MediaWatch: June 1994
Table of Contents:
- MediaWatch: June 1994
- Network Contrast of Hill and Jones Show Dramatic Differences in Coverage, Tone
- NewsBites: Festival of Hate?
- Revolving Door: Selling Sarbanes
- Media Mourn 17-Count Indictment as Tragedy for the Country
- DDT, Eco-Racism Threats?
- Blaming the Victim?
- Raines Rains on Reagan
- Janet Cooke Award: Newsweek Hailed Hill, But Questions Jones' Credibility and Sexual Behavior
Media Mourn 17-Count Indictment as Tragedy for the Country
Rostenkowski's Free Ride
Some reporters treated House Ways and Means Chairman Dan Rostenkowski's 17-count indictment on embezzlement and jury tampering not as an outrage, but as a tragedy. On NBC's Today May 25, Tim Russert declared: "It's sad. It's not something people are gloating over because the fact is, Bryant, Congressman Rostenkowski came here as a political hack from Chicago and turned into a very formidable national legislator." NBC reporter Lisa Myers added: "It's a big loss for the President, it's a big loss for the Congress, and I think it's a big loss for the country."
On ABC's Good Morning America the next day, co-host Charles Gibson pleaded the chairman's case: "What's involved here is perhaps, what, some $50,000 in stamps and some phantom jobs for friends?....Here, though, is a guy who passes bills or is shepherding bills worth billions of dollars risking his career for small amounts, or you think, amounts significant enough that there's real corruption here?"
Despite the unfolding of the House Post Office scandal since early 1992 and an ongoing Justice Department investigation of Rostenkowski, reporters have failed to ask him about it. CBS Face the Nation host Bob Schieffer interviewed him twice in 1993. On February 7, he asked only one question: "Mr. Chairman, I'd be remiss if I did not ask you... you've been investigated by a U.S. Attorney now for I don't know how many months, can you tell us if you've been given any indication if that is about to conclude?" On May 16, he asked nothing about it.
Today's Bryant Gumbel interviewed Rosty twice in 1993, May 17 and August 15. He also asked nothing about the investigation. On the day after Rosty won a primary election in March of this year, Gumbel asked only about the campaign and nothing about the charges. On June 27, 1993, Rostenkowski appeared on Meet the Press, but no one asked about his ethics.
The only NBC exception came on the September 28, 1993 Today, when Stone Phillips asked: "You have had your own legal troubles of late, subject of an investigation into the House Post Office scandal. How much of a distraction is that for you and how much will it continue to be?" On May 18, 12 days after the news leaked that prosecutors planned to indict Rostenkowski, Tom Brokaw interviewed him on the NBC Nightly News but failed to ask anything about it.
In the more than two years before the indictment leak, the Big Three networks aired only 22 stories on Rostenkowski's possible crimes. In the first two months of 1988, the Big Three networks did 26 stories on Ed Meese's connection to an Iraqi pipeline deal. Meese was never indicted.
