MediaWatch: October 1993
Table of Contents:
- MediaWatch: October 1993
- On Health, Network Morning Shows Slant Left in Picking Guests, slightly Right in Questions
- NewsBites: Watching the Ad Watch
- Revolving Door: CNBC's New Chief
- Reporters Heap Heaving Helpings of Mush, Ignore Substanse of Testimony
- 'Kiss Ass, Move with the Mass'
- Wallace on U.N. Waste
- What a Difference a Producer Makes
- Janet Cooke Award: NBC's Jim Maceda Attacks Conservative "Myths" About Health Care
NewsBites: Watching the Ad Watch
Watching the Ad Watch. CBS This Morning reporter Hattie Kauffman took a less than objective peek at the crop of health care ads to uncover what special interests were producing them. In her September 22 piece, she judged the accuracy of the ads with Families USA Executive Director Ron Pollack.
He criticized an ad by the Coalition for Health Insurance Choices for concealment: "It's the Health Insurance Association of America's money that's behind that so-called coalition. That, I think, is unethical to the worst degree." (The HIAA is also listed at the ad's end.) But before allowing Pollack to pass judgment on "unethical" concealment, Kauffman should have told viewers about his outfit, which she called "a health-care consumer group." The February 6 Washington Post reported that at Clinton's request, Families USA "hired eight field representatives to wage a health care reform campaign of its own in 60 `swing' congressional districts where support for Clinton's general themes...is not considered firm." Question: how fair is the debate when the judge is on one of the teams?
Altering Armey. Hillary Clinton's performance in front of congressional committees drew rave reviews from virtually every reporter, but one got so carried away that she lost touch with reality. On September 29, Rep. Dick Armey (R-Tex.) promised the First Lady "to make this debate as exciting as possible." Here's how Washington Post reporter Dana Priest recounted the subsequent exchange: "`I'm sure you will do that, you and Dr. Kevorkian,' Clinton shot back, in a sharp reference to Armey's recent comment comparing the administration plan to a `Dr. Kevorkian prescription' that would kill American jobs....`I have been told about your charm and wit,' Armey said. `The reports on your charm are overstated, and the reports of your wit are understated.' His face bright red, Armey laughed and shook his head. Then he left the room."
The only problem: As any C-SPAN viewer knows, a far from flustered Armey did not leave. He then asked a question and listened to the answer.
Reinventing Gore. When Bill Clinton and Al Gore announced their National Performance Review (NPR) plan on September 7, reporters trumpeted a shift to the right. The Washington Post headlined its story: "Post-Vacation Clinton Swims Toward Mainstream." The Boston Globe headline read "With Plan to Shrink Government, Clinton Nods to the Right." The Globe's Michael Kranish wrote: "The plan is expected to include efforts to merge government agencies, streamline bureaucracies, reduce regulation and eliminate wasteful programs...In contrast to Clinton's controversial plans on gays in the military and tax increases, this plan sounds as Republican and conservative as anything Clinton has proposed."
But the reporters must not have looked very closely at the plan. None mentioned aspects that are anything but conservative- sounding: Of the $108 billion Gore said he would squeeze out of government, The Washington Times reported only $36.4 billion would come from actual cuts, while $8.3 billion of "savings" are generated by increased taxes. The plan also fails to touch programs at the top of any conservative list, such as Amtrak.
A Citizens for a Sound Economy analysis by Dan Murphy found the Gore plan softens the current practice of requiring the Office of Management and Budget to perform a cost-benefit analysis of all new regulations to "only significant regulations." Reporters also ignored Al Gore's record of supporting ever-larger government programs. The National Taxpayers Union rated Gore the biggest spender in the Senate in 1992, the third time in four years.
Killer Kids. The recent tourist murders in Florida prompted the media to focus on juvenile crime. Without any attribution, on the September 8 Now Tom Brokaw charged: "In every community in this country, juvenile violence is on the rise. A recent survey found that one in ten kids has been shot at during the past year." The Census Bureau counts 70 million kids, so 7 million youngsters were shot at during the last year? Now that's news.
Others see the problem as a lack of gun control rather than evil teenage behavior. Dan Rather overstated the novelty of one solution on the September 13 CBS Evening News. "In Denver, Colorado's Governor gave final approval to the first state law in the nation that cracks down on handguns for juveniles. Passed by a special session of the legislature, this Colorado law makes it illegal in almost all cases for people 18 or younger to carry handguns." But Washington, D.C. and New York City have had a total ban on gun possession for everyone, not just juveniles, for years. And with the homicide rate growing every year, the ban hardly decreased the crime rate in those cities.
Career Criminals? Unable to resist the temptation to compare the Rodney King case with the Reginald Denny case, ABC's Brian Rooney explained on the September 28 World News Tonight: "[Damian] Williams and [Henry] Watson face the possibility of life in prison while just yesterday, the police convicted of violating Rodney King's civil rights won a two week delay to appeal their case before going to jail. What troubles some people is that the two white officers have been treated as though their crime was just a mistake they might never repeat, while the two black defendants have been prosecuted as though they are career criminals who might be dangerous the rest of their lives." Rooney repeated himself on the next day's Good Morning America: "Williams and Watson are being prosecuted like career criminals while the police officers...have been treated like two honest men who made a mistake."
Treated like career criminals? Of course. Rooney ignored police records documenting the criminal pasts of Williams and Watson. An avowed gang member, Williams, whose confession to the Denny beating was not allowed in court, has an arrest record that includes charges of battery, robbery and hit-and-run. Watson boasts a record that includes an arrest for carrying a concealed weapon and involvement in an armored car hold-up.
Aspin Roasts Weiner. Relying entirely on four anonymous sources, The New York Times ran a front page story on August 18 by Tim Weiner alleging "Officials in the `Star Wars' project rigged a crucial 1984 test and faked other data in a program of deception that misled Congress as well as the intended target, the Soviet Union." One of Weiner's anonymous sources told him a beacon had been installed in the target missile to guide the interceptor missile to the point of impact, creating the impression of a successful test. Taking Weiner's report as gospel, a Times editorial the following day praised Weiner for exposing "the Star Wars hoax." The story also spurred reports on ABC, NBC and CNN on the night of August 18, as well as stories in Time ("The Ploy That Fell to Earth") and Newsweek ("Reagan's Cold War `Sting'?").
On September 9, however, Secretary of Defense Les Aspin reported the findings of a Pentagon inquiry into the accusation. After rebutting the specific accusations, Aspin, who was chairman of the House Armed Services Committee at the time of the test and no SDI cheerleader, explained: "Our conclusion, then, is that the experiment was not rigged and, in fact, could not be rigged by the presence of the radar beacon." The Times reported this rebuttal on page B-9 of the Metro section. NBC Nightly News reported Aspin's finding, but not ABC, CNN, Time or Newsweek.
Funds Untied. "The U.S. spends significantly less on the arts than many other Western nations," claimed CNN anchor Linden Soles on CNN's September 2 World News. Reporter Cynthia Tornquist began her story with figures from the National Endowment for the Arts: "The United States falls short when it comes to public funding for the arts...Sweden spends 46 dollars per capita on the arts, Germany puts out 39 dollars...However, the United States spends just 68 cents per person." Tornquist broadcast a series of appeals for public funding from NEA acting Deputy Chairman A.B. Spellman, playwright Terrence McNally, and arts advocate Julian Lowe.
Despite the advocacy for public financing, Tornquist paradoxically concluded: "According to the National Academy for the Arts, the arts has become a nine billion dollar industry in the United States. Those who support the arts suggest that with proper public funding, the arts can provide the public with economic as well as cultural rewards." She might have been referring to the 1992 Giving USA report on philanthropy, which reported that private donations to the arts amounted to $9.32 billion, or more than 50 times annual NEA spending. It's the highest spending on arts in the world. But Tornquist ignored that.
Calling Off The Dogs. In the aftermath of the 1992 campaign, George Bush fired State Department appointee Elizabeth Tamposi for searching the passport files of Bill Clinton and his mother, Virginia Kelley. The three network evening shows, CNN's World News, and PBS' MacNeil-Lehrer NewsHour featured Tamposigate no less than 28 times, eight times as the lead story, with 21 stories during the 16-day period from November 10-25. But TV coverage of Clinton-era scandals remains rare.
A September 3 Washington Post front page story revealed an investigation by the State Department's Inspector General into allegations that the Clinton State Department searched the records of 160 senior personnel appointees, including the personnel file of Elizabeth Tamposi. How many times did these same newscasts, during a similar 16-day period, cover this scandal? Zero. Only CNN's Inside Politics felt it merited mention, mentioning it on September 3 and again on September 10.
The networks also failed to cover the story that former Clinton chief of staff and campaign aide Betsey Wright, now a lobbyist, arranged for a White House meeting for the American Forest and Paper Association. This meeting resulted in the watering down of a proposed Clinton directive that would have required the federal government to buy paper containing 25 percent recycled materials. This is the sort of "insider lobbying" that Clinton pledged to end, but the network news hounds don't have the nose for hypocrisy that they used to.
Gannett's Semi-Free Press. A recent incident in Vermont shows how political correctness leads to censorship. A late August Albany Times-Union story detailed how the Gannett-owned Burlington Free Press fired reporter Paul Teetor after he angered black activists by reporting that a white woman was not allowed to speak and escorted out of a community meeting on racial issues. What Teetor considered a carefully worded neutral report incensed local black activists. Claiming the story should have focused exclusively on minority complaints, they demanded the paper fire Teetor and run a front page correction of the "racist" story. The Free Press editors complied.
Gannett has a standing policy of politically correct news coverage. Gannett Vice President for News Phil Currie told the Times-Union about the chain's "All-American Contest" that encourages its papers to hire minorities and depict them in constructive ways. "Twice a year, he said, each paper in the chain is evaluated and receives a score between 1 and 10. Scores in the contests, he said, could be a factor in considering which editors are promoted." Therefore, editors are discouraged from running anything that reinforce "black stereotypes." How has Teetor's firing and Gannett's policy affected the Free Press? The Times-Union reported that stories dealing with racial issues are reviewed by top editors and "anything that minorities might possibly consider offensive is cut."
