MediaWatch: July 1993
Table of Contents:
- MediaWatch: July 1993
- The Most Common Politically Motivated Statistical Exaggerations
- NewsBites: Conservative Corporations?
- Revolving Door: City Hall Calling
- Reporters Insist Budget is Half Tax Hikes, Half Cuts
- Globe Concedes Liberal Tilt
- Limousine Liberals
- nsists No 'Left-Liberal Line' in Essays
- Janet Cooke Award: Discovery Channel Series Starts Out As Slanted As CBS
Revolving Door: City Hall Calling
Christopher Lydon, a former New York Times reporter, has added his name to the crowded field of about a dozen Democratic candidates vying to replace Boston Mayor Ray Flynn. A September primary will narrow the field of those vying to replace the new Ambassador to the Vatican. Following several years with The Boston Globe, in 1968 Lydon moved to The New York Times Washington bureau, where he remained until jumping into television in 1977 with WGBH-TV, Boston's PBS outlet. Lydon anchored WGBH's 10 O'Clock News until its 1991 cancellation.
Clinton Sport
After 12 years with The Washington Post, Alison Muscatine has moved to the White House as a speechwriter for President Clinton. A sports reporter since 1990, Muscatine previously reported metro news and served as Maryland editor. At the White House, she has joined a writing team that already includes Carolyn Curiel, an editor at the Post in the mid-'80s.
Substituting for Brokaw
Tom Brokaw said no, but Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt has found someone else with a NBC connection to say yes. Yes, to becoming Director of the National Park Service. In May, Roger Kennedy, Director of the Smithsonian's National Museum of American History, accepted the job. The Washingtonian reported that Kennedy started his Washington career by working in the Eisenhower Attorney General's office, a job he took after losing a race for Congress against Eugene McCarthy. In the mid-1950s Kennedy was a Washington correspondent and producer for NBC News.
Russian Team
During an April 16 appearance on C-SPAN's Journalists' Roundtable, host Brian Lamb noted the political jobs once held by husband and wife Joe Albright and Marcia Kunstel, both Cox News Service reporters. They appeared as they were preparing to leave for a stint in Moscow. Lamb noted that Albright once toiled for Ed Muskie and Kunstel for Congressman Emilio Daddario. Kunstel worked in the Democrat's unsuccessful 1970 Connecticut gubernatorial campaign. A Cox foreign correspondent since 1988, Kunstel was a reporter for the Cox-owned Atlanta Journal from 1977 to 1982.
Albright told MediaWatch that he was Newsday's Washington Bureau Chief before jumping to politics as a Legislative Assistant to then Senator Muskie (D-ME) in 1971-72. He started in the Cox Washington bureau in 1976, becoming a foreign correspondent in 1983. Returning to D.C. in 1987, he has continued to concentrate on foreign reporting.
NBC's Narrow Diversity
NBC President Bob Wright, The Washington Post reported July 6, "has modified NBC's `performance appraisal' system to include a review of how individuals support diversity within NBC." Wright explained that NBC will attract "the majority of television viewers" by "diversifying our own workforce." He explained: "Diversity is about inclusion. It's not limited to race or gender. It encompasses religion, age, education, sexual orientation, work/family issues, cultural differences etc."
NBC has former aides to George McGovern, Lyndon Johnson and Mario Cuomo in top positions. So what about a little diversity through hiring more conservatives? Wright didn't mention it.
