MediaWatch: September 1997

NewsBites: Targeted Droughts

Targeted Drought. Those darn famines keep hitting communist countries, but Marxist economics has nothing to do with it. That’s what viewers learned from a September 10 CBS Evening News "exclusive." Peter Van Sant described his trip with AmeriCares to North Korea, opening with video of malnourished babies in an orphanage.

Van Sant explained: "Government overseers watched our every move, but gave us unlimited access to the babies. Dr. Diane Staves is a member of the AmeriCares team who has come to witness first hand how two years of catastrophic floods and this year’s unrelenting drought are pushing millions into starvation." After a soundbite from the doctor, Van Sant noted: "Today, the babies received their first real food in days, but for most it’s too little too late." Van Sant never even hinted at the role of government policy, preferring to stick to emotional video. It’s amazing how the flood and drought hit only the portion of the Korean peninsula north of the 38th parallel.

Murdoch Killed Her. Many commentators blamed paparazzi photographers for Princess Diana’s death. But CBS blamed Rupert Murdoch, the man CBS considers a conservative ogre. Dan Rather introduced the piece on the September 3 CBS Evening News: "What about the businessmen, the media moguls of tabloid sleaze who pay these photographers big bucks for what they do?"

Reporter Richard Threlkeld zeroed in on just one businessman: "Until Murdoch the paparazzi business was just small potatoes." Andrew Neil, a former Murdoch employee now with The European newspaper in London, asserted: "In this country, Murdoch set new rules. He was prepared to pay big money for these pictures." Threlkeld then constructed the chain: "Murdoch stuck the pictures on the front pages of his London tabloids, The Sun and News of the World. He made a fortune and used it to buy the New York Post, TV Guide, 20th Century Fox, Fox-TV and Sky-TV." Neil responded: "There would be no Rupert Murdoch empire in America if it hadn’t been for the money from the Sun and the News of the World in Britain."

While CBS decried the tabloids, the network broadcast the same tabloid pictures snapped of Princess Diana while she vacationed with Dodi al-Fayed. At least Rupert Murdoch paid for them. Threlkeld didn’t mention that since the CBS News staff was off for the Labor Day weekend the night of Diana’s crash, CBS had to feed affiliates live coverage from another source -- Murdoch-owned Sky-TV.

Workfare Whining. "The work is hot and sweaty. Nasty too," declared reporter Jacqueline Adams in yet another profile of a "victim" of welfare reform. But as usual, not a word in this August 23 CBS Evening News piece about the working people in this country who have been victimized by paying for welfare over the years. Adams continued with her sob story from New York: "Fatima Austin has no choice. To continue receiving her weekly $145.50 in welfare she must spend 20 hours a week scrubbing the walls and stairwells in this public housing complex. When a mandatory six month stint is over, she’ll have two weeks to find a real job or it’s back to workfare again. Even if she never finds a permanent job at the end of two years, she’s on her own." Workfare enrollee Austin, seemingly just before she called Amnesty International, cried out: I’m a human being and I have rights too and this is not right."

 Adams grudgingly noted New York City has reduced its welfare rolls significantly. But the tone of her piece shouted a typical liberal response: more people are off welfare, but at what price? When Mayor Rudolph Giuliani insisted that workfare taught the invaluable lesson of work discipline, Adams shot back: "The Mayor needs to think that, because crunch time for him is just around the corner. To comply with Mr. Clinton’s welfare reforms, this city is going to have to double the number of workfare slots without eliminating a single permanent city job."

Chung Change. The August 19 NBC Nightly News featured Tom Brokaw’s interview with DNC fundraising figure Johnny Chung, touted as an "exclusive" interview. But Chung’s revelation that he bought access to a Cabinet official didn’t appear to be newsworthy to other networks, or the rest of NBC’s news programs, for that matter.

Chung told Brokaw he approached the Energy Department about setting up a meeting with Energy Secretary O’Leary for five Chinese energy executives. An Energy Department official suggested that Chung make a donation to O’Leary’s favorite charity, Africare. Chung gave $25,000 and got his meeting. Big news, buying access, right? Wrong. Later that evening, Dateline NBC ran a longer version of the interview but not the August 20 Today, which never mentioned the scandal. The story was completely ignored by ABC, CBS and CNN. But CNN did air a full report from Brooks Jackson on the 19th on how documents given to CNN showed that back in 1992 the Christian Coalition coordinated efforts with the 1992 Bush campaign, such as discussing voter guide distribution.

Simple Susan. CNN reporter Susan Reed was persistently wrong on California Proposition 209, the anti-racial preference bill passed by Californians and recently upheld by a federal court. Back on April 8 Reed reported: "The battle in California over ending affirmative action is now closer to a resolution. A federal appeals court has upheld Proposition 209, the first state law to end thirty years of affirmative action programs."

 Reed issued two reports on August 28 concerning the anti-Prop 209 protest on the San Francisco Bay Bridge. Reed again falsely stated that affirmative action had been banned in California (Proposition 209 banned racial preferences only in government hiring and contracting). On that day’s Inside Politics she stated: "This is a raucous crowd, it’s fired up. You think they’d be celebrating a victory, instead of the first full day of affirmative action being banned in California...This is a very divisive issue here in California. As you may remember, only fifty-four percent of the population passed the ban on affirmative action." By this standard, Clinton’s 1996 California electoral win was divisive, since he garnered just fifty-one percent of the vote on the same ballot where Prop 209 passed.

Reed also characterized Governor Pete Wilson’s attempt to make local government agencies obey the law in the worst possible light: "Governor Wilson [is] threatening municipalities that say they will not enforce [Prop 209] with punitive crackdowns that will involve lawsuits that could cost these municipalities millions of dollars. Jesse Jackson, on the other hand, is saying that federal affirmative action laws should take precedence." On the August 28 The World Today, Reed continued to borrow language from the civil rights era, putting a "civil rights" patina over the liberal interest groups marching behind Jesse Jackson: "To some it looked like a civil rights era protest, to others it looked like a wake, to mark the day affirmative action died in California." Significantly, Reed left out the "third" side of this formulation: The majority of Californians who voted for Prop 209.

The Carey Conspiracy. Print reporters for the Associated Press, The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Times, and The New Republic uncovered charges as long ago as July that the Teamsters agreed to donate nearly $1 million in PAC contributions to Democratic National Committee affiliates in exchange for a "commitment" to help Ron Carey’s campaign for union chief. But the networks first bypassed this news and then offered White House spin without comment when they did finally report the story.

Even though the UPS strike was the most widely covered strike this decade the networks couldn’t find the time to highlight an incriminating memo mentioned in the pre-strike July 29, Wall Street Journal. The networks failed to mention a note outlining a DNC "commitment" to the union written by Democratic direct mail consultant Martin Davis, who wrote a memo telling Teamster DRIVE PAC political director Bill Hamilton to contact Richard Sullivan, the former DNC finance director who served as the Thompson hearings’ first witness.

On August 23 The Washington Post reported the Justice Department was investigating whether officials at the DNC improperly directed contributions to Carey’s campaign. All the networks did cover the story but on CBS and CNN it came wrapped in Democratic denials. On that night’s CBS Evening News, Bill Plante announced: "The Democratic National Committee did say it doesn’t believe that any commitments were made or any plan implemented. And the White House special counsel says that to the administration’s best knowledge, no one there was involved in any such deal." So it’s okay to conspire to break the laws, as long as the plan is not implemented?

On CNN’s The World Today, Jeanne Meserve led a lone brief with the White House denial: "A White House official tells CNN he has no knowledge of a [DNC] plan to help Teamsters President Ron Carey in his election last year. White House lawyer Lanny Davis says he has no ideas why a senior Clinton aide’s name is mentioned in notes describing such a plan."

Ad Watch Botch. As with their thousands of claims of Medicare "cuts" in 1995 and 1996, the media continue to be dishonest in refereeing the claims of Democratic campaign ads. Lieutenant Governor Don Beyer, the Democratic candidate for Governor of Virginia, is running an ad asserting his Republican opponent, Attorney General James Gilmore, supported a ninety million dollar cut in education." 

In a September 2 "Ad Watch," designed to aid the public in "evaluating the political message," Washington Post reporter Spencer S. Hsu claimed Beyer’s ad "accurately states Gilmore’s position, including his support of fellow Republican Gov. George Allen’s 1995 $2.1 billion tax cut plan that would have trimmed $90 million in increases in state spending for public health and higher education." (Italics ours.) Hsu contradicted himself in his own story; Gilmore did not support a "cut" in education. He supported a "trim" in increases in spending.

Thirteen days later, in another "Ad Watch" column, illustrated by a picture emphasizing Gilmore’s support for education "cuts," Hsu repeated his acceptance of Beyer’s inaccurate claim: "Beyer accurately states that Gilmore, as Attorney General, backed Republican Gov. George Allen’s failed 1995 tax-cutting budget, which would have reduced education spending by $90 million." Unlike the first piece, Hsu did not point out that to Beyer a "cut" is actually a decrease in planned increases on spending.

Hani the Hero? In a Newsweek article titled "Truth or Justice: A confession could free the killers of a hero," the "hero" referred to is deceased South African terrorist Chris Hani. Johannesburg correspondent Marcus Mabry wrote about testimony before South Africa’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission about Hani’s 1993 assassination. Murderers who testify fully and truthfully before the Commission are given amnesty for their crimes.

In the August 25 piece, Mabry whitewashed history. He wrote as "the head of the Communist Party and former commander of the ANC’s armed wing, [Hani] denounced violence and became a powerful voice for peace....South Africa can only hope that Hani’s message of reconciliation didn’t die with him." But how peaceful was Hani’s record? According to the State Department’s 1991 Human Rights Report, Hani tried to reconcile with 30 former members of Umkhonto W Sizwe, the ANC’s military wing which he commanded, by ordering they be detained and tortured for "crimes against the movement." Hani should be remembered more as a powerful voice for violence in South Africa even if one liberal reporter’s rosy memory wont accept it.

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