MediaWatch: January 1993
Table of Contents:
- MediaWatch: January 1993
- No Liberal Labels for Redistributionists
- NewsBites: Holiday Homeless Hype
- Revolving Door: Schram's Spin
- Networks Predictably Erupt Over Iran-Contra Pardons
- 20/20 Host Slashes at GOP
- Cummins on Crime
- Not Enough Details on Iran-Contra, But "Bastards" Kept Honest on Ads
- Janet Cooke Award: Time's Lance Morrow, Margaret Carlson Promote the Clintons
Revolving Door: Schram's Spin
The cover of Mandate for Change, the Progressive Policy Institute's (PPI) book of policy recommendations for the Clinton Administration, lists two editors: Will Marshall and Martin Schram.
Marshall's no surprise since he's President of PPI. But Schram's a long-time Washington journalist. Schram was Washington Bureau Chief of Newsday until becoming a Washington Post political reporter in 1979. Leaving the Post after the 1984 race, Schram has kept busy as a CNN analyst and syndicated columnist.
In an early January column, he wrote: "Today's sorry spectacle finds our 41st President, George Bush, veritably piling the furniture against the Oval Office door, seeming desperate to prevent the truth from getting out to us, in what looms as his special Iran-Contratemps."
The book from PPI, known as the Democratic Leadership Council's think tank, carries an endorsement from Bill Clinton claiming it "charts a bold course for reviving progressive government in America." Among the contributors edited by Schram, PPI Vice President Robert Shapiro, a U.S. News & World Report Associate Editor in the mid-1980s.
Nessen's New Nest
After a decade as Vice President for News with the Mutual Broadcasting System, Ron Nessen left the radio network late last year. He's now the Vice President for Public Affairs at the Cellular Telecommunications Industry Association, the lobbyist for cellular phone companies. Nessen served President Ford as Press Secretary.
Smith Swept Out
Dorrance Smith, an ABC News producer during the 1980s who joined the Bush White House in 1991, plans to create his own post- Inauguration day job. The Assistant to the President for media affairs will join with White House counsel C. Boyden Gray to form "a television production company that will produce and syndicate programming to cable stations," The Washington Post reported. Smith was Executive Producer of This Week with David Brinkley until taking the same title with Nightline in late 1989.
Mass Movement to Begin
As MediaWatch goes to press in mid-January no members of major media outlets have joined the first Democratic administration in 12 years. But that won't last long. The Washington Post has already begun speculating about several likely revolvers. The January 7 Post "Transition" column suggested National Public Radio President Douglas Bennet who "ran the Agency for International Development in the Carter Administration, is likely to return as Assistant Secretary in charge of international organizations, although he also could replace former Attorney General Dick Thornburgh as United Nations Undersecretary."
The next day the Post reported that former Time Washington Bureau Chief Strobe Talbott who was "Clinton's Rhodes scholar roommate, husband of Hillary friend and transition aide Brooke Shearer and brother-in-law of Clinton economic adviser Derek Shearer," is not taking an expected position at Time Warner. "There has been discussion of Talbott as Deputy Director of intelligence at the CIA, Ambassador to Russia or most likely in a job as Senior Adviser to Warren Christopher at the State Department," wrote the Post's Al Kamen.
