MediaWatch: January 1992
Table of Contents:
Revolving Door: On the Democratic Trail
On the Democratic Trail. Some media veterans have decided to put their talents to work on behalf of Democratic presidential candidates. Wally Chalmers, Political Editor for CBS News during the 1984 campaign, is aiding Iowa Senator Tom Harkin. Chalmers, who works for Cassidy & Associates, told MediaWatch he helped obtain donations for a fundraising dinner last fall and continues to do fundraising when he has time....
Arkansas Governor Bill Clinton is getting advice from two media veterans. Robert Shapiro, an Associate Editor of U.S. News & World Report from 1985-88, and George Stephanopoulos, who had a brief stint with CBS News. Shapiro, who was Deputy Issues Director for Michael Dukakis in 1988, is offering advice from his VP perch at the Progressive Policy Institute. Stephanopoulos was Floor Assistant to Majority Leader Dick Gephardt until becoming Clinton's Deputy Campaign Manager last fall. He served as Associate Producer for two 1985 CBS specials on the famine in Sudan.
Anita Stuffer. At the annual Christmas lunch for current and former ABC News public relations workers, Kitty Bayh brought some stocking stuffers. The Director of News Information in Washington for ABC News from 1978 to 1983 distributed pencils with the words "I Believe Her" printed on them. Before joining ABC, she spent nine years with the Democratic National Committee. "I had them printed up after the Clarence Thomas hearings, not even thinking about the William Kennedy Smith trial," Bayh told The Washington Post on December 24. Bayh realized: "I should have put `I Believe Anita' on them."
Night Moves. Deborah Leff, a Senior Producer for ABC's World News Tonight since 1989 and previously for Nightline, has taken the same title with 20/20. For the last two years of the Carter Administration, Leff was Director of Public Affairs for the Federal Trade Commission....At the end of November CBS ceased production of Nightwatch, its overnight interview show. The decision left Executive Producer Deborah Johnson without a position to return to after her maternity leave was to end in February. She ran Nightwatch since leaving NBC in 1986 where she had been Foreign Producer of the Nightly News. In 1975 she helped found the left-wing Mother Jones magazine.
JFK: The Flacker. Just before JFK opened, Frank Mankiewicz arranged a Washington public relations blitz for its left-wing director/producer/writer Oliver Stone. The President of National Public Radio from 1977 to 1983 played political favorites. Washington Post media reporter Howard Kurtz reported that Mankiewicz, a veteran of the Robert Kennedy and George McGovern presidential efforts, allowed only The McLaughlin Group's liberals into an advance screening of the movie which argues a grand right-wing conspiracy murdered President Kennedy. Jack Germond and Newsweek reporter Eleanor Clift were welcomed, but not Fred Barnes, John McLaughlin or Morton Kondracke.
