters were almost 12 times more likely to label the conservative FRC than the liberal CDF.
Perhaps most interesting is the pattern of labeling: of the 19 labels used to describe CDF in 1991-92, 17 were used in 1992, and ten of them came after the November 3 election. All seven labels in the Los Angeles Times and the only label in USA Today appeared in the post-election period.
MediaWatch analysts also monitored TV coverage, watching every 1990, 1991 and 1992 profile or interview with Edelman on the three broadcast networks. Of 38 questions directed to Edelman, 27 percent were neutral (soliciting information without expressing a viewpoint). Nine came from a liberal agenda, and two from a conservative agenda.
On the March 30, 1991 Face the Nation (the only CBS interview in the sample), then-host Lesley Stahl asked four questions, all from a liberal viewpoint: "Be an analyst for us. You've been working on behalf of children for years and years. What happened in our country where we can watch children going hungry, pregnant women not getting the proper care, and we don't seem to care as a society. How did we get here?"
Only two questions challenged Edelman from the right, assuming the devil's advocate role the media often claim. Both came from ABC Good Morning America co-host Charles Gibson. On December 17, 1992, Gibson inquired: "You say in [your] report `Every American, led by our new President and Congress, must give children back their hope.' Why led by government? Why is this...primarily, firstly, a government problem?"
Even though the neutral questions were the most common, most were softballs. Some were simple: "Run down the report for me," began Gibson's December 17 interview. Some were tributes -- on the March 20, 1992 Brokaw Report Tom Brokaw concluded: "You've been working in this vineyard a long time, Marian Wright Edelman. You grew out of the activism of the '60s. How do you create a movement around the children of the '90s?"
In the only Edelman interview in which she was joined by a conservative, a May 21, 1992 Today segment with black Senate candidate Alan Keyes, co-host Katie Couric took on Keyes: "The administration is against abortion, against single mothers. Is Dan Quayle being unrealistic?" NBC did the worst of the three networks, airing five interviews with Edelman without a tough question.
The two profiles, an ABC "Person of the Week" segment on March 29, 1991, and a CBS Sunday Morning piece on December 6, 1992, boldly praised Edelman and ignored critics. Between them, the two stories aired 17 soundbites of Edelman, six soundbites of her supporters, and one critic. ABC allowed Heritage Foundation analyst Kate Walsh O'Beirne to say "I don't think the problem is the messenger. I think the problem is her message is old and tired and largely discredited." Jennings quickly countered: "She is anything but discredited in Congress as a whole....The children are fortunate to have such an advocate." The CBS story, by reporter Terence Smith, was a ten-minute, critic-free tribute.
Hopefully, tougher media scrutiny of CDF will match their influence in the White House and at HHS. Whether criticism of CDF gets any attention, or is buried under more tributes, will be an important test for reporters who claim they're still the adversaries of those in power.
