MediaWatch: June 1992
Table of Contents:
Hume vs. Houston Post
CODE CULTURE
Vice President Dan Quayle's passing reference to Murphy Brown in a late May speech drew quick criticism from many reporters. On the May 22 Washington Week in Review, U.S. News & World Report Senior Writer Steven Roberts called Quayle's speech "a very deliberate attempt to use these family values...as a wedge issue to drive divisions in this country along cultural lines, along social lines, and to some extent along racial lines."
But ABC White House correspondent Brit Hume told one reporter where to put it. On C-SPAN's June 5 Journalists' Roundtable, Hume criticized the Code Word Brigade, declaring: "I just think that the idea that the values issue is a code word is really an appalling commentary on how we've come to think in the media." Houston Post Washington Bureau Chief Kathy Kiely countered: "I do think values are a code word...they are a code word saying I want to exclude certain people. I think they're a code word for saying I'm against including homosexuals in government, I'm against maybe including women in certain positions."
Hume shot back: "But there is no evidence that that's what this President, who has campaigned hard on values is for or has done." Kiely responded: "Well, I'm not saying he's for that, but maybe's he's appealing to some people who are for that." Hume asked: "You're a reporter. Your job is to get at the facts. On what do you base that, other than guesswork?"
Later, Kiely continued: "There's a lot of racism that's dressed up to look like something different and I think it's our job to strip that clothing off and say what it is." Hume concluded: "I think that's true, but I think you have to actually do it, not just guess at it."
