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
Not My Fault
CBS reporter Bernard Goldberg has spent the last year exploring America's cultural decline with unique pieces on Eye to Eye with Connie Chung. He's explored political correctness, defining deviancy down, and welfare's harmful effects on its recipients.
On January 27, he peered into an increasing problem: "What happens if this idea of blaming someone else really catches on and spreads like a virus through the American culture?" Goldberg asked. "Some people say it is already happening, that we are becoming a nation of finger-pointing crybabies. Officially our national motto is `In God We Trust.' But the critics say it might as well be `Don't blame me, it's not my fault.'"
He laid out his evidence: from people getting out of paying parking tickets to the recent criminal trials of the Menendez brothers, Lorena Bobbitt, and L.A. rioter Damian Williams. All admitted their guilt, but used the "it's not my fault because" defense. All got off with either light or no sentences.
Goldberg concluded, "While you could agree or disagree on any particular case, the critics say the real problem isn't a few high-profile criminal cases but that this don't-blame-me, knee-jerk response is infecting everybody, that it's becoming a dangerous national epidemic."
Keen on Whitewater
On consecutive World News "Focal Point" segments, CNN's Terry Keenan looked at new angles in the Whitewater story. For instance, how did the Clintons and McDougals buy property without putting down their own money? On January 12, Keenan found a $20,000 loan from Union Bank of Little Rock signed by Bill Clinton and Jim McDougal, a loan not paid back on time nor with any money from the Clintons. The loan officer, Don Denton, said he brought the loan to the Clinton campaign's attention in 1992. It's loans like this and "the Clintons' reluctance to turn over Whitewater papers [that] has many wondering just how deep Whitewater runs," reported Keenan.
The next night, Keenan told the story of Henderson Gaddy. In order to give his son a better life away from his drug-ridden neighborhood, Gaddy bought land from Whitewater Development, but Whitewater defaulted on the loan and the former owners sued for the property. Keenan reported: "In the midst of all this confusion, many land buyers didn't know where to send their mortgage payments, or if the money would ever be credited to their property, and some like Gaddy lost their land."
