MediaWatch: November 1994
Table of Contents:
- MediaWatch: November 1994
- Conservatism Gets Little Credit After Election-Night Tradition of Blaming it For Losses
- NewsBites: Liberal of the Week
- Revolving Door: On the Campaign Trail
- The New House Speaker's Journalistic Welcome Wagon
- Media Get One Wish in Senate
- Stossel's Stunner
- Reporters Believed Clinton's Sex Tales
- Janet Cooke Award: ABC Devoted Almost Two Hours to New Book Full of Sexual Allegations Against Thomas
Revolving Door: On the Campaign Trail
On the Campaign Trail
A former network news executive and a top level reporter have pitched in to try to re-elect or elect a Kennedy. The Boston Globe relayed October 18 that David Burke,
President of CBS News from 1988-90, "is spending the last few
weeks of the fall campaign trying to help his old boss win
another term." His old boss? Senator Ted Kennedy, for whom Burke
served as Chief of Staff from 1965 to 1971. The Globe reported
that Burke, Vice President of ABC News from 1977 until taking the
Executive Vice President slot in 1986 for two years, took a
leave from the Dreyfus Fund so he could begin "traveling with
the Senator on the campaign trail and advising him on strategy."
A little to the south, former ABC News foreign correspondent Pierre Salinger has put his money behind Kathleen Kennedy Townsend, Democratic candidate for Lieutenant Governor of Maryland. The October 23 Washington Post listed Salinger, the Press Secretary to President Kennedy, as a contributor to the campaign of Robert Kennedy's daughter.
Clintonite to Nightline
After contributing two producers to the White House staff, Nightline is finally getting one in return. Dianna Pierce, Special Assistant to the Counselor to the President, David Gergen, in November became an Associate Producer of the ABC show. An Administrative Editor at U.S. News & World Report starting
in 1990, where she worked for then Editor-at-Large Gergen, in
mid-1993 she left with Gergen for the White House. A few months
ago, Gergen and Pierce moved over to the State Department.
Gergen will begin teaching political science at Duke University
in January.
As she tries to book guests, Pierce will have some administration contacts with a soft spot for the show to call upon. Tara Sonenshine, an editorial producer for Nightline until February, is now a Special Assistant to the President and Deputy Director for Communications for the National Security Council. Another Nightline producer through 1992, Carolyn Curiel, currently writes speeches for the President.
A Frank Church Republican?
The new Executive Producer of CNBC's Equal Time,
the nightly show hosted by George Bush campaign aide Mary
Matalin, has worked both sides of the aisle, but only one has
her heart. Susan Morrison, who has spent the last three years with the PBS female talk show To the Contrary, served as Deputy Communications Director for the 1980 Bush presidential campaign.
She took the job after two years as Director of Communications for the Democratic National Committee. But she hardly had a change of heart. "It was more selfish than any job I've ever taken. I did it to see a presidential campaign from the inside, period," she told The Washington Post. The 1980 story recalled that "there were moments... when Morrison is clearly troubled by the ideological tenor of the Bush campaign. After a speech in Concord, N.H., in which Bush waxed particularly Reaganesque, Morrison confessed, 'I started thinking about issues today. I got depressed.'"
During the 1980s, Morrison, the field coordinator for Frank Church's 1976 presidential attempt, served as political assignment editor for ABC News, assignment manager for CBS News and political reporter for the MacNeil-Lehrer NewsHour.
