MediaWatch: February 1997
Table of Contents:
ABC Refuses to Debate Accuracy
Fighting Food Lion
ABC devoted the entire February 12 Prime Time Live (PTL) and a 90-minute Viewpoint to the Food Lion verdict resulting from a 1992 undercover look inside the grocery chain. But ABC avoided exploring its accuracy and only briefly touched on the issues examined by a North Carolina jury which awarded the chain $5.5 million in punitive damages for ABC's deception and fraud to get jobs in the stores that they failed to perform.
Instead, ABC focused on hidden cameras. Diane Sawyer opened PTL by portraying them as a guard against the triumph of evil. Intermixed with clips from previous shows, Sawyer asked: "Should we have used hidden cameras to track crooked car repairmen?...Is it spying? Is it lying? Is it right or wrong? This is footage of kids packing guns. Would you use hidden cameras this way? What if you heard some fast food restaurants were unsanitary? What if the mentally ill were being neglected, or children were being abused?"
Sawyer showed part of the 1992 Food Lion piece, including segments in dispute, and then talked with some jurors. Two had since seen PTL's story. "We wondered if it changed anyone's mind." One juror replied: "If I could have considered the broadcast, it probably would have changed my mind a bit in favor of ABC." But another juror was unconvinced.
Food Lion's Chris Ahearn got two minutes for rebuttal. She said PTL's story "was not true, and it wasn't good journalism. We know this because Food Lion has the 45 hours of hidden camera footage ABC shot in our stores. This footage shows that Prime Time Live staged scenes, violated our store policies and then deceptively edited the tapes."
An opportunity for some fascinating TV? ABC had time to show the PTL piece and Food Lion's video which showed how ABC inaccurately described several of the scenes. But Food Lion did not counter some other clips. So do they concede those scenes of food mishandling were accurate? How does ABC defend their editing or do they believe Food Lion's tape employed misleading editing?
Viewers will never know. ABC refused to consider that the story was anything less than perfect. When former Senator Alan Simpson noted on Viewpoint that the media have an "abhorrence of ever saying anything more than that marvelous phrase, we stick by our story," ABC News President Roone Arledge shot back: "Not true." But minutes later Arledge maintained: "The fact of the matter is the broadcast was true." On PTL, ABC chief David Westin declared: "We stand by the truth and integrity of our Food Lion report." Ahearn asked "Who is watching journalists?" Ted Koppel replied: "Journalists are watching journalists." But when another journalistic enterprise gave voice to Food Lion's side, ABC condemned them. On the day of the punitive verdict, Jan. 22, Fox News Channel ran Food Lion's video of clips from ABC's original footage. Westin was steamed: "I find it outrageously unfair that a news organization would proceed that way."
