MediaWatch: January 1996
Table of Contents:
- MediaWatch: January 1996
- Same Liberal Song, Second Verse
- NewsBites: The Silent Veto
- Revolving Door: If You Cant Boost 'Em
- The Shutdown Soap Opera
- Today Gushes Over Hillary
- Nightline's True Story
- Brinkley Agrees Media are Liberal Paula Zahn is "Overloaded"
- Janet Cooke Award: Newt Gingrich, Political Liability
Revolving Door: If You Cant Boost 'Em
Just weeks after writing a piece for The New Republic denouncing Republican efforts to shut down AmeriCorps, Newsweek Deputy Washington Bureau Chief Steven Waldman decided he could do more good helping run the government program than he could as an external advocate. In mid-January he became senior adviser for policy planning and evaluation for former Senator Harris Wofford (D-Penn.), the new Chief Executive Officer of the Corporation for National Service, overseer of AmeriCorps and VISTA.
Waldman "explained that the program's recent change in leadership convinced him that the move would be ethical even though he's written extensively about the program," National Journal reported.
"Republican attacks on AmeriCorps have been bizarrely hyperbolic," Waldman charged in the November 13 New Republic. "The GOP has also practiced gross statistics-abuse in order to portray AmeriCorps, inaccurately, as a boondoggle." He predicted that "when Republicans calm down and start picking bits of safety net from their teeth, they will undoubtedly feel silly. They will realize that AmeriCorps -- which gives college scholarships to young men and women who do full-time community service -- was the solution to their dilemma of how to dismantle the welfare state without seeming cruel."
Earlier in 1995 Waldman, part of Newsweek's Washington bureau since 1987, wrote The Bill, a book detailing the creation of AmeriCorps. It grew out of a "behind-the-scenes" look at the program for the September 20, 1993 Newsweek, in which he concluded: "John F. Kennedy attracted to his Peace Corps a narrow group of mostly white, well-educated Americans. Clinton's plan is far more ambitious, seeking to regenerate fragmented American communities and break down rock-hard barriers of the heart. Because Clinton must confront the emotional issues of race and class, he is more likely to fail. But should he succeed, Clinton will have accomplished something far more significant than his hero ever did."
AmeriCorps is hardly the only area in which Waldman has been a liberal advocate. He co-authored a September 19, 1994 piece headlined, "The Lost Chance" with the subhead, "The Clintons: Newsweek reveals how they set out to reform a broken health care system -- and squandered a historic opportunity." One impediment: those who spent money "on blatantly untrue advertisements meant to scare the public."
A few issues later his byline accompanied a story on the Contract with America: "The problem is that the Contract's main idea has already been tried and discredited. House Republicans are now pledged to tax cuts, increased defense spending, and a constitutional amendment to balance the budget. Sound familiar? `This was a dopey political move,' [Rep. Fred] Grandy says. `We were holding the high ground on welfare, foreign policy, so why would we go back and shoosh down the Laffer Curve? This is like giving the Democrats a nuclear weapon.'"
Being Frank
A CNN veteran is the new Deputy Press Secretary to Senator Frank Lautenberg. Ken Jaques, an off-air reporter in the CNN political unit from 1992 to 1994, has come aboard the New Jersey Democrat's staff, Roll Call reported December 21.
