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
Who lost Socialized Medicine?
Health Blame Game
Petulant over the death of Clinton-style big-government health reform, reporters are passing out the blame. Newsweek headlined a September 19 story: "The Lost Chance -- The Clintons: Newsweek reveals how they set out to reform a broken health-care system -- and squandered a historic opportunity."
The Clintons got their share for exhibiting "hubris and poor judgment." But Newsweek targeted a variety of other culprits: "special interests," "saboteurs," "scare-tactic advertisements," and that "cranky Senate GOP leader...obstructionist," Bob Dole. They even jabbed the press, which was "confused and negligent," and the networks, which "amazingly, refused to give Clinton time for a final plea to the public in August."
"What went wrong?" asked authors Steven Waldman and Bob Cohn, before letting Hillary Clinton provide the answer: "Mrs. Clinton blames the special-interest groups, and not without reason... Much of this money was spent on blatantly untrue advertisements designed to scare the public."
On September 22, reporters found another reason to blame Big Money in a new report from the left-wing group Citizen Action. ABC's Jackie Judd claimed on World News Tonight: "The campaign to defeat or alter the President's reform plan has put a record $46 million dollars in the campaign treasuries of congressional candidates since last year....The watchdog group, Citizen Action, says they got their money's worth."
On the CBS Evening News, Bob Schieffer declared: "Determined to kill the legislation, the health care industry flooded key members of Congress with more than $46 million in campaign contributions, according to a report released today by a nonpartisan watchdog group."
How nonpartisan is Citizen Action? Citizen Action advocates a nationalized Canadian-style "single payer" health system. Yet, in print coverage from January 1990 through June 1993, only 10 out of 240 news stories bothered to label Citizen Action "liberal." As the media heralded Citizen Action for disclosing the role of money in the health debate, reporters failed to note the group doesn't practice what it preaches: Citizen Action refuses to disclose any financial information.
