MediaWatch: November 1992
Table of Contents:
- MediaWatch: November 1992
- Selective Post-Debate Truth Squads
- NewsBites: Mandate for What?
- Revolving Door: Clinton's Network Help
- Networks Say "Extreme" GOP Convention at Fault
- Bush Loss is Reagan's Fault
- NBC's Ross Dogs Dems
- Simon's Sermons
- Janet Cooke Award: CBS Reporter Eric Engberg, Running on Empty
Selective Post-Debate Truth Squads
CLINTON & GORE IGNORED, QUAYLE SCORED
Throughout the 1992 campaign, reporters were quick to label the Republicans as the party of distortion and inaccuracy, but the networks could have just as easily documented the daily errors and distortions of the Democratic ticket. The October 21 Wall Street Journal included an article by economist Alan Reynolds titled "The Worst Lying About the Economy in the Past 50 Years," detailing distortions in Clinton's statements in stump speeches and the debates.
Reynolds noted that in the first debate, Clinton said we are suffering "the first decline in industrial production, ever." Reynolds pointed out industrial production has risen by 2.1 percent since May 1991. Clinton also charged that U.S. wages have slipped to 13th in the world. Reynolds asserted: "All these figures show is that high German interest rates pushed European exchange rates up. That did indeed make European wages look high when converted to dollars, but it also makes European prices look even higher. The real purchasing power of foreign wages is a great deal lower than implied by converting them into dollars." (Italics his.)
In the third debate, Clinton said "I defy you" to find where he supported higher CAFE standards. Newsweek economics columnist Robert Samuelson wrote in the October 28 Washington Post: "Please, give me a hard one. Page 98 of Putting People First (the Clinton-Gore manifesto) says that a Clinton administration would 'raise the Corporate Average Fuel Efficiency (CAFE) standards for automakers to 40 miles per gallon by the year 2000 and 45 miles per gallon by the year 2015.'"
In fact, the networks did not devote one evening news story to assessing the accuracy of the presidential debates. But on October 14, the evening after the vice presidential debate, ABC and CNN both scored Quayle for lying about the Clinton-Gore record. On World News Tonight, ABC reporter Jim Wooten declared "The blue ribbon for factual flexibility goes to the Vice President. More often than Senator Gore, Mr. Quayle was either mistaken or misinformed."
CNN reporter Brooks Jackson agreed: "It was Quayle who repeatedly twisted and misstated the facts...The political reality is that voters don't score campaign debates on the basis of who gets the facts straight. But if they did, Dan Quayle would have lost Tuesday night's debate hands down."
Quayle asserted that raising the CAFE standards to 45 miles per gallon would cost 300,000 jobs. Wooten asserted: "That estimate is based on an unlikely worst-case scenario that all workers now building cars which do not meet that standard would eventually lose their jobs."
Wooten took exception to Quayle's claim that Gore favored a $100 billion environmental Marshall Plan, as proposed in Gore's book Earth In The Balance: "That is not true. Gore's book proposes a global plan financed by several countries, not the U.S. alone. And it does not specify a total cost or America's share."
On CNN's Inside Politics, Jackson agreed: "Dan Quayle was flat wrong about that. The $100 billion figure on Page 304 of Gore's book refers to the cost in today's dollars of the post-war Marshall Plan, not what Quayle said." But suggesting a Marshall Plan for any problem means a massive financial commitment of foreign aid. Instead of following up with Gore on the charge (If not $100 billion, how much?), reporters hit Quayle for bringing it up.
Jackson pointed out that contrary to Gore's assertion, Clinton's policies did not create a lot of high-wage jobs in Arkansas, since the state's average hourly wage is $2.38 below the national average. But Jackson quickly turned back to the Vice President: "Quayle misrepresented Clinton's economic plan, which calls for a net tax increase of only $46 billion spread over four years -- the $150 billion Quayle mentioned, minus $104 billion in cuts he neglected to mention."
But the conservative weekly Human Events discovered the $104 billion figure was nowhere to be found in the Clinton-Gore book Putting People First, which underscores an important point: throughout the year, Clinton's economic plan has changed repeatedly. By the time he sends a plan to Congress, it may change again.
Network reporters like Wooten and Jackson easily slipped into choosing sides by calling candidates "wrong" on amorphous estimates of future policy decisions. Quayle couldn't give a precise number for Gore's environmental Marshall Plan, because Gore won't commit to one, but it would cost billions. No one can give a precise estimate of job losses with more regulations on automobile production, but it would cost jobs. No one knows how much Clinton will raise taxes and spending, but he's declared that he would raise both. Even debates over past policies, like Clinton's claims about wages, are points of debate that reporters would do better to explain than superficially declare "wrong."
The networks can be much firmer with matters of public record that are easily determined right or wrong, such as Quayle's charge that Gore voted for the Caribbean Basin Initiative (CBI). Jackson charged: "Once again, Quayle was wrong. The record shows Gore voted against final passage of the initiative in 1983." But ABC's Wooten corrected CNN: "[Gore] did vote against it, twice, but also voted for it once as part of a larger legislative package."
Outside the network news, syndicated columnist Mona Charen added: "In 1991, Mr. Gore voted for the [CBI] program in stand-alone legislation." None of the networks followed up on Gore's charge that through the CBI, the Agency for International Development (AID) was supporting the export of American jobs to Latin America. Gore specifically charged that a plant in Decaturville, Tennessee was closed and its jobs moved to El Salvador.
But Charen corrected Gore: "The plant in Decaturville was closed because the company went bankrupt, not because it moved to El Salvador. In fact, the only connection between the two plants (which made different items) is that the same holding company at separate times owned both of them." Charen added that "The 40-year-old American company that opened the plant in El Salvador was able to increase its U.S. employment by 20 percent since expanding its operations to Latin America in 1984. It has never closed a U.S. plant."
Exploring the details of candidates' claims is a laudable practice that brings voters more of the statistical nuts and bolts of governing that the networks don't always have the time (or take the time) to explain. But singling out one candidate over another for "ribbons of factual flexibility" isn't educating the voters; it's just telling them how to punch their ballot.
