MediaWatch: July 1990
Table of Contents:
NewsBites: Havana on My Mind
HAVANA ON MY MIND. As the number of communists holding onto power dwindles, Fidel Castro takes on novelty status. You'd think someone with the opportunity to interview him would ask if he ever plans to give Cubans freedom. But not CNN owner Ted Turner when he traveled to Cuba to interview the dean of the dictators.
The June 25 hour-long special must have had even CNN interns wincing at the interviewing methods of their boss. The fawning Turner read his questions from cue cards and offered no follow- ups to the long-winded propaganda Castro offered in response. Among the whiffle-ball questions Turner posed: "In the United States we hear that there are severe economic problems in Cuba. Is this true?" and, "I know this is a difficult question, but Cuba has been accused in the past years of being involved in the drug trafficking business. How would you like to answer that statement?" And the question on everybody's mind: "Mr. President, would you please tell us your perspective of the U.S. government's attempts to block the televising of the Pan Am Games in the United States?"
JABBING AT JESSE. In the June 18 Time, Senior Writer Ed Magnuson eagerly told the people of North Carolina how they should view Jesse Helms' and Harvey Gantt's campaigns for the Senate: "North Carolina seems in the grip of political schizophrenia. The calm and articulate Gantt, a former two-term mayor of Charlotte, may appeal to the progressive voters who gave the state a reputation for moderation....The tart-tongued Helms, on the other hand, has won three terms by pushing hot-button hard-right issues -- pornography, school prayer, busing -- among whites in more rural parts of the state....[Gantt] is a far cry from Helms' description of him as 'Jesse Jackson's candidate.'"
NBC's Andrea Mitchell chimed in June 24, declaring: "North Carolina is changing. Many voters say they worry more about the economy, the environment, things that affect their daily lives, instead of fighting homosexuality or communism." Mitchell predicted a Helms loss, citing two people who declared, "I think Jesse is out of pace with what the needs are," and, "I just think Jesse Helms has gotten out of control. He's just a little too prejudiced and I don't think his opinions really reflect what the average person is thinking." But then, that's what we've been saying about the media.
NOT CZECHING UP ON GORBACHEV. Reporters have credited Mikhail Gorbachev for the changes in Eastern Europe. Recent revelations by Britain's BBC-2 on the Czechoslovakian revolution, however, dash Gorbachev's 'liberator' image. According to a May 29 story, Gorbachev hoped to manipulate the revolution to install a communist ally, not give people their freedom.
The KGB and Czech secret police (STB) plotted to "install Zdenek Mlynar as party leader. Mlynar had been a close friend of Mikhail Gorbachev when the pair were law students in Moscow....The failed plot also involved the faking of a death at the hands of riot police, the framing of leading dissidents and manipulation of Western media." In fact, the dead student was an STB lieutenant.
A June 7 CBS story by Tom Fenton was the only coverage the story received on the U.S. evening news. Fenton passed on some of the basics of the BBC story, but then turned to the downside of freedom. Fenton noted the "Introduction of a market economy is bringing price increases and unemployment. But the most alarming change is a sudden wave of violent crime...Czechoslovakia has won its freedom, but it's no longer safe to walk in Wenceslas Square at night."
MOURNING UTOPIA'S PASSING. More reporters than Fenton are grumbling over the end of the communist welfare state in Eastern Europe. "East Germany provides what may be the world's most extensive family services system. It includes abortion on demand and free day care centers for children, enabling eighty percent of East German women to work," CBS reporter Allen Pizzey declared on June 16, "Reunification threatens more than the economic security of East German women. It could also mean an end to their legal right to free, easy abortions."
NBC's Mike Boettcher also worried about a reunified Germany. During a June 26 story, Boettcher claimed that "East German women who simply had to line up to receive abortion on demand are afraid West Germany's tough regulations on abortion will be imposed on them after reunification." Boettcher also found a metaphor for East Germany's post-communist fate in the story of one state circus: "Even the lion tamer is scared that this state supported circus won't survive in the free market....A new ringmaster is demanding that East Germans learn a new act. The lion tamer says he might have to sell his animals if the circus doesn't make a profit. Even such a brave man weeps at the prospect of failure. Under the new German big top, only the strongest will survive."
REPUBLICANS SHOULD CRY WOLF. In the midst of his Capitol Hill duties, USA Today reporter Richard Wolf has written a number of puff pieces on congressional Democrats, completely devoid of criticism. Compared with just two articles on Republicans, the Democratic barrage has been overwhelming: since February 20, recipients of his gifts have included Sen. Ernest Hollings, Speaker Thomas Foley, Rep. Leon Panetta, Rep. Dan Rostenkowski (twice), and deposed House Speaker Jim Wright.
The editor of the congressional section, Bob Minzesheimer, ventured that the imbalance was caused by the Democrats' majority in Congress and their subsequent control of the legislative process. But that doesn't explain the lofty praise given lesser figures as Rep. Mike Espy, Rep. Ron Dellums, and Rep. James Traficant, all liberals profiled in Wolf articles.
Despite their reputation for loving tax hikes and unending spending, liberals were never subjected to any questioning. Rostenkowski was the "nation's top elected tax expert," Hollings a "tart-tongued truth-sayer," Foley full of "integrity and bipartisan comity," while the disgraced Wright was "still bringing home the bacon to (his) Texas district." Moving even further left, Wolf claimed on March 15 that "it took twenty years for the world to come Ronald Dellums's way," emerging "in 1990 as a principle player on defense policy." The Democratic National Committee must be proud.
PERIL AND POMPOSITY. Once anchor of NBC Nightly News, John Chancellor now offers his opinions thrice weekly. His commentaries have recently been distilled into a book on what's wrong with America, Peril and Promise.
So what's wrong? The deficit, which he attributed to a Reagan recipe of "big tax cuts, big increases in defense spending, and a hair curling recession." Pardoned from blame: congressional mismanagement. And though federal revenues went up swiftly in the '80s, Chancellor remembered only that "cuts in taxes and domestic spending resulted in the first redistribution of income in favor of the affluent since the 1920s and a reduction of the federal government's obligation to the poor." Another Reagan error was the Grenada liberation which Chancellor called "a sham triumph," a "tragicomedy," which "might not have been necessary."
Chancellor harped on America's faults for 130 pages, but dedicated fewer than 40 pages to suggesting solutions. He called his remedies to America's woes neither conservative nor liberal, yet higher taxes remained the pillar of his plan. Another major objective: mobilization of a national corps of volunteers because "The poor and disadvantaged need help, especially after the cutbacks in social services during the Reagan years."
NPR & NICARAGUA. National Public Radio President Douglas Bennet, who was Director of the Agency for International Development under Jimmy Carter, recently appointed long-time foreign correspondent Bill Buzenberg the new Vice President for news and information. In a 1983 Christian Science Monitor opinion piece, Buzenberg urged Secretary of State Shultz to "reassess seriously U.S. policies for all of Central America." The man now in charge of news content for all NPR shows, claimed Reagan's support of the Contras "has proved counter-productive, rallying support for the central Sandinista government."
By emphasizing "military solutions to what are essentially political, social, and economic problems," Buzenberg complained, "the administration has been slow in recognizing the more immediate threat from the right in countries such as El Salvador and Guatemala."
0'BRIEN'S ODE. For liberals, the Iran-Contra affair represents yet another Republican conspiracy to subvert the Constitution, while conservatives consider the investigation a blatant political move to undermine a conservative presidential policy. But when Admiral John Poindexter faced sentencing last month, Tim O'Brien, ABC's law correspondent, didn't make any pretense of giving the two viewpoints equal weight.
In a June 11 Good Morning America piece predicting what sentence Poindexter might receive, O'Brien brushed over (in 14 seconds) the defense's arguments against jail time. O'Brien then spent 33 seconds reading excerpts from prosecutor Lawrence Walsh's diatribe alleging that Poindexter's "diet of lies" threatened our constitutional system. "It's now up to Judge Greene to balance the arguments on both sides," O'Brien said, an ironic statement coming just after his own imbalanced coverage.
His conclusion sounded more like a lecture than a news report, asking that Judge Greene find "what punishment it will take to teach a lesson about abuse of power, to John Poindexter, to those who follow him in the corridors of the White House."
POTTER'S PUBLICITY SERVICE. CBS News reporter Deborah Potter sounded like press secretary for the liberal Children's Defense Fund in her report on their Washington protest June 24. Anchor Richard Schlesinger reported "hundreds" gathered to protest "the slow progress in curing a social ailment, inadequate child care." Potter played the publicist, giving two soundbites to CDF chief Marian Wright Edelman, one to liberal Rep. Connie Morella (R-MD), and two to working moms complaining about the cost of day care.
Potter didn't air anyone who opposed federal child care programs or offered alternatives. Instead, she placed the responsibility for child care not on parents, but on the government: "Now that school is out for the summer, the need for child care is even more critical for many working parents. But Congress is debating, so families are still waiting."
RAMPANT REVISIONISM. Restoring the historical reputations of Carter and Mondale isn't easy work, but some reporters still try. On the June 21 CBS This Morning reporter Hattie Kauffman gave it a shot. "There is a new chorus of praise for former President Jimmy Carter," Kauffman proclaimed, "His pace and purpose a marked contrast to other former Presidents." Carter wasn't shy about his record: "When I go to Asia, Latin America, Africa or you know, Egypt, and so forth, I'm kind of a hero." Carter added, "I'm very grateful now to President Bush and Secretary Baker, because they have treated me with friendship and with the proper level of respect," unlike Reagan, he complained. Kauffman gushed: "It just may be Jimmy Carter has found his true calling out of office, where values count for more than votes and where the results of a hard day's work are tangible."
On ABC's 20/20, Hugh Downs came to Walter Mondale's defense on June 22. "But the man we most seem to remember as a loser had a long and brilliant political career," he declared. "In 1966, he was elected to the United States Senate and became a champion of the working man, the poor, and the disenfranchised...Mondale remains forever the quintessentially good man."
CARPING AT THE CARDINAL. For a group so adamant about the separation of church and state, reporters are having a hard time separating the two when they cover America's Catholic Church. When Cardinal O'Connor declared that pro-choice politicians can be excommunicated by their bishops, Newsweek found he "succeeded only in stiffening the necks of New Yorkers who find his style abrasive and consider his speaking out on abortion politically intrusive." Media bigwigs weren't so worried about church involvement in politics when segregationist Leander Perez was excommunicated in 1962, not to mention the bishops' wading into politics on nuclear weapons and American capitalism during the 1980s.
On June 27, CBS reporter Richard Threlkeld implied the Church should make its teaching by conducting polls: "A lot of Americans feel Rome is behind the times. The Vatican remains adamantly opposed to women priests, birth control, and divorce, despite the expressed feelings of most Catholics."
Threlkeld concluded with the dire warning: "By insisting on discipline rather than dialogue, the Vatican runs the risk of creating a whole new generation of displaced persons in the pews: frustrated American Catholics who will first stop giving to their church, then just stop going."
ANOTHER NEA HURRAY. Following on the heels of Time art critic Robert Hughes' blatant advocacy of the National Endowment for the Arts [See last month's Janet Cooke Award], Newsweek Senior Writer Tom Mathews struck many of the same chords in a July 2 cover story on "Art of Obscenity?" Matthews blamed the furor not on tasteless artists, but on desperate conservatives: "What the artbusters have been looking for is a hot issue and some quick victories. The Red menace is not what it used to be, Ronald Reagan is gone, ultraconservatives cannot rely upon George Bush to uphold their righter-than-thou social agenda."
Mathews also found it necessary to advocate subsidized culture: "For the same reason the government supports health, education, and science, it makes sense for it to support the arts. The total budget for the NEA last year ($171 million) was $22 million less than the Pentagon spent to keep the oompah in the country's military bands ($193 million). It would be a pity if everyone got so lathered up about obscenity, real or in the eye of the beholder, that this pittance seemed too much." Funny how $100 million in aid to the Contras was never a "pittance" like this.
ANOTHER ARTS PATRON. Followers of the NEA story and media philanthropy should consult the July Spy magazine for a list of the sponsors of "performance artist" Annie Sprinkle. At her performance in New York, the porn star asked the audience to yell "nipple, nipple" and then come up and view her cervix. Among the list of Sprinkle supporters: the New York Times Company Foundation.
