MediaWatch: May 1994
Table of Contents:
- MediaWatch: May 1994
- Amount, Tone of Scandal Coverage Markedly Different Than During the Reagan Era
- NewsBites: Newsweek Loves the Times
- Revolving Door: Formative 60's
- First Lady Called "Candid" and "Responsive" After She Evades Questions
- Vanishing Liberal Bloc?
- Stossel's Scare Special
- Washington Post's America of Cliches
- Janet Cooke Award: NBC's Ann Curry Offers Dire Scenario of Overpopulation Without Citing Sources
Washington Post's America of Cliches
Decimated by the Evil '80s
Frequent PBS Washington Week in Review panelist Haynes Johnson traveled around America and found -- surprise -- that most people agreed with his liberal views. In his latest book, Divided We Fall: Gambling with History in the Nineties, the former Washington Post Assistant Managing Editor offered a series of platitudes:
"By the Nineties, there was no longer any doubt about what had happened. The safety net had developed gaping holes, and more and more Americans were falling through it. It wasn't only the social welfare recipients who were suffering; every element of American society was being affected by major cutbacks in police and fire protection, schools, and hospitals. No area of the nation was exempt. Everywhere I went I found examples of suffering, of worsening conditions, of growing anger and fear."
"[Clinton] represents a departure. He is a President with a sense of history, and one who asks himself what Lincoln or Franklin Roosevelt or Truman -- the models he cites -- would have done when faced with difficult judgments. At the least, he is the President who challenged Americans to rethink their future. His presidential agenda remains the most ambitious in decades. Despite the difficulties of the first year, his record of legislative success was the greatest since Dwight D. Eisenhower -- and...was achieved without the use of a presidential veto. Not only is he gambling with history when he attempts to reduce the deficit by simultaneously raising taxes and cutting spending in a weak economy. He also rolls the dice in his health care reform plan -- the boldest, most visionary domestic initiative since the 1930s."
