MediaWatch: March 1992
Table of Contents:
NewsBites: Capitol Coverups
CAPITOL COVERUPS. The media's double standard on scandal -- executive branch yes, Congress no -- continues. The Washington Times discovered cocaine dealing in the House of Representatives' post office. Unlike the networks, most major papers and wire services ran a couple of stories by February 6. The next day, the Times reported House postmaster Robert Rota's charge that Speaker Foley's wife, Heather, had told him to cover up the scandal. The national media's response: nothing to date.
There's more. The February 2 London Sunday Times reported a 1983 memo from KGB chieftain Victor Chebrikov, who told Yuri Andropov that Ted Kennedy wanted a meeting to discuss how to counter Reagan's arms buildup. Wrote the Times: "It appeared [the Soviets] understood it as an attempt to boost Kennedy's own political fortunes with their assistance." Just as they ignored recent evidence of Democrats plotting strategies with the Sandinistas, the major media are ignoring Kennedy's indiscretions.
BOND BROADSIDED. Long-time GOP operative Rich Bond became an instant network target upon being named new Republican National Committee Chairman. Both NBC and CBS painted Bond, labeled a mild-mannered moderate in 1988, as the new party piranha, in part because he refused to repudiate the use of tough tactics in the 1988 presidential campaign. "People are now calling you a flame thrower," claimed NBC's Katie Couric on Today February 5, "Will we see you incorporating some of Lee Atwater's strategies in this campaign, such as Willie Horton?"
Later that week, CBS correspondent Bob Schieffer portrayed Bond as the 500-pound gorilla of the GOP. "And as a protege of Lee Atwater, the late master of hardball politics, [Bond] makes no apologies for the bare-knuckle Republican tactics in 1988. No apologies," reported Schieffer. "Some people say that your return means that Willie Horton is back. That dirty politics is back, the kind of campaign that was waged in 1988. What d you say to that?"
Bond replied, "I say that I'm sick and tired of hearing about Willie Horton....when we talk about Willie Horton, this is what I want to talk about. Willie Horton was a no-good murdering rapist, and that's the point. And Mike Dukakis worked in the system, and defended the system that let [Horton] out on the streets." Schieffer shot back: "What did that have to do with running the United States of America?"
THE WILLIE HORTON AGENDA? In an attempt to offer voters more substantive, informative campaign news, the Markle Foundation has donated money to CNN to fund a "pioneering venture," a series called "The People's Agenda." But instead of substance, CNN is loading these longer stories with emotional portraits and maudlin piano music. Instead of more information, CNN is taking all the same cheap short cuts to make liberal points.
In the February 13 segment, titled "The Racial Divide," correspondent Ken Bode reported, "David Duke's exploitation of white working class fears about blacks echoes a theme from the 1988 election. This is the Maryland State Penitentiary. Inside resides the most politically notorious convict in America. William Horton, Jr., the focal point of a major national campaign designed to exploit white fear of black crime." Bode claimed: "The Horton case illustrates the readiness of political leaders to exploit the racial divide."
Bode then turned convicted murderer and rapist Horton into an authority on race relations by interviewing him for the story. Horton concluded: "I think this country, in my opinion, should not be governed by crime or race in a presidential election." The "poor Willie" approach harkens back to the ABC Prime Time Live of March 29, 1990, when Sam Donaldson asked Horton, "If Lee Atwater should walk through that door tomorrow and say,'Mr. Horton, I think I did you wrong, I'd like to say something about it,' what would you say to him....would you forgive him?"
MISLEADING MYERS. Several columnists have accused reporters of going soft on Pat Buchanan's campaign. They must have missed NBC reporter Lisa Myers on the February 28 Nightly News. She reported that "Buchanan insists that he is not a bigot or racist. Yet many of his remarks are seen as hostile to blacks." As viewers saw Buchanan placing flowers by a headstone, Myers continued: "In the South, he pays tribute to Confederate heroes, who fought to preserve slavery." Myers' indictment would have carried less weight if she noted that Buchanan had simply visited the grave of his great grandfather. If leaving flowers at the grave of an ancestor who fought in the Confederate army makes someone hostile to blacks, then every native Southern politician, liberal or conservative, should be condemned.
Myers later charged that Buchanan is "now fudging his position" on the Gulf War. To illustrate, she showed a clip of retired Marine Commandant P.X. Kelley saying Buchanan opposed Desert Storm. "Buchanan claims that Bush ad is false," Myers insisted, declaring: "In fact, Buchanan vehemently opposed the Gulf War." CNN reporter Brooks Jackson thought differently the same night. He called the Bush ad "misleading" since "Buchanan did oppose the use of military force in Kuwait, but only before any shots were fired. That was during Desert Shield. Buchanan supported Desert Storm and the American military the moment hostilities began, even before." To prove his point, Jackson showed a clip of Buchanan on CNN's Crossfire from January 15, 1991 declaring his support for the war effort.
NO SECOND OPINION. On February 6, ABC's Nightline had a National Town Meeting on the health care problem. ABC Medical Editor Dr. Timothy Johnson summed up the prevailing mood of the panel: "I think maybe the one thing the government can do well is to run an insurance program. Social Security is a model for retirement." Two hours into the show, a small businessman in the audience finally challenged the zeitgeist. He explained he couldn't afford health insurance, but didn't want government intervention. "Look at VA hospitals," he pointed out, "that's your government universal coverage, universally hated."
Did he stimulate debate? Hardly. Johnson retorted: "I think it's very confusing to throw in words like `nationalized' and `socialized.' Nobody's advocating a system wherein the government owns and operates medical care in this country. What some people are talking about is a national health insurance program that still allows private doctors and private hospitals to provide care....We shouldn't be so arrogant as Americans to dismiss learning from other countries."
STEALTH CARE. It is an unquestioned assumption of the American media that the Canadian system of nationalized health care is cheaper than the U.S. private system. This premise leads to articles like the February 13 New York Times piece by reporter Clyde Farnesworth. He argued: "Although Mr. Bush assailed the high cost of nationalized health care, Canadian doctors and health officials pointed to studies that have shown much lower administrative costs here than in the United States." Similarly myopic, Newsweek's Tom Morganthau wrote: "Canada spends less on health care than the United States -- about 9 percent instead of 13 percent."
But in the February 17 National Review, Jacques Krasny, a Canadian health care consultant, revealed hidden costs in Canada and unusual U.S. circumstances that make up for the difference cited by the reporters. Krasny disclosed that Canada's hospitals were built by the government, and so the capital costs were not included in Canadian statistics. The Canadians also don't count the cost of health benefits for health care workers, don't have to care for so many Vietnam veterans, and have a smaller percentage of elderly citizens. (The elderly, 12 percent of the U.S. population, account for more than 50 percent of our health care costs.) And get this: Money spent by Canadians coming to America for state of the art technology is counted toward American costs.
FETUS FRACAS. In 1988, the Reagan Administration placed a ban on federal funding of fetal tissue research, since the tissue was taken from aborted babies. But when Today co-hosts Bryant Gumbel and Katherine Couric examined the issue on February 5, the debate focused on only one side: the beneficiaries, not the victims. Gumbel presented the heart-tugging story of Faye Day, a victim of Parkinson's disease who has been helped by fetal tissue. NBC could have aired a pro-life advocate, who would object to the taking of a developing baby's life for medical research. Instead, they found a conservative Baptist minister who favored fetal research since he lost children to a genetic disease. (That night, NBC Nightly News pulled the same stunt with conservative Senator Strom Thurmond, who has a diabetic daughter.)
Couric interviewed Dr. James Mason, director of the Public Health Service, but instead of questioning him, she debated him: "But clearly, Dr. Mason, many of these programs are in desperate need of federal dollars to help them conduct the research." In a long critique of Mason's arguments, Couric twice called Mason's views "simply unrealistic." Instead of having guests debate each other, more and more Today has its hosts make the liberal argument.
NAZI SPECIALTIES. What would be the perfect part-time retirement job for a Nazi doctor from Auschwitz? If you said abortionist, you would be correct, according to recently released archival documents in Argentina. New York Times correspondent Nathaniel Nash wrote on February 11 that "Joseph Mengele, the Auschwitz death camp doctor known as the `Angel of Death' for his experiments on inmates, practiced medicine in Buenos Aires for several years in the 1950s. He `had a reputation as a specialist in abortions,' which were illegal."
But most media outlets weren't too anxious to let you in on this, and quietly let the story drop. The Los Angeles Times story on the same day omitted any reference to Mengele's abortion practice. The Washington Post announced the pending release of the files on February 4, but ran no story when the files came out.
BUNGLING THE DEATH MATH. The Cold War is over, but some of the media still think the communists could do no wrong. On the February 2 NBC Nightly News correspondent Robin Lloyd reported on the El Salvador peace accords: "The war's end has rekindled hopes for freedom and justice. Hopes that twelve years ago died with the death of Archbishop Oscar Romero, a victim of right-wing deaths squads. More than 70,000 deaths followed; 800 death squad victims a month." Charles Lane of Newsweek also cited the 800-per-month figure in the January 27 issue: "By 1980, 800 death-squad victims a month were being dumped on the dusty streets."
Why was there no mention of the murders committed by the communist FMLN? According to the National Center for Public Policy Research, in their last major offensive alone, in late 1989, the communists attacked three cities having no military garrisons. The FMLN killed or wounded 200 unarmed civilians, including a six-year old girl and a 75 year-old woman. But Lane and Lloyd couldn't even get their misinformation mathematically correct. Since Romero's murder in 1980, 800 deaths a month would total 115,200 deaths, not the 70,000 claimed as the total death toll. If reporters have to mimic the left's claims as news, they should at least get the math right.
HURRAY HAVANA HOSPITAL. While health care reform was heating up as a hot election year topic in the U.S., NBC's Joe Garagiola and correspondent Robert Bazell found a model the U.S. could adopt during Today's visit to Cuba, February 12-13. Garagiola began: "Among Cuba's successes is its health care; it's progressive and it's free." Bazell continued without dispute: "Cuba's health care system is world class. In a neo-natal intensive care unit; on a burn ward; or in a clinic to treat epilepsy one can find equipment and procedures equal to those in the U.S. and only a few other countries....the quality of care remains high and it is free. Health, a guarantee of socialism, billboards proclaim. The Castro government has always been obsessed with health, starting with improving sanitation."
