MediaWatch: November 1994

NewsBites: Liberal of the Week

Liberal of the Week
From January 1988 to December 1993 ABC's World News Tonight awarded 44 identifiable liberals or Democrats with the title "Person of the Week" while only nine conservatives received the same acclaim.

On October 14, the tradition continued when Forrest Sawyer heaped praise on Fred Wertheimer, President of Common Cause. "For 24 years, he has been Washington's most visible and, arguably most powerful ethics watchdog....and has nothing nice to say about Republicans Bob Dole or Newt Gingrich." Sawyer explained that Wertheimer "wants to free our politicians from the purse strings of special interest groups," forgetting that Common Cause is itself a lobbying organization for federal funding of congressional elections, another reach into taxpayers' pockets.

Another Erroneous Rush
Under the headline of "The Wicked Late Night Ways And Bad Advice of Rush Limbaugh," Washington Post economics columnist Hobart Rowen did just what he condemned Limbaugh for doing: spreading disinformation. Noting that a recent panel discussion explored how "radio and TV talk shows have become a chief source of disinformation for the public," Rowen charged: "No one is more responsible for that trend than Rush Limbaugh."

Rowen recalled how Limbaugh, on his TV show, "ran a brief segment of the first TV debate between Massachusetts Sen. Edward M. Kennedy and Republican challenger Mitt Romney, in which the Senator's voice was slowed so much that it sounded like he was talking guttural nonsense. He played it over and over, and his studio audience loved the childish exercise."

It's hard to imagine how a professional reporter could confuse a debate in ornate Faneuil Hall with a Kennedy rally in a high school gym, crowded with people including a clapping Bill Clinton, but that's just what Rowen managed to do. On October 25, in a show taped hours before the Senate debate even occurred, Limbaugh ran a clip of Kennedy speaking a week earlier as his words became unintelligible. For a bit of humor Limbaugh suggested what Kennedy may have uttered, scrolling across the screen: "We're gonna start on the '96 campaign to elect Bill Clinton as unelectable as any of us are." Maybe Rowen should stick to promoting liberal economic policies.

Mikhail's Missing
When Yasser Arafat was awarded the Nobel Prize, Time magazine lamented that Arafat and past winners have engaged in violence. In the October 24 issue, the "Chronicles" section reminded readers that the "Nobel Peace Prize...often goes to leaders with less than Gandhi-like resumes." Among those listed, former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, because "Kissinger and [North Vietnam's Le Duc] Tho played key roles in the prosecution of the war in Indochina. Total dead between 1965 and 1975: more than 2 million." Time also chastised a President on Mount Rushmore, claiming "as Vice President and President, [Theodore] Roosevelt promoted imperial adventures like the Spanish-American War and the Philippine Insurrection. Total dead: more than 205,000."

Notably absent -- Time "Man of the Decade" Mikhail Gorbachev, who dispatched tanks into Lithuania to crush their rebellion. Even Today's Bryant Gumbel, interviewing former Nobel Committee member Kaare Kristiansen on October 14, asked if Arafat had "any more blood on his hands than F.W. de Klerk, or Mikhail Gorbachev, who converted to peace only after years of oppressing others?"

Author, Scholar, Rich White Boob
With the release of The Bell Curve, co-author Charles Murray found himself the subject of much media scrutiny. Rather than keeping the focus on the book, some in the media, like NBC's Brian Williams, chose instead to dismiss Murray as less scholar than ideologue, a "darling of many on the political right." Others suggested he was just out of touch.

In an October 9 New York Times Magazine piece titled "The Most Dangerous Conservative," reporter Jason DeParle mused: "The man who would abolish welfare was flying to Aspen, Colo., sipping champagne in the first-class cabin and spinning theories about the society unraveling 30,000 feet below." He later added: "He will never be the country's most famous conservative, but he may well be the most dangerous." In a letter to the Times, Murray's wife revealed that her husband used frequent-flyer miles to bump himself and DeParle up to first class so that DeParle could "interview him in peace." ABC reporter Judd Rose went further on the October 27 Prime Time Live: "He lives well with his wife and children in a lovely home in a lovely area. From there, it's awfully easy to lecture the poor about being solid citizens."

Census Silence
The rich are getting richer and the poor are getting poorer. Sound like the media on the Reagan years? No, it's the state of the economy during the "Clinton recovery." But unlike coverage of Census poverty reports during the Reagan and Bush years, the media drew no tie to Clinton. On the October 6 Nightly News, NBC's Robert Hager noted: "The number of poor people living in America grew to a three-decade high of 39 million last year -- a year that was supposed to have been one of economic recovery...[and] compares to just 32 million in 1989." Hager also found that "Median household income dropped to $31,200." Rather than decry the Clinton administration's policies, Hager said meekly that "White House economic adviser Laura Tyson says this year should be better."

ABC and CNN both ignored the story, while CBS's coverage of the rise in poverty to the highest level in ten years consisted of a brief report by anchor Connie Chung, quickly followed by a story on increased car sales. But back in 1991, CBS led the newscast with the news of a rise in poverty. Reporter Richard Threlkeld claimed: "Over the past 20 years, the rich have been getting richer at the expense of the middle class" and asserted "the social safety net is the weakest it's been for any recession in the last 40 years." What happened to CBS's compassion for the poor?

Justice Savaged Again
In the October 9 Los Angeles Times Magazine, David Savage's cover story "Lone Justice" reprised the "silent, aloof and frequently dogmatic" Justice Clarence Thomas. Savage rehashed the old thesis of how an agenda-wielding right-winger in compassionate clothing lied his way onto the Supreme Court.

Savage wrote that after his confirmation hearings, "Thomas retreated into the silence that protects a judge who is even more rigid and dogmatic than his opponents feared. He has compiled the most conservative record on a conservative court and lambasted his opponents for refusing to go further in changing the law.... Some had expected him to show a special sensitivity because of his background, but instead he urged the court to overturn past rulings favoring blacks."

So how did Thomas, who "staked out a position on the far right," secure his seat? By misleading the Senate, of course. "There is ample reason to believe that he did not honestly describe his legal views in his testimony before the Judiciary Committee." Savage quoted University of Virginia law professor Pamela Karlan: "He's shown no capacity for growth....He clearly lied to them about legal issues. I think he perjured himself" when he said he hadn't discussed the legal issues behind Roe v. Wade. We await Savage's analysis of how David Souter's liberal record corresponds to his conservative confirmation statements.

Denver Disaster
In a fully-built, but yet to be opened, Denver International Airport has again become news, but the media continue to ignore the role of DIA's biggest backer, former Denver mayor and current Transportation Secretary Federico Pena. In an October 18 CBS Evening News report, Bob McNamara cited a "baggage system savaging suitcases, runways that are cracked, and questionable contract awarding...the litany of problems has led to [FBI and GAO] investigations." He concluded: "The new airport has become an expensive reminder that the old airport wasn't so bad." McNamara never mentioned Pena, but in the December 1993 American Spectator, Michael Fumento revealed Pena's opposition to an airport referendum, and his cronyism in awarding contracts. Though Clinton in nominating Pena declared "his legacy includes the new Denver International Airport," reporters continue to ignore Pena's role.

Disclaimeritis
CBS, which hypes links between pesticides and cancer, took another angle when a new study suggested abortions lead to an increased cancer risk. On the April 20, 1993 Evening News, reporter Dr. Bob Arnot warned: "DDT could help explain the sharp increase in breast cancer over the last 20 years. The Journal of the National Cancer Institute reports today that high levels of DDT are linked to a four times greater risk of breast cancer, even if women weren't otherwise at risk....80 percent of cancer risks are unknown, but advocacy groups say contamination of the environment may be the biggest and most overlooked cause of today's epidemic."

When the new abortion study appeared in the same journal, Dan Rather grew cautious on the Oct. 26 Evening News: "A new medical study tonight indicates a possible connection between abortion and breast cancer," adding "The researchers say more study is needed to confirm the findings." NBC, ABC and CNN issued similar disclaimers. On CBS This Morning the next day, co-host Paula Zahn asked epidemiologist Janet Daling, who headed the study: "You hear this number, fifty percent increase in risk, and you say this sounds terrible. Put this number into perspective for us this morning. How big of a deal is it?"

Sore Losers
Soured by the loss of health "reform," PBS omni-presence Bill Moyers explained "how media and money buried" Clinton's noble effort. In The Great Health Care Debate on October 7 Moyers theorized why the people's reform wishes failed: "The Clintons had brought forth a nightmarish creature from Jurassic Park, so frightening in size and strangeness that people panicked. Powerful forces, unwilling to share their turf, rained down boiling propaganda on the beast, and Republican holy warriors, eager to finish off the creature and bleed its master, too, scorched the earth with nuclear-tipped faxes."

Moyers and Kathleen Hall Jamieson, funded by the pro-Clinton Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, scorned Clinton's opponents, whose ads frightened people with "false" labels like "socialized medicine." Leading the list: Rush Limbaugh, who Moyers said "repeatedly resorted to fear and scare tactics....all of that talent, almost all of it, devoted to the politics of destruction." Jamieson complained: "For three hours you can listen to Rush Limbaugh and you don't get to listen to the other side." This being a Moyers show, it featured only liberals: Moyers, Jamieson, and Charles Lewis of the Center for Public Integrity.

Filibuster Frenzy
CBS correspondent Bob Schieffer devoted his October 8 "Washington Notebook" feature to "The filibuster -- once the exception, now the Senate's favorite pastime.... Whoever's at fault, one thing is certain; filibusters are more popular than ever. There were only sixteen of them in the entire 19th century. In this session of Congress alone, there have been more than 60." If Schieffer had interviewed Sen. Don Nickles (R-Okla.), he would have explained the 103rd Congress enacted 424 laws, 17 of them subject to filibuster, of which four were killed, three by the Republicans. But Schieffer, reflecting the media attitude that passing laws is always good, could only complain: "You have to wonder, though, if they ever wonder about [how] it makes the rest of us feel."

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