MediaWatch: March 1990
Table of Contents:
- MediaWatch: March 1990
- More Media Money Moves Left
- NewsBites: Free Enterprise? Oh No!
- Revolving Door: New Racket for Brackett
- Networks Ignore Mendela's Unpleasant Past
- Environmentalists Get All The Time
- Other Networks on Nicaragua
- Goldberg Scolds Media
- Janet Cooke Award: NBC News: Sandinista Surrogates
Revolving Door: New Racket for Brackett
New Racket for Brackett. "I decided if I couldn't win in politics, I was going to try a new line of work. I was interested in social change," MacNeil-Lehrer NewsHour correspondent Elizabeth Brackett told the Chicago Tribune on February 11, "so I decided to switch careers and try journalism." Brackett's resume shows the type of change she desires. Back in 1972 she ran for delegate to the Democratic National Convention. Then in 1975 after working in the unsuccessful Chicago mayoral campaign of a Democratic Alderman, she ran and lost a bid to become 43rd Ward Democratic Committeeman.
The third defeat prompted her career change. In 1977 WBBM-TV, Chicago's CBS-owned station, made her a researcher. Brackett soon moved up to an on-air reporting job with WGN-TV and in 1983 went to ABC-owned WLS-TV where she remained until shortly after talking into her umbrella handle, instead of the microphone, during a live shot one night. She's been a regular contributor to MacNeil-Lehrer since early 1984.
The ABC's of Politics. If you haven't worked in politics, don't bother applying for a public relations job with ABC News. Just look at the background of some ABC flacks on the move. Alise Adde, Director of News Information since 1988 has moved down to Washington as Vice President of industry communications for the National Cable Television Association. Adde was Assistant Press Secretary to Senator J. Bennett Johnston, a Louisiana Democrat, before beginning her ABC career in 1983 as News Information Coordinator in D.C. When she moved up to New York as press representative for World News Tonight in 1985, Joyce Kravitz, a press aide at the Democratic National Committee and in the Carter White House, took her D.C. job.
Filling Adde's ABC slot is Joanne Berg, Manager of News Information. Scott Richardson, Deputy Press Secretary to Senator Bob Dole until he became press representative for World News Tonight in 1988, moves into Berg's old position. Replacing Richardson: Arnot Walker, press aide since 1985 to New York University President and one-time Democratic Congressman John Brademas. Arnott's political career highlights include advance work for Vice President Mondale, Democrat Jim Florio's 1981 New Jersey gubernatorial campaign and the 1984 Ferraro vice presidential effort. In addition, he handled scheduling for Frank Lautenberg's 1982 Senate campaign and was Deputy Press Secretary in John Glenn's 1984 presidential try.
Nickles' News Director. As head of the Radio-Television News Directors Association since 1981, Ernie Shultz was a leader of the successful battle to repeal the Fairness Doctrine. A couple of months ago Republican Senator Don Nickles of Oklahoma hired Shultz as his new Director of Communications. Shultz has plenty of experience communicating with Nickles' constituents: Roll Call reported that between 1955 and 1980 he served as a reporter, producer, anchorman and finally News Director at KTVY-TV, the NBC affiliate in Oklahoma City
