MediaWatch: June 1996
Table of Contents:
NewsBites: Dole's Code
How will the media cover Bob Dole and Bill Clinton clashing on issues? The May 23 CBS Evening News offered a preview of how Dole is the divider while Clinton is the unifier. First, reporter Phil Jones analyzed Dole's criticism of Clinton's veto of the partial birth abortion ban. Jones predicted it would energize the religious right, but that it really served a more sinister purpose: "It's also Dole campaign code. When he talks about abortion, that leads to morality. When he talks about morality, that raises the issue of character. And that's exactly what Dole and the Republicans want -- to force a presidential election based on Bill Clinton's character."
Next, Rita Braver praised Clinton: "The White House had expected the Republicans to go negative, but not this hard, this fast. And the President's remarks were very well thought out. He was sending Dole a message that your remarks are not going to go unchallenged." Braver then criticized Dole for raising the issue: "You could see the President's strategy here and that is to tell Americans that Bob Dole is dragging the campaign into the mud and trying to divide the country."
Hands Off Clinton
The Bush campaign got lambasted over Willie Horton while the media ignored that future Vice President Al Gore first raised Horton in a 1988 primary debate. This year, while fulminating about a 1990 ad from Republican Jesse Helms, the media failed to dredge up the President's relationship to the man behind the Helms ad, Dick Morris.
NBC's Bob Faw warned May 7 that "every time he has run, Helms has exploited racial tension." Faw showed a clip of the Helms' 1990 affirmative action ad, "Hands," showing a pair of white hands crumpling up a job rejection letter: "You needed that job, and you were the best qualified. But they had to give it to a minority." Faw continued: "For many voters here the basic if bedeviling question is whether a black or white challenger has a better chance against an incumbent who in the past has played the race card and can be expected to do so again." (Black 1990 candidate Harvey Gantt won the primary again this year.) On May 5 ABC's Carla Hill played the ad, adding: "Jesse Helms successfully played the race card against Gantt in 1990." Los Angeles Times reporter Eric Harrison wrote May 11: "Helms unleashed a barrage of racially inflammatory television commercials as the close contest came to an end and defeated Gantt by six percentage points."
Only reporter Lloyd Grove noted, sotto voce, in the 35th paragraph of a May 24 Washington Post profile of Gantt: "One of his [Helms'] key advisers -- pollster Richard Morris, who has taken credit for conceiving the so-called `Hands' spot -- is working this year for President Clinton."
A Lying Shame
As part of NBC's week-long series on "Dishonesty in America: Lie, Cheat, Steal," the May 19 Dateline NBC aired a story on how to recognize when someone is lying. With the Clintons telling whoppers weekly, NBC wouldn't have to go back very far to find some good examples. Instead, reporter Sara James left an amazing impression: only Republicans lie.
James interviewed Paul Eckman, a psychologist who trains law enforcement officers to detect lies. Eckman used video of five liars to demonstrate his techniques; child murderer Susan Smith, former Los Angeles police detective Mark Fuhrman, Oliver North, who James stated lied "in the name of country," and Reagan national security aide John Poindexter. Closing the piece, James showed a video of Richard Nixon denying involvement in Watergate. She stated: "Eckman is the first to admit that many lies, especially when they come in prepared statements, are tough to catch. As America discovered, it was far from the truth, but not even Paul Eckman knew that Richard Nixon was lying back then." Before the James story aired, Dateline promos left the same partisan impression, showing only Nixon and North, not the Clintons.
Murdering Genius
The Unabomber was just a troubled soul who lost his way, said The New York Times. "Theodore Kaczynski: Unabomb Suspect's Tortured Genius and Lost Promise" blared a May 26 front page headline. Reporter Robert McFadden set a romanticized scene: "It was just a dusty, cobwebbed cabin high in the Rockies, as remote as a cougar's lair. But it suited a man who had always been alone, this genius with gifts for solitude, perseverance, secrecy and meticulousness, for penetrating the mysteries of mathematics and the dangers of technology, but never love, never friendship." McFadden continued: "The furnishings were the fragments of his life: the books for companionship and the bunk for the lonely hours, the wood stove where night after night he watched dying embers flicker visions of a wretched humanity, the typewriter where, the authorities say, the justifications for murder had been crafted like numbered theorems." Put the Hammer Down.
Reporters constantly argue for the most expansive interpretation of the Bill of Rights. But there's one amendment on which reporters' interpretations become very narrow -- the Second. Look at how Jack Ford assaulted National Rifle Association President Marion Hammer on the April 28 Today. Ford asserted: "Assault weapons. The NRA has been consistent in its opposition to any restrictions on assault weapons. What possible compelling reason is there for private citizens to own assault weapons?" Ford also asked, "What would you say to the mother of an inner-city child who was killed by stray gunfire? How would you explain to that mother why the rights to own weapons are more important than that mother's child?" Finally, he raised the now standard media linkage, "We've seen recently that members of anti-government groups, militia groups, have been linked, if not directly, in some ways philosophically, with the NRA. Are you concerned about that?"
Stacked Reporting
Do you wonder if reporters make up facts or use questionable information to support their own views? ABC's Lynn Sherr did in an April 26 20/20 in which she argued "the number one way to get sexy, in many women's minds, is with larger breasts."
But Washington Post pollster Richard Morin revealed May 19 that Sherr ignored ABC's own scientific poll conducted specifically for the story. Instead she relied on an unscientific Self magazine survey which found that half the women felt their bosoms were "inadequate." In fact, the ABC poll found only 23 percent had "ever" wished their breasts were a different size. Asked by Barbara Walters whether breast size is most important to men, Sherr explained that the ABC poll found that "It's the face first, breasts come a close second." Really? Morin noticed that at eight percent, breasts came in a distant fourth place.
Park Panic
As summer approached the media offered a barrage of stories decrying the condition of the national parks and laying the blame at the feet of the Republican Congress. The Los Angeles Times led the charge with a May 14 story titled, "Tapped-Out National Parks Turn to Corporations for Aid." Staff writer D'Jamila Salem began: "As Congress pulls the purse strings tighter, the National Park Service is turning to corporate America for funds to refurbish and maintain many of the nation's parks and memorials, including the Washington Monument....The National Park Service has a 1996 budget of $1.32 billion, down $67 million from 1995." But the Heritage Foundation's Scott Hodge told MediaWatch the Park Service's budget has risen $79 million from $1.488 billion in 1993 to an estimated $1.567 billion for 1996.
NBC's Bryant Gumbel opened a May 24 Today interview: "On Close Up this morning, our national parks are in a bit of trouble...Budget cutbacks have left many more understaffed struggling to cope with the needs of visitors." Talking to two park service officials, Gumbel queried, "How much have you had to cut those regular levels of seasonal employees?" And, "To what extent do you think safety has been compromised at your facility as a result of the cutbacks?" He asked, "Are you saying that when people say they want lower taxes, maybe they don't think about what happens to their parks?" Finally, he took a jab at Congress, "Do you think Congress, the people on Capitol Hill, have any true appreciation of the dire straits the parks are in?"
On the May 27 World News Tonight, ABC's Tom Foreman brought some reason to the process. He observed that while visitors to the parks have been increasing, "It is worth noting the National Parks have been spared some of the major budget cuts...This year the park budget actually went up $4 million. No wonder some in Congress feel the park service is crying wolf."
Skip the Other Side
"A balanced report, in some cases, may no longer be the most effective or even the most informative. Indeed, it can be debilitating. Can we afford to wait for our audience to come to its conclusions? I think not." Apparently this policy, written six years ago by CNN producer Teya Ryan, continues today.
On the May 8 The World Today, anchor Linden Soles scared viewers: "It's elementary. We need to breathe to stay alive. But what if the air is so dirty it could kill you? That's what happens to tens of thousands of Americans each year, according to a new report. It comes as environmental regulations are under fire in Congress." Reporter Skip Loescher opened: "Depending on where you live and your medical condition stepping out for a little fresh air may not be a good idea. In fact, according to a new report what's in the air we breathe may be prematurely killing us." Loescher offered soundbites from a press conference by the Natural Resources Defense Council, the author of the new report. David Hawkins, from the NRDC claimed 64,000 prematurely died from heart and lung disease brought on by particulate air pollution. Acting like an NRDC spokesman, Loescher simply lifted numbers from the report. "The number of premature deaths in some cities is startling. In Los Angeles, for example, the report cites more than 5,800. More than 400 early deaths are estimated in New York..." Nowhere did Loescher offer an opposing side to counter the NRDC claims.
Reinventing Mathematics
Part of the Clinton Administration's attempt to paint itself as moderate involves "reinventing government," fostering the idea that they are making government smaller. Peter Jennings played along on the May 14 World News Tonight. He delivered this finger wag to anti-government folks: "There are a couple of things about government which may surprise you. The federal government is only about three percent larger than it was more than thirty years ago. And the number of federal employees is about the same as it was in the 1950s."
Office of Management and Budget (OMB) figures for federal employees have indeed been relatively stable at around 2 million over the last thirty years. But in the February American Spectator, Byron York pointed out that most of the Clinton-era cuts were from a Cold War drawdown begun by the Bush Administration and the closing of the Resolution Trust Corporation: "Add up just those two areas-Defense and the RTC-and you get 140,800 jobs, or 90 percent of the cuts claimed by Clinton and Gore. That means the administration has cut a grand total of 16,000 jobs -- less than one percent of the workforce." The actual scope and power of the federal government is measured most directly by the federal spending level. According to Edwin Rubenstein's The Right Data, OMB figures showed federal spending grew 173 percent in real terms between 1965 and 1992. Hardly the benign "three percent larger" federal government of Jennings' imagination.
Israel's Gingrich?--Defining Fear and Extremism
An upset election occurs, turning the media conventional wisdom on its head as a conservative politician wins. The media dismiss the win as unsubstantive, the product of fear and angry white men. They throw terms like "hardliner" and "right-winger" at the winner and accuse him of inspiring violence with his rhetoric.
In 1994, the target of this media barrage was Newt Gingrich. In 1996 it was Israel's new Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu. Prior to the vote, on the May 27 CBS This Morning, Jesse Schulman set up the choice: "Shimon Peres, statesman of the old school...talking about the big picture, about Israel's place in a changing Middle East, about hopes for peace, versus Benjamin Netanyahu, the slickest TV politician in the business, master of the soundbite, master of the cheap shot."
Others picked up on Netanyahu's American conservative connections. That night, NBC's Martin Fletcher tried some guilt by association: "[Netanyahu] has American politician written all over his campaign. That's thanks to an American political consultant, who has advised conservatives like Senator Al D'Amato and Jesse Helms. The consultant told Netanyahu to stick to one simple, negative theme: fear."
The media stuck to a simple message, increasingly invoking the fear theme as the returns became clearer. Good Morning America anchor Charlie Gibson made the charge on the May 30 broadcast: "Yesterday's watershed vote, so important to the peace process in the Middle East, has been called a choice between Israel's hopes and fears, and it now appears, though the results are still oh so close, that Israel may have voted its fears. Benjamin Netanyahu, who vowed to apply brakes to the peace process, if not reverse it entirely, is ahead in the vote count."
Later on the same show, New York Times reporter Judith Miller declared that "it was both a victory for the forces of fear and militancy." Just like Newt Gingrich in 1994, Bibi Netanyahu was accused of running a campaign not on important issues but on base emotions.
In 1995, Gingrich and House Republicans were accused of inspiring the Oklahoma City bombing. In 1996, Netanyahu was charged with creating the environment for Yitzhak Rabin's assassination. On the May 31 CBS This Morning, Harry Smith asked Middle East analyst Fouad Ajami: "Let's talk about his words for a second. Because it's not that many months ago that a lot of people were accusing Bibi Netanyahu of fanning the flames of the Israeli right, of setting the rhetorical tone for Rabin's assassination."
Netanyahu, like Gingrich, was subjected to extreme labeling, but their opponents, Peres and the Democrats, were almost never tagged left wing, extreme or radical. On the May 30 CBS Evening News, Dan Rather suggested "Serious questions about the future of Middle East peace as Lebanese terrorists attack an Israeli army convoy and the Israeli government appears headed for a major shift to the hardline right." The next night he announced, "Right-wing hardliner Benjamin Netanyahu is declared Israel's new Prime Minister."
On Today May 31, NBC's Ron Allen worried: "The transition seems already underway. This morning Netanyahu continued talks that could create the most right-wing Orthodox religious government here ever. During the count, Netanyahu has been silent, leaving aides to offer reassurances that nothing radical is about to happen."
