MediaWatch: February 1998
Table of Contents:
- MediaWatch: February 1998
- Enlisting in White House War on Starr
- NewsBites: Who Set the Sex Precedent?
- The Monica Story's First Casualty
- Editors Realize Liberal Slant
NewsBites: Who Set the Sex Precedent?
Who Set the Sex Precedent? One line of complaint against Ken Starr focuses on his supposedly improper interest in Clinton’s sex life. Last year when The Washington Post revealed his questions about women who may have had relationships with Clinton in an effort to learn with whom he may have confided information, much of the media condemned Starr. NBC Today co-host Matt Lauer opened a June 26 interview of Paula Jones adviser Susan Carpenter-McMillan with this out of the White House playbook: "The fact that this line of questioning from Whitewater investigators has turned personal to the President’s, or then- Governor’s sex life, does it show you that this investigation is desperate?"
But while George Bush drew media fire for going around prosecutor Lawrence Walsh and pardoning six Iran-Contra figures, the media ignored one now-relevant angle: Evans and Novak reported in 1992 that former Pentagon spokesman Henry Catto said James Brosnahan, the attorney prosecuting ex-Defense Secretary Caspar Weinberger for Walsh, asked him whether Weinberger had an extramarital affair. Catto believed Walsh wished to "denigrate Weinberger’s character" before a jury, but the networks ignored this story of improper conduct.
Believe a Felon First. Last October, Dateline NBC ran a two-part profile of convicted Whitewater felon Susan McDougal that casually laid out how she and her mother equated Ken Starr with the Gestapo. Dateline provided McDougal with another opportunity on February 3 to air her gripes about Starr. This time, she claimed Starr’s effort to get Lewinsky to tell about sex with Clinton mimics alleged attempts to get her to lie about sex with Clinton.
Stone Phillips let McDougal claim Clinton is just a misunderstood flirt, someone who "loves people." Then Phillips gave McDougal time to claim that Lewinsky is simply Starr’s latest attempt to smear Clinton with a false sex tale: "A new turn? Maybe not. Susan McDougal claims two years ago before she went to jail, another Whitewater figure who had been meeting with Starr’s staff to cut a deal for leniency paid her a visit." Susan claimed ex-husband and co-conspirator Jim McDougal told her to get leniency by telling Starr she had an affair with Clinton. Phillips let Starr’s office deny the story, but added: "McDougal says the current investigation is about prying into people’s sex lives. Reaching into the gutter." Phillips never noted McDougal’s a convicted felon because a jury believed Starr, instead of her, about who lied about Whitewater.
Jodi Cuts Flowers. Despite being an alleged poster girl for media overcoverage in 1992, Gennifer Flowers was never granted a network interview — until the January 25, 1998 Today show, after news reports suggested Bill Clinton told Paula Jones’ lawyers he did have an affair with Flowers. Weekend anchor Jodi Applegate picked a catfight with Flowers by insisting that her audio tapes of phone calls with Clinton were doctored: "There were experts who listened to your tapes of yourself and President Clinton who said they had been edited at least somewhat. Given that all of these are still only allegations against the President, why should people believe you now, even still?"
Flowers replied: "Well in the first place he admits that the relationship took place, so I mean the truth is out." Applegate snapped: "According to The Washington Post." Flowers added: "But let’s get something very straight once and for all. The tapes were never altered or edited in any way. I have documents to verify that. And I’m getting real tired of the James Carvilles and the Dee Dee Myers out there continue to spin and lie and accuse me of that." Applegate kept insisting an audio lab found gaps. Last year, she wasn’t so tough, asking Tim Russert about the admission of a drug dealer to White House fundraisers and the collection of a half-million dollars in phony jobs for Clinton crony Webster Hubbell: "It may not look good, but is there any proof that anything was done wrong?"
Lucianne’s Limited Life Story. Literary agent Lucianne Goldberg, the much-maligned figure who urged Linda Tripp to tape the potentially Clinton-crumbling phone calls with Monica Lewinsky, was quickly pegged as a Republican operative. But was that the whole story? On January 26, Dan Rather announced: "With facts, accuracy and fairness always as our guideposts, we’re trying to dig deep as part of our coverage of the White House under fire. As part of that, we’ve taken a closer look for you at the link between the two people who ignited this story: Linda Tripp, the former Bush and then Clinton White House aide, who betrayed, by secretly taping, her friend Monica Lewinsky. And Lucianne Goldberg, the one-time Nixon campaign dirty trickster who got Tripp to do the taping. As CBS’s Wyatt Andrews reports, the motive, at least some of it, may have been financial."
But two days earlier, The Washington Post reported: "This is not the first time Goldberg has been involved in presidential politics. She worked for Lyndon Johnson during the 1960 presidential campaign. ‘When you’re tall, thin, blond and have big boobs, you can have any job you want,’ she told People magazine in 1992. She later worked for President Kennedy’s speechwriting staff."
So much for Dan Rather’s "guideposts" of accuracy. CNN also decided to selectively cite her resume. On the February 1 Impact, Kathy Slobogin stressed only her "conservative track record," such as working in "Nixon’s dirty tricks campaign."
Couldn’t Buy a Crystal Ball. Bill Clinton’s media defenders were optimistic as President Clinton was deposed January 17 in the Paula Jones case, but their predictions have come back to haunt them. On CNBC’s Equal Time on January 15, six days before Monicagate broke on January 21, Chicago Sun-Times Washington Bureau Chief Lynn Sweet claimed: "He has had so many bad days and then the President bounces back. He’s at sixty-something percent in approval ratings. And unless there’s some bombshell that leaks out of this thing, it won’t. You know and I don’t see how this is going to have any bigger effect on the bigger picture here.... It’s a bad day. And no President has had to sit for a sworn deposition like this before but, you know, look at what this guy has weathered so far."
Wall Street Journal Executive Washington Editor Al Hunt sneered at the Jones case’s presidential impact on CNN’s Capital Gang January 17, four days before the deposition led to the Lewinsky eruption: "I don’t think it portends much for Bill Clinton. I sort of disagree with Kate [O’Beirne] on that. You know, I think they’re — instead of battling Clinton on the substantive issues, there are some right-wing activists who keep thinking this sleaze issue will be the magic wand for them. It hasn’t worked before and it’s not going to work now. And the reason that the American people don’t much believe Paula Jones and don’t much like Paula Jones. She has become, I think, a pitiful pawn of some right-wing activists."
