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
Reporters Heap Heaving Helpings of Mush, Ignore Substanse of Testimony
Hurrays for Hillary on the Hill
The unveiling of Hillary Rodham Clinton's health plan and her testimony before Congress unleashed a chorus of uncritical raves for her effort to place one-seventh of the economy under government control.
ABC named the First Lady "Person of the Week" on September 24. Peter Jennings gushed: "This particular individual had come an awfully long way in the last year or so. And then we thought -- no, maybe it's the country which has come a long way." He explained "Mrs. Clinton's passion for health care is undeniably deep. She worked tirelessly for healthier children in Arkansas," though the American Public Health Association ranked Arkansas 46th in "adequate prenatal care."
Nevertheless, Jennings referred to her as "Hillary, the problem- solver" and added she "has been positively liberated" by her experience. ABC aired five soundbites -- all positive. Jennings ended by noting her 1969 commencement address: "She said in that speech the challenge was to practice politics as the art of making possible what appears to be impossible. In attempting to completely revolutionize the American health care system, she and her husband are attempting just that."
The tendency to report on Hillary's personality or her sales job overshadowed the plan's substance. Bob Schieffer described the scene on the September 28 CBS Evening News: "Seldom referring to notes, she argued that much of the system is broken and must be fixed. There seemed no detail she did not know, no criticism she had not considered...It was a boffo performance. Republicans were impressed, Democrats just loved it."
On the September 29 Inside Politics, CNN reporter Candy Crowley found "more rave reviews for Hillary Rodham Clinton, who put in yet another virtuoso performance." While acknowledging the testimony was "an exchange of philosophical views and some broad generalities," Crowley crowed "this is a lady who knows her stuff, and how to use it...it has all worked very well. Pro and con on the issue, lawmakers seem unanimously ga-ga."
Other reporters were even less concerned with the details. On the October 1 C-SPAN Journalists' Roundtable, The Boston Globe's Peter Gosselin recalled how a teapot sat at her table. "She had tea, particularly in the afternoon, while she was testifying...It was, again, this nice touch. `I'm just, I'm just sitting here having tea, and we're just talking about health care.'"
A triumph of image over substance? No, he maintained: "I was terribly impressed that she was able to marry some of the traditional images of the First Lady with the policy technocrat that she really is."
