MediaWatch: March 1998
Table of Contents:
TV Touts "Reform"
The DNC fundraising scandal has lapsed into obscurity. When the Senate Governmental Affairs Committee released their final report, none of the networks even mentioned it. But the Senate’s latest rejection of campaign finance "reform" legislation on February 26 drew angry network demands that liberal corruption should have been answered with new liberal rules designed to limit free speech, as if the Democrats might obey the new laws better than the old ones.
On ABC’s World News Tonight, Peter Jennings mourned: "Together the Senate and the House of Representatives spent more than nine million dollars to hold more than 30 days of hearings on how to change the rules, and even though so many Americans believe that money is more important to the process than their vote, which is not a pretty picture, and though many, many politicians believe the system is flawed, they will not be fixing it just yet."
"Republicans kill the bill to clean up sleazy political fundraising. The business of dirty campaign money will stay business as usual," proclaimed an agitated Dan Rather on the CBS Evening News. "Legislation to reform shady big-money campaign fundraising is dead in Congress. Republican opponents in the Senate killed it today. It was the latest in a long-running attempt to toughen loose laws that shield hidden donors with loose wallets and deep pockets." Rather complained the Senate was "all talk and no action."
NBC’s Gwen Ifill took hyperbole to a new level on the PBS show Washington Week in Review the next night: "It was a bill that was doomed to die. The last time you heard people so eager to claim responsibility for something like this, they were terrorists."
Campaign "reform" outranked conservative concerns at CNN. On the March 10 Inside Politics, CNN anchor Judy Woodruff began: "Pork-barrel politics was on the agenda today again at a news conference held by Citizens Against Government Waste [CAGW]. The group released its 1998 ‘Congressional Pig Book’ detailing who has brought home how much bacon from Capitol Hill."
Rather than exploring the pork-busting group’s ratings, Woodruff quickly shifted to a pro-campaign finance reform story featuring the left-wing organization Public Campaign: "William Proxmire used to hand out Golden Fleece awards for wasteful government spending....Now, Proxmire serves on the board of a group that has come up with another uncoveted prize."
Brooks Jackson reported on Public Campaign chief Ellen Miller’s press conference at which she awarded Rep. Bill McCollum (R-Fla.) "The Golden Leash" for, as Jackson described it, "extraordinary service to campaign donors." The story explained that McCollum, who has received $374,000 during the last seven years from the credit card and banking industry, is sponsoring a bill that "would make personal bankruptcy more difficult, thereby helping credit card companies collect more from those who run up big debts."
After a brief on-camera response from McCollum, Jackson continued, "McCollum’s bill has 181 cosponsors; all together they’ve received more than $11 million in donations from the bank and credit-card industries. Public Campaign hopes this award will focus attention on how money flows here on Capitol Hill — money they want Congress to limit." Later that night on The World Today, CNN repeated the Jackson story on Public Campaign, but didn’t even mention CAGW.
