MediaWatch: November 1990
Table of Contents:
Reporters Tout Gantt's Liberal Campaign
THE JESSE HELMS HIT SQUAD
Political reporters have spent the last two years complaining about the injection of race and the lack of substantive issues in political campaigns. But when Senator Jesse Helms (R-NC) ran a series of ads questioning opponent Harvey Gantt's record on abortion and taxes, ads that had nothing to do with race, reporters avoided their substance and labeled them racist.
On America Tonight November 1, CBS' Lesley Stahl charged "some candidates are out with new TV ads appealing not so subtly to racism, reminiscent of the Willie Horton ads." She showed one which raised Gantt's record of supporting tax hikes and another which played a video clip three times showing Gantt supporting sex-selection abortions, the third time in slow motion to emphasize the point. Stahl's guest, Professor Kathleen Hall Jamieson, concluded: "Helms is trying to play out any racist fears you might have about Harvey Gantt. Ask yourself: What is the stereotype of a deep, slow-speaking, hence not too bright, very dark man." Stahl marveled: "That's outrageous!" That was before Helms even aired an ad on Gantt's support of quotas.
When reporters did talk about issues, they diminished Helms' social issues and polished Gantt's liberal agenda. NBC's Andrea Mitchell exemplified this on Today October 30: "Helms' attack on what he calls pornography has a lot of appeal here, especially in rural areas. But most people say they are more concerned about the things that affect their lives more directly, the economy, education, the environment. North Carolina is almost dead last in scholastic aptitude tests, has the worst infant mortality rate in the nation. Those are Gantt's issues."
After Helms beat Gantt by eight points, reporters became sore losers. From Gantt's election-night party, Mitchell reported: "This has really been a heart-breaking race....What happened here was a very strong racial message from Jesse Helms in the closing ten days of the race and it focused on something that we've found, found previously in Louisiana with the David Duke campaign."
USA Today also linked Helms to the Klan: "Some observers saw Helms as part of a Southern conservative fringe -- along with Alabama Gov. Guy Hunt, a Republican who was also re-elected, and Louisiana state Rep. David Duke -- that relied on tactics born in a deep South many thought had vanished." Boston Globe reporter Michael Frisby grieved: "A mass of faces, black and white, young and old, seemed to fill with tears at once...These were abortion- rights activists, environmentalists, and traditional Democrats who saw their hopes and dreams crushed by the negative, race- baiting ads."
