MediaWatch: July 1996
Table of Contents:
Double Standard on Rumor
Under intense questioning on the June 30 This Week with David Brinkley, former FBI agent turned author Gary Aldrich backed down on the most sensational charge in his book Unlimited Access -- that Bill Clinton sneaks out of the White House for trysts. Reporters denounced Aldrich, and ABC's Nightline, Dateline NBC, and CNN's Larry King Live canceled interviews with him, echoing the White House line that guests meet a "bare threshhold of credibility." This is not a standard the networks have applied in the past.
For example:
Kitty Kelley appeared in three consecutive morning
interviews on NBC's Today show (April 8-10, 1991) and also on
CBS This Morning (April 11). Time and Newsweek both put her
book on their covers. The New York Times put her unproven
charges on page one, without any attempt to prove her
allegations, including the fanciful charge that Nancy Reagan had a
torrid affair with Frank Sinatra in the White House. Bryant Gumbel
began NBC's three days of interviews arguing that "Best-selling
author Kitty Kelley has proven her courage and her credibility
with her no-holds-barred biographies."
Anita Hill drew more than 60 evening news stories in October 1991 on the networks before the Senate even began hearings, which featured the live airing of Hill's unsubstantiated allegations that Supreme Court nominee Clarence Thomas talked about the size of his penis and loved discussing films showing humans having sex with animals. On October 7, 1991, Dan Rather asked Hill questions like: "Why do you believe this man, Judge Thomas, that you have worked closely with for a long time, has not spoken directly to what you consider to be the substance of this charge?" Joseph and Susan Trento claimed, based solely on the guesswork of the late Ambassador Louis Fields, that George Bush had an affair with State Department aide Jennifer Fitzgerald. On August 11, 1992, CNN's Mary Tillotson was the first to ask Bush about the charge. Dateline NBC anchor Stone Phillips asked the President in prime time. ABC's Good Morning America and CBS This Morning invited the Trentos on for interviews.
Newt Gingrich's enemies have insisted that Gingrich showed up at the hospital bed of his cancer-stricken first wife Jackie with a notebook to discuss divorce terms. That unsubstantiated story has been told by Tom Brokaw on Dateline NBC, CNN's Judy Woodruff, and then-CBS star Connie Chung.
Gary Sick's 2,200-word April 15, 1991 New York Times op-ed jump-started the discredited "October Surprise" theory that held the 1980 Reagan campaign conspired to delay the release of the Iranian hostages. Sick was booked on Nightline (where Ted Koppel called him "serious, knowledgeable Gary Sick") and Larry King Live, and the charges drew 27 evening news stories in 1991.
