MediaWatch: March 1994
Table of Contents:
- MediaWatch: March 1994
- Networks Rarely Cover Church News, Ignore Religious Concerns on Social Issues
- NewsBites: Aborting the Mother
- Revolving Door: Tara Helps Tony
- Media Ignore Sexual Harassment Charges -- When Made Against Clinton
- Crying Over Spilt Milk
- Waste Watchdogs
- Reviewers Ignore Gulf War Record
- Janet Cooke Award: ABC's Strait, Compton, Kast, Gregory, and Burns Tout Benefits of Clinton Health Plan
Networks Rarely Cover Church News, Ignore Religious Concerns on Social Issues
Television's Deaf Ear to Religion
How do the networks cover religion? To determine the amount and tone of religion news in 1993, MediaWatch analysts reviewed every evening, morning, and magazine news story on religion and its relation to social issues in 1993, and found that TV coverage of religion reported only a small number of religion stories; failed to find the concerns of religious opponents of abortion and homosexuality newsworthy; and sensationalized false charges of sex abuse against Joseph Cardinal Bernardin.
The five evening programs studied (ABC's World News Tonight, CBS Evening News, CNN's World News, NBC Nightly News, and The MacNeil-Lehrer NewsHour on PBS) reported only 211 stories out of more than 18,000 in 1993, and just 134 of them were reporter- based stories. (The other 77 were brief anchor reads.)
The Catholic Church was the subject of an overwhelming majority of the stories -- 79 of the 134 reporter-narrated segments (59 percent), and 47 of the 77 anchor-read stories (60 percent), most of them from Pope John Paul's visit to America. Other major news events like the Waco siege and the World Trade Center bombing were not included, excepting the few stories dealing primarily with religious themes.
On the networks' morning shows (ABC's Good Morning America, CBS This Morning, and NBC's Today) religion was the subject of only 197 stories out of more than 23,000, and only 87 (44 percent) were interviews or reporter-based stories. Of the 197, 73 stories (37 percent) came in the eight days of the papal visit, and 39 of the 87 reporter-based or interview segments (45 percent) came in this brief period. Accordingly, 48 of the 87 long segments (55 percent) focused on Catholics, as did 90 of the 110 anchor-read briefs (82 percent).
Religion stories were especially scarce on the burgeoning number of magazine shows, including ABC's Day One, Prime Time Live, and 20/20, CBS' Eye to Eye with Connie Chung, 48 Hours, 60 Minutes, and Street Stories, and NBC's Dateline and Now. Analysts added the Sunday morning talk shows (ABC's This Week with David Brinkley, CBS' Face the Nation, and NBC's Meet the Press) to further expand the sample. In all of these hours of programming, only 18 segments in 1993 covered religion. That includes four segments from one edition of ABC's This Week.
Ten of the 18 stories focused on Catholics, but with the exception of an August 12 Prime Time Live story on the papal visit, the six evening magazine show segments on the Catholic Church dealt either with sex abuse by priests or the church's "rigid" doctrine on celibacy for priests, which is often blamed for causing clerical sex abuse.
Abortion. In a year in which two abortionists were shot and one killed, the networks reported heavily on the controversial tactics of some pro-life activists. The network evening shows devoted 78 stories to the topic, the morning shows 67 and the magazine shows five long segments. While the networks reported a total of 150 stories on harassment and violence at abortion clinics, they never focused a story on the violence of abortion itself in America. None of the networks even mentioned the national estimate of abortion -- 1.6 million a year.
The only mention of abortion as violence appeared on the August 5 CBS Evening News, when anchor Connie Chung introduced an Allen Pizzey story on Bosnian women having abortions: "The war in Bosnia has claimed the lives of more than 200,000 people. Thousands more have been wounded. Then there are the casualties who can't be counted: children who will never be born."
On the other hand, on the June 18 20/20, ABC's Lynn Sherr described self-performed abortions as "similar to the way abortions are done with vacuum suction machines, but, say the proponents, kinder and gentler."
When liberals introduced a bill defending abortion clinics against violence (and most protest), the networks did 15 stories on the bill. Then, Sen. Orrin Hatch inserted a provision extending legal protections to obstruction and violence against church services. Gay activists lobbied the Democrats to kill the bill. None of the networks reported on that story.
Homosexuality. In morning show segments focusing on non-military aspects of gay rights, the networks regularly failed to offer a religious perspective to counter the gay viewpoint. The networks invited 69 gay-rights advocates to only 23 opponents. Only one (Kerrie Harrison of Concerned Women for America) was a conservative activist. None was a member of the clergy.
Despite 150 stories on anti-abortion intimidation and violence, the networks did nothing on gay intimidation and violence. When U.S. Navy Airman Terry Helvey confessed to beating fellow sailor Allen Schindler to death, all the networks covered the story. But weeks later, on June 4, New York Times reporter Larry Rohter wrote a story on the sentencing of two Navy homosexuals for raping soldiers in Jacksonville, Florida. The networks failed to report it.
On September 19, parishioners of the Hamilton Square Baptist Church in San Francisco, which had invited Rev. Lou Sheldon of the Traditional Values Coalition to speak, found 75 to 100 gay protesters pounding at the entrances of the church. Church members claimed the activists obstructed the entrances and threw rocks at the church. The protest was even video-taped. The networks did nothing.
Bernardin. All the networks ran reports on the charges made against Joseph Cardinal Bernardin by 34-year-old AIDS patient Steven Cook, who claimed after hypnosis that he was sexually abused 17 years before, provided no firm evidence, and filed a $10 million lawsuit.
The Bernardin controversy drew a total of 25 morning and evening news stories or segments. The evening news programs reported it in 11 stories (six on CNN), and it led both CNN's and NBC's news on November 12. Unlike the President's personal life, all three morning shows devoted interview segments to the Bernardin story. NBC aired 10 anchor-read segments over three days that said nothing new.
