MediaWatch: January 1996

Janet Cooke Award: Newt Gingrich, Political Liability

Time selects its Man of the Year not by picking its favorite person, but the person with the most historical impact in that given year. In 1995, certainly, Newt Gingrich had a powerful impact on America's political debate. But that didn't mean Time had to like him -- and neither did CNN in producing a December 17 CNN Presents to announce the pick. For maligning the Speaker as a politically damaged and morally questionable figure after celebrating Time's choice of Bill Clinton in 1992, CNN earned the Janet Cooke Award.

CNN split its show between interviews with Gingrich and documentary segments. In the first segment, host Judy Woodruff used loaded language to describe Gingrich's "Path to Power," calling his ambition to be Speaker "An obsession that shaped almost every decision, every alliance, what some saw as every betrayal on his path to power." Woodruff relayed a rumor about Gingrich's first wife, Jackie: "It has become part of the Gingrich legend that he would later go to her hospital room where she was being treated for cancer to discuss a divorce."

Woodruff described how Gingrich first came to the capital's attention: "In late-night tirades on C-SPAN, he needled then-House Speaker Tip O'Neill, painting ruling Democrats as corrupt thugs." Woodruff called him "a clown prince of an out-of-favor group." She concluded: "His self-ordained mission to save Western civilization is becoming overshadowed by a barrage of accusations that the most powerful Speaker in history illegally used political money." While CNN followed with Rep. David Bonior charging Gingrich's ethics are "in the toilet," Woodruff did not explain any of the charges, most of which were dismissed by the House ethics committee days later.

Another segment, titled "Homefront," explored Gingrich's hold on his constituency in Georgia: "Cobb County -- the soul of Newt country, Republican, white, well-educated, and affluent. The man who would wield the federal budget ax represents a county that exploded into suburban sprawl because of billions of federal dollars. Unemployment is low here, at 3.4 percent. It's well below the national average. And only a scant five percent of Cobb's population is on public assistance. The social fallout of the Contract with America if it passes will have little consequence here, but those hit will be hit hard."

CNN talked mostly to social service providers, liberal activists, and projected victims: "For the Hogan family, some cutbacks are the wrong thing to do. Daughter Kimberly, disabled from birth, has spent most of her life in a hospital. Thanks to Medicaid, this year has been different." Protesters held up signs reading "Newt: Your Plan Will Kill Us."

These documentary segments were heavily salted with Gingrich opponents: "The Path to Power" featured five negative talking heads (including three from Rep. Pat Schroeder and one of Bonior) to only three positive. "Homefront" featured twelve anti-Gingrich soundbites to four defenders. A segment called "Report Card" focusing on his future balanced the talking heads six to six, which included Bonior predicting that Gingrich's ethics problems were "so severe" he wouldn't be in office much longer.

If that hostility weren't enough, there were Woodruff's interview questions to the Speaker: "There's something we saw that was kind of interesting, the latest CNN-Time poll, they asked people what they thought about you and a lot of people said, most people said, very intelligent. A number of them said he has a vision for the future, but they also said -- a large number of those same people said, and I thought this was interesting, they agreed you were too extreme, 66 percent -- and out of touch, 52 percent, and even scary 49 percent. Where does that come from?"

When Gingrich suggested that things like being portrayed as Scrooge on the cover of Time didn't help, Woodruff replied: "But there's also been, in addition to that, what many people look at as the effect of the Republican budget cuts, and most of the people -- what they see is that most people, according to the studies we've seen, who would lose under the combined budget cuts and tax changes are the very poorest Americans, and people have a hard time understanding that."

Gingrich challenged that spin, but Woodruff reacted: "The study I'm referring to came out I think in the last week or so, by the Urban Institute, highly respected group, supposed to be nonpartisan -- and they set aside Medicaid and Medicare, they just looked at the budget cuts separate from Medicare and Medicaid and tax changes, and their conclusion was that the families that would lose under the Republican plan, two-thirds are in the poorest fifth of the population." The Urban Institute has often disseminated research that concludes with the need for more federal social spending.

Woodruff concluded the program with a decidedly negative spin: "He couldn't have envisioned the blizzard of ethics charges or the stir his fits of pique would cause. Now that they've gotten to know him, more than half of all Americans say they don't like him. More than half say they don't trust him. The irony is that Time's Man of the Year may wind up the biggest liability to the revolution he launched."

This program was a 180-degree change from the show CNN aired on December 26, 1992, when Bill Clinton was named Time's Man of the Year. The 30-minute show featured at least 18 positive talking heads, including Clintonites Robert Reich, Ron Brown, Dee Dee Myers, and Betsey Wright, Democratic Reps. Tom Foley and Lee Hamilton, Democratic consultant Bob Squier, and black academic Henry Louis Gates. Only one soundbite from conservative Arkansas editorialist Paul Greenberg offered any balance.

The narration by CNN's Lou Waters and Natalie Allen said nothing about Clinton's troubled private life, nothing about ethics, nothing about overweening ambition. Allen began the show with a quotation: "He was not born a king, but a child of the common people who made himself a great persuader, therefore, a leader by dint of firm resolve, patient effort, and dogged perseverance." Chimed in Waters: "The words were written by Horace Greeley a century ago to describe Abraham Lincoln. They apply as well to this persevering young man from Arkansas, now leader of the Free World." Allen continued: "The election of 1992 was a leap of faith in a sour and unpredictable year. American voters were angry and disgusted and often afraid of the future. They took an enormous risk and made a fascinating choice."

CNN prepared a response to MediaWatch questions, but it did not arrive by press time. It will appear next month. CNN may have contributed to the effect its polls have noticed: viewers were instructed that the Speaker was politically extreme, even scary, while Clinton was Honest Abe.

Featured Posts

Bozell Slams Hillary’s Shills in Media: ‘They Are Covering for’ Her

Get the Latest News From CNSNews

Get the Latest Media Analysis on NewsBusters