MediaWatch: February 1997
Table of Contents:
Two Standards on Nonprofits
Dan Rather began the January 21 CBS Evening News on a serious note: "The House of Representatives voted today to reprimand and fine Speaker Newt Gingrich for low ethics -- specifically, using money from tax-exempt foundations to fund his partisan college course." Special counsel James Cole claimed that Gingrich benefited from tax-exempt groups -- classified as 501(c)(3) in the IRS code -- which are barred from advocating the election of specific candidates or parties.
But the networks failed to respond when the February 9 Los Angeles Times showed how in 1996 then-White House Deputy Chief of Staff Harold Ickes and the DNC "steered would be campaign contributors to a tax-exempt and supposedly non-partisan voter registration group that in reality has close ties to the Democratic Party."
The Times found "the primary beneficiary was Vote Now '96," whose "efforts generally were focused most-heavily in black communities that tend to...vote overwhelmingly Democratic." The group was run by former Democratic Party fundraisers, and Labor Secretary designate Alexis Herman helped arrange a White House reception where Clinton honored the group.
Another "nonpartisan" group Ickes recommended was the National Coalition on Black Voter Participation. Executive director James Ferguson told the Baltimore Sun in January 1996 the group "has targeted 83 House districts that African American voters can help elect Democrats -- enough to wrest control of the House away from the GOP."
The rudiments of the story broke a week earlier in the February 10 Newsweek, leading to one evening story on every network except NBC. The stories focused on the charge that a memo from Ickes told a potential $5 million contributor where to donate his money. It's illegal for a federal worker to raise campaign funds. The stories noted that Ickes recommended the names of tax-exempt groups, but failed to say mixing 501(c)(3) groups and partisan politics is improper.
The L.A. Times story didn't generate any follow-up on the CBS Evening News or CNN's World Today. Nor did it even prompt an initial piece on NBC Nightly News. On ABC's World News Sunday February 9, Carla Davis gave a sentence to the initial Ickes controversy, but she ended: "White House Counsel Lanny Davis told ABC News today that Ickes did nothing improper since he did not solicit the contribution, only directed it. And, Davis says, there is no indication Ickes did anything else improper at any other time."
Network audiences never learned that liberal Democrats have trampled on the tax laws that got Gingrich scolded.
