MediaWatch: October 1994
Table of Contents:
- MediaWatch: October 1994
- Newsweek Removes Noted Clinton Sycophant from the White House Beat
- NewsBites: Sticking to the Issues
- Revolving Door: Matalin's Matchmaker
- Reporters Club Contract with America with False History of the 1980's
- Who lost Socialized Medicine?
- Health Risk Hype
- Relentless Russert
- Janet Cooke Award: ABC Environmental Reporter Loads Cairo Story with White House-Favored Spokesmen
Revolving Door: Matalin's Matchmaker
Matalin's Matchmaker
Mary Matalin and James Carville got together thanks to Meet the Press Producer Colette Rhoney, an aide to Carville a decade ago. In their new book, All's Fair: Love, War, and Running for President, the now-married campaign managers for George Bush and Bill Clinton described Rhoney's efforts.
While dining at U.S. News & World Report columnist Michael Barone's home, Matalin asked Rhoney if she knew Carville, a man Matalin had seen profiled in The Wall Street Journal. "She said, `Have I? I worked on a campaign with him....He's so cool! I'll call him for you.'" Carville confirmed that "Colette was my assistant on the [Lloyd] Doggett race down in Texas," referring to the losing 1984 Democratic candidate against Republican Phil Gramm.
Matalin recalled: "Colette is a real little Miss Matchmaker and she kept following up on it. I bumped into her at Tim Russert's Christmas party and she said. `Have you talked to James yet?' I told her we'd been playing phone tag. She and I had both had a couple of drinks and she said, `Let's give him a call right now.'" A few weeks later they met.
Rhoney explained to MediaWatch that during her senior year at George Washington University she interned with Peter Hart & Associates, a Democratic polling firm. After graduation, she spent the fall working as a Doggett staffer under campaign manager Carville.
Following a few years in The Washington Post marketing and business departments, in 1987 reporter David Broder made her his researcher. In 1989 she moved to NBC as a researcher for Washington Bureau Chief Tim Russert, taking the Meet the Press slot in 1992. She's now also producer of CNBC's Tim Russert and is "very involved" in coordinating NBC political coverage. Rhoney emphasized to MediaWatch that she's chosen journalism as her career and "closed the door behind me to partisan politics and I have no interest in going back."
In & Out of Clinton
One Washington-based Wall Street Journal
reporter moved into the Clinton Administration just as another
left to join the paper. Defense Secretary William Perry
nominated Kenneth Bacon, a 25-year Journal veteran who once
served as economic and financial features editor in D.C., to
serve as Assistant Secretary of Defense for public affairs. The
position must be recreated by Congress since former Secretary Les Aspin
abolished it. In the meantime, he's replaced Kathleen deLaski,
the Pentagon's chief public affairs officer, who went on
maternity leave. When deLaski, an ABC reporter until last year,
returns, she's expected to take a spot in the policy office....
In September, the National Journal reported that Chris Georges, an aide to since-resigned Deputy Treasury Secretary Roger Altman, joined the Journal to cover the budget and economic beats. Georges told MediaWatch that he spent the summer writing speeches for the official at the center of questions about the White House and RTC oversight of Madison Guaranty. Previously an editor at The Washington Monthly, Georges wrote two Washington Post Style section stories on young Clinton staffers, worked for the Post Outlook section, and was among the original Washington staffers of CNN's investigative unit when it formed in 1990 under the direction of Ken Bode, an aide in two Democratic presidential campaigns.
