MediaWatch: February 1994
Table of Contents:
- MediaWatch: February 1994
- ABC Friday Segment Often Used As Vehicle for Unbalanced Praise
- NewsBites: What A Great Book
- Revolving Door: Bode Moves to PBS
- Schieffer Asks 26 Questions About Lying, But No Such Questions for Dems
- Media Suffer Memory Lapse
- Not My Fault
- ABC First to Hire Religion Reporter
- Janet Cooke Award: PBS Program on Campaign Finance Laws Boasts Nine Opponents, No Supporters
Media Suffer Memory Lapse
Better Off Before?
Last month, MediaWatch highlighted how the media label as "right-wing" both fascists and communists in Russia. So it was cause for celebration when, on the January 23 Nightly News, NBC's Bob Abernethy (one of those mentioned) declared: "In last month's election there was massive support for Vladimir Zhirinovsky on the far right and the communists on the far left."
While it is noteworthy that Abernethy correctly put communism on the left, he also stated: "Boris Yeltsin's moves towards free markets brought painful inflation, conspicuous poverty, unpopular Western influences, flashy new wealth for a few, and all but uncontrolled crime." This was typical of the coverage President Clinton's trip to Moscow received, as reporters portrayed life in Moscow today as far worse than under Soviet communism.
On the January 14 Good Morning America, ABC's Morton Dean reported: "For more than 70 years, Russia dreamed the Soviet dream: the dream of a classless society, the dream of a workers' paradise. The classless state is now a state with a growing population of haves and an exploding population of have-nots. For many the workers' paradise has become a homeless hell."
As if economics were the only measure of one's well-being, that same night Dan Rather announced on the Evening News: "For the first time in my experience here....there is a rising anti-Americanism building out there which has to do with saying `Listen, we've done everything you told us to do and we're even worse off than we were under the Soviet system.'" Network reporting failed to acknowledge the relative lack of political persecution, or execution, in the new Russia.
Ironically, Mikhail Gorbachev, under whose reign the Soviet economy collapsed, is still celebrated. On the January 14 NBC Nightly News Tom Brokaw proclaimed: "The man who started it all here in Russia, the man who cracked the wall of communist rule in this country, now works quietly at his foundation on two floors of a Moscow building. Mikhail Gorbachev, driven from power, but still a compelling figure. We met today in his offices. His prosperity from Western lecture tours has not dulled his political analysis."
