MediaWatch: July 1991
Table of Contents:
- MediaWatch: July 1991
- Double Standard For Sununu
- NewsBites: Touting Tito
- Revolving Door: Democratic Convention Control
- Marshall Loss, Thomas Gain Seen as Twin Threats
- Liberals Admit Media Errors
- Janet Cooke Award: ABC: Children's Crusade
Marshall Loss, Thomas Gain Seen as Twin Threats
THE RIGHT AGAINST "RIGHTS"?
The resignation of Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall, the last of the Warren Court's unelected legislators, caused the media to wax nostalgic about the good old days of liberal rule by judicial fiat. Marshall was hailed as "legendary," a "legal giant," and a "fabled torch-bearer for civil rights."
Reporters voiced almost unanimous concern over the fate of "individual rights" and the twin threats posed by Marshall's loss and the nomination of a conservative, Appeals Court Judge Clarence Thomas. Conservatives would argue liberal justices like Marshall violated individual rights -- the rights of crime victims, of the unborn, and to do what you wish with your property, to say nothing about the aggrandizement of government regulatory powers. These rights were left unaddressed.
Anchoring the June 27 CBS Evening News, Charles Kuralt reported that "Justice Marshall, the sturdy old champion of individual rights, has grown increasingly lonely as a member of the dwindling liberal minority." The next day Christian Science Monitor staff writer Marshall Ingwerson concurred: "In practical terms, the Supreme Court's conservative bloc has already consolidated its majority in most areas of the law...Its effort to roll back some of the great expansions of individual rights under the Warren Court in the 1960s is well under way."
In a June 29 CBS Evening News commentary, Bruce Morton chastised the Court's "nanny conservatism," charging: "The Rehnquist Court is much more concerned with the rights of government, the state, authority. Government can tell the difference between good and evil in this philosophy and should encourage the one and forbid the other."
Thomas' nomination forced each network to air at least one story discussing the existence of black conservatives, and allowed several of them to challenge the mournings of the traditional liberal "civil rights" leadership. The nomination's impact on abortion, however, did not receive such balance. CBS reporter Rita Braver announced on July 1: "The thing that has most people worried, though, is the statement he once made about what are called unenumerated rights, the things like abortion that are not specifically mentioned in the Constitution." But "most people" voted for Bush, who supported judicial restraint.
The next day, CBS This Morning brought on Planned Parenthood's Faye Wattleton. A day later Today devoted a segment to Kate Michelman of the National Abortion Rights Action League. On July 6 NBC Nightly News granted an unusual live interview to NOW Vice President Patricia Ireland. Where were interviews with their pro-life opponents? Nowhere.
