MediaWatch: March 1998
Table of Contents:
NewsBites: no Label for Lois
No Labels for Lois. Widows running for their husband’s seats in Congress are usually portrayed with sympathy, but it doesn’t always prevent unbalanced labeling. On the March 9 NBC Nightly News Gwen Ifill looked at two congressional campaigns in California featuring widows hoping to replace their husbands: Mary Bono, wife of the late conservative Rep. Sonny Bono; and Lois Capps, wife of the late Walter Capps, about the most left-wing member of the House. But Ifill didn’t portray it that way.
Ifill described Mary Bono this way: "Like her late husband, she’s a conservative Republican. But she’s a political neophyte who plans to pick up where he left off." She used no label for the other widow: "Democrat Lois Capps is also trying to pick up the political pieces. Voters decide tomorrow whether she should succeed her husband Walter in Congress. He died of a heart attack last fall." And Capps’ opponent? "Lois Capps’ race against conservative Republican Tom Bordonaro has attracted national attention."
Media Masochism Update. To demonstrate media excess in Monicagate coverage, some networks and print outlets highlighted a study showing exorbitant reliance upon weakly sourced material. But reporters didn’t bother telling viewers that’s no different than how they handled Iran-Contra.
CNN’s Inside Politics devoted a February 18 segment to a study of major networks and print outlets sponsored by the Committee of Concerned Journalists (CCJ). Anchor Jeanne Meserve explained it "shows, in the first six days of coverage, 41 percent was analysis/opinion; 25 percent was based on a single named source; 18 percent on anonymous sources; and one percent on two named sources." During a March 5 Nightline on how the public believed the media were over-covering the scandal, ABC’s Chris Bury also picked up the study, relaying the finding that "40 percent of all reporting based on anonymous sources was from a single source."
But a February 23 Center for Media and Public Affairs (CMPA) press release announced that "contrary to the claims of some media critics," their study "showed no marked increase in the use of anonymous sources." Looking at the first ten days of Lewinsky coverage on the broadcast networks, CMPA found that "more than half of all reports (56 percent) cited at least one unnamed source. This is comparable to network coverage of the first month of the Iran-Contra scandal in November 1986, when 57 percent of all reports quoted unnamed sources."
Contrary to media self-loathing about unfairness to Clinton, the CMPA noted Clinton fared much better than his accusers: "Researchers tallied all 537 sound bites containing judgments of Mr. Clinton, and found nearly as many were supportive (48 percent) as critical (52 percent)....Other scandal figures, however, didn’t fare as well. Linda Tripp was criticized by 69 percent of quoted sources, and Monica Lewinsky was panned by 75 percent. For his part, independent counsel Kenneth Starr was criticized by 70 percent of quoted sources."
Family Matters. Media stars slammed independent counsel Ken Starr for bringing Monica Lewinsky’s mother, Marcia Lewis, before the grand jury to testify about whether she encouraged people to lie to investigators. In the February 23 Time, Margaret Carlson was typical: "We are now on notice that the conversations we have with our children are not safe from their government. It seems quaint that on the day Monica was handed over by Tripp to Starr’s deputies, she could turn to her mother with the expectation that whatever she said, Mom wouldn’t tell. But in Ken Starr’s America, moms do tell — or else."
Lewis’s testimony is hardly unprecedented. As John McCaslin noted in The Washington Times, Paula Jones’ mother and sister were required by the President’s lawyers to give depositions in the Jones case at the office of Clinton’s old law firm in Little Rock.
A February 24 New York Post editorial highlighted Iran-Contra prosecutor Lawrence Walsh’s criticism of Starr for interrogating Lewis, and noted: "Much of the press agrees with Walsh that forcing a mother to testify ‘against’ her daughter is an unbelievably cruel and virtually unprecedented act....Let’s take a look at Walsh’s own record. Consider: During the Iran-Contra investigation, Walsh subpoenaed Betsy North, the wife of Lt. Col. Oliver North, North lawyer Brendan Sullivan — even North’s pastor. In one go, Walsh flung down and danced upon spousal, attorney-client, and even pastoral privilege....To the best of our knowledge, none of those who currently profess shock — shock! — at Starr’s efforts even said boo about Walsh’s far more serious attacks on privacy and privilege."
