MediaWatch: January 1998
Table of Contents:
Casting the First Stone
The January 8 Nightline warned viewers of the dangers of new media outlets found on the Internet, suggesting they lacked ethics and accountability. But the show failed to note the old media elite aren’t necessarily any better.
The piece, narrated by Washington Post media critic Howard Kurtz, used cyberjournalist Matt Drudge, whom he dubbed the "poster boy for the alleged evils of the Internet," as a hook to denounce the Internet trend: "In one sense, Matt Drudge represents the triumph of the little guy, the fist-shaking critic shouting at the world through the World Wide Web."
Then, in front of a video board which showed, among others, pages from the Media Research Center Web site, Kurtz warned: "There are thousands of Drudges out there — political opinion mongers, college professors, neo-Nazis, conspiracy theorists dissecting the death of Vince Foster, or more recently, of Ron Brown. They’re all folks that have broken the stranglehold of the big media corporations. But, and you knew a but was coming, there is a down side to this vast place called cyberspace, where the normal rules often don’t seem to apply. There are lots of words floating around out there and words can wound."
As a case study, Kurtz reviewed a tip Drudge distributed claiming that White House staffer Sidney Blumenthal beat his wife. The hot tip turned out to be false. Drudge retracted the story the next day and apologized for his error. Not good enough for Kurtz: "Drudge insists he was simply reporting that anonymous Republicans were spreading the Blumenthal rumor, as if that gets him off the hook."
Not mentioned: Nightline has been reckless in its reporting — and they never apologized for it. Back in 1991, Nightline latched on to the October Surprise theory dreamed up by former Carter White House staffer Gary Sick. According to Sick, the Reagan-Bush campaign struck a deal with Iran to delay the release of the hostages until after the election. The problem? There was no evidence. But the evening news shows broadcast 27 stories on the theory in 1991. On June 20, 1991, Nightline aired an hour-long report on it. Koppel interviewed Sick, whose credibility he tried to boost by referring to him as "serious, knowledgeable, Gary Sick."
In 1993, after a long investigation, Congress exonerated the Reagan-Bush campaign. The widow of William Casey, the late CIA director, demanded an apology from Nightline. Asked about the possible apology in 1993, ABC spokeswoman Laura Wessner told MediaWatch ABC wouldn’t apologize because "the congressional committee report did not contradict what we reported on the subject."
