MediaWatch: July 1992
Table of Contents:
- MediaWatch: July 1992
- Media Money Funds Democrats
- NewsBites: The Wrong Rights
- Revolving Door: Special Report: Democrats Covering Democrats
- Networks Decry Difficulties for Teens Seeking Abortions
- Style Triumphs Over Substance of Summit
- Bored By KGB Archives
- Clinton's Media Fans
- Janet Cooke Award: CBS: Blind "Eye of the Earth"
Bored By KGB Archives
GORBY GETS OFF
During a June 17 press conference, NBC's John Cochran asked Boris Yeltsin why Mikhail Gorbachev had never mentioned American POWs. The Russian President responded: "You have had a chance to ask this question of the former president of the former Soviet Union, why he kept this a secret." Reporters still have no interest in searching out the truth about Gorbachev's reign.
Several million documents of the former Soviet Communist Party and government have been released to the public. Rather than investigate these documents, reporters downplayed their importance, and even ridiculed the Yeltsin government for releasing them. On the May 26 CBS This Morning, reporter Jonathan Sanders began: "It seems like a scene out of a very bad, very old spy movie or the rantings of some right-wing American politician, but it's government officials here who say that they have proof that the Communist Party provided money and arms to international terrorist organizations."
On the June 20 NBC Nightly News, Bob Abernethy reported that the files revealed official ties to terrorism and the Chernobyl disaster, but suggested: "explosive revelations, real 'smoking guns' -- they probably never will be disclosed." Abernethy charged: "For Yeltsin, if old files embarrass his critic and possible rival Mikhail Gorbachev, all the better. "
Yeltsin brought 300 declassified KGB documents for exhibition at the Library of Congress. A Library spokesman told MediaWatch most of the print media attended a news conference opening the exhibit, but the network news crews were all absent. Only ABC's Good Morning America did anything, airing a Joan Lunden interview with Librarian of Congress James Billington.
