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
Networks Say "Extreme" GOP Convention at Fault
CONSERVATIVES SUNK BUSH?
On election night, as state after state fell behind Bill Clinton, the networks worked overtime to suggest that George Bush lost because of social conservatives and their speeches at the Republican convention.
On NBC, Tom Brokaw asked Pat Robertson: "There are many people in the Republican Party who believe that the Republican National Convention in Houston, at which you were a prominent part, was simply too extreme, too strident in its positions, and they cite your speech and Pat Buchanan's as well."
On CNN, anchor Catherine Crier joined the chorus: "You may have to move to the far right or the far left during a primary to pull those voters to support you during a primary, but you've got to move back and moderate for the general election. We remember the convention in Houston, the Patrick Buchanans and the very conservative movement that took over -- looks like it may have hurt the President."
On ABC's overnight newscast World News Now, anchor Lisa McRee declared: "Patrick Buchanan's speech was one of those speeches that not many people will ever forget. It divided the party and many moderates were frightened away by that."
NBC's John Chancellor also promoted the theme: "I think that the convention -- and certainly all the polling data indicates this -- offended a lot of women, offended a lot of people in the country who thought it was too religious and too hard-edged."
All the polling data? Not the network-commissioned exit poll, as CBS reporter Ed Bradley explained after midnight: "We gave the voters a list of things to choose from, Dan, things that helped them make up their minds. I think in past years, the conventions were very important, how they played on television, television ads. This year, they fell at the bottom of the list. The single most important thing that helped them decide were the debates between the candidates -- 64 percent said that was number one."
But listen to Bradley when Rather asked: "Did people talk about the Buchanan speech at the Republican convention? Jerry Falwell, Pat Robertson at the President's side? Was that mentioned very often?"
Instead of repeating the poll results, Bradley ignored them: "Well, I don't have it in this survey, but my recollection of talking to people, in an informal survey, and particularly among Republicans, there were a number of Republicans who said that they felt let down by their convention, watching it on TV, that what Pat Buchanan had to say, that some of the positions of the religious right, did not represent the way they felt."
