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
Revolving Door: Time's FOB
President Clinton has nominated Strobe Talbott, Time Editor-at- Large since stepping down as Washington Bureau Chief in 1989, as an Ambassador-at-Large to the nations of the former Soviet Union.
An Oxford roommate of Clinton's, Talbott devoted an April 6 Time column to his own "full disclosure," asserting Clinton did not know whether he'd be drafted in 1969 and 1970. "How real was Clinton's concern that he might be drafted? The surmise that Clinton had nothing to worry about is based on more than 20 years' hindsight. It's a perfect example of how a partial recitation of the facts can lie."
Indeed. After the magazine came out, Cliff Jackson, a Friend of Bill in the '60s, produced a letter showing that Clinton had received a draft induction notice in April 1969. In October he wrote Time Managing Editor Henry Muller, asking for space to challenge Talbott's memory. Jackson claimed that Talbott not only knew about Clinton's draft dodging, but helped Clinton: "I know that Strobe was one of the chief architects of Bill Clinton's scheme to void his draft notice, avoid reporting on his scheduled (postponed) July 28 induction date and to secure a 1-D deferment, yet nowhere in his personal testimony does Strobe mention his involvement."
Jackson continued: "I have a crystal clear recollection of Strobe and Bill standing in my office door at Republican State headquarters in the summer of 1969 and discussing the plan, devised by Bill with the able assistance of friends, to kill his draft notice and secure a deferment." Muller refused to publish the letter, but in the February 1 Time, he praised Talbott: "Our loss will be the country's gain."
Clinton's CBS Team
Two past members of the CBS News team worked this campaign season to elect Bill Clinton. Tom Donilon, debate coach for Bill Clinton last fall and a consultant to CBS News during the 1988 primaries, has been nominated Asst. Secretary of State for public affairs. A veteran of the 1984 Mondale effort Donilon joined CBS News in January 1988 after Senator Joe Biden's campaign collapsed, just in time to prep Dan Rather for his confrontation with George Bush over Iran-Contra....
Samuel Popkin, a member of Clinton pollster Stanley Greenberg's team from June through election day, spent 1983 to 1990 as a consultant to the CBS News Election and Survey Unit. A political science professor at the University of California at San Diego, Popkin played Ronald Reagan in mock 1980 debates with Jimmy Carter.
Carter Retreads on the Move
In the January 25 issue, Time Publisher Elizabeth Valk announced the magazine's Deputy Washington Bureau Chief Margaret Carlson would move to the White House beat: "Carlson started her career at Legal Times, where she made use of her law degree from George Washington University, before moving to Esquire and The New Republic." Valk skipped one entry in Carlson's resume: Special Assistant to the Chairman of the Consumer Product Safety Commission during the Carter Administration....
Senior Writer Walter Shapiro has left Time to fill a new slot as Esquire's White House correspondent. Shapiro wrote speeches for Jimmy Carter after handling press for Labor Secretary Ray Marshall. White House Helpers. The Clinton White House is providing positions for at least a few media veterans. Anne Edwards, Director of the White House Television Office for Jimmy Carter, is back in the press office. Since her last trip through the White House gate she spent four years as a CBS News Washington bureau assignment editor, followed by a stint with the Mondale-Ferraro campaign. Mondale's loss sent her back to the media as a Senior Producer with National Public Radio. Last year she headed the Clinton-Gore press advance operation....
Signing on as a Deputy Press Secretary, Arthur Jones, a long-time Boston Globe reporter who spent the 1980s as Press Secretary to Massachusetts Governor Michael Dukakis and Bosto Mayor Ray Flynn.
