MediaWatch: January 1997
Table of Contents:
Paula Jones in Reverse
The media largely dismissed the credibility of Paula Jones when she announced her sexual harassment lawsuit against President Clinton in 1994. When Clinton's effort to delay the case went before the Supreme Court January 13, however, some acknowledged their misjudgment.
"Yes, the case is being fomented by right-wing nuts, and yes, she is not a very credible witness, and it's really not a law case at all...some sleazy woman with big hair coming out of the trailer parks...I think she's a dubious witness, I really do," proclaimed Newsweek's Evan Thomas on Inside Washington in 1994. Almost three years later he wrote "Americans who dismiss Paula Jones as a tawdry sideshow may be in for a surprise."
Why the change? Reporters credited the work of Stuart Taylor who reviewed the Jones complaint in the November American Lawyer. He found the case valid and her evidence credible. But the same reporters, including Thomas who wrote "Taylor's article was widely read in newsrooms and editors' offices, including those at Newsweek," didn't report on the article when first published in late October.
On the January 13 CBS Evening News reporter Rita Braver explained that "It was the women's vote that clinched the presidency for Bill Clinton...So the charges made by Paula Corbin Jones go straight to the heart of who Bill Clinton is," before noting "but last fall, in a groundbreaking article, respected law reporter Stuart Taylor tracked down several new witnesses whose testimony persuaded him that Jones was probably telling the truth." Still, CBS waited ten weeks to inform viewers this proof existed.
NBC's Jim Miklaszewski reported that Taylor, in a conclusion NBC waited two and a half months to report, determined the Jones case is "even stronger than Anita Hill's."
Newsweek's Thomas issued his mea culpa in the January 13 edition: "Arguably, the main reason more people don't take her story seriously is that the mainstream media have been skillfully spun by the White House and Clinton's lawyers. By playing on the class and partisan prejudices of reporters, as well as their squeamishness and ambivalence about printing stories about the sex lives of politicians, Clinton's operatives have done a brilliant job of discrediting Paula Jones and her case."
