MediaWatch: September 1997
Table of Contents:
- MediaWatch: September 1997
- ABC Morning Anchor Leaves a Legacy of Cheerleading for Socialism and Feminism Joan
- NewsBites: Targeted Droughts
- Admiring Diana but Hitting Mother Teresa
- DNC Chairman Downplayed, National Security adviser Ignored by Nets
- Espy's 39 Indictments? Yawn What Sleaze Factor
- Caldwell's Gospel
- Defining Away Bias
- Janet Cooke Award: "Dumbing Down" the NEA Debate
DNC Chairman Downplayed, National Security adviser Ignored by Nets
Big Names Draw Big Zeroes
Republican National Committee Chairman Haley Barbour’s July 24 appearance before the Senate Governmental Affairs Committee drew the most TV news coverage of the July sessions, with the exception of the hearings’ first day. But when Barbour’s counterpart, Don Fowler, Chairman of the Democratic National Committee, testified September 9, one evening show and all three morning shows ignored him. Fowler said he had no memory of assisting questionable donors like Lebanese oilman Roger Tamraz into White House events by defying the National Security Council.
MSNBC, which carried Barbour live all afternoon, aired nothing except brief updates on Fowler. CNN, which promised during its four and a half hours of live Barbour testimony that it would also air Fowler’s testimony, aired only 100 minutes of coverage before skipping out at 11:40am ET.
Fowler drew nothing on the next day’s morning shows, even though ABC and NBC each aired interviews on Barbour the morning after his testimony.
ABC’s Bill Ritter asked Cokie Roberts on the August 1 Good Morning America why the July Senate fundraising hearings got so little TV coverage. She replied: "The witnesses that have come so far have not been names that anyone in the media would recognize for the most part. There will be some of those close White House aides when they come back in September, and you can be sure we’ll be there."
The networks proved Roberts wrong on Fowler, and again two nights later, after the highest-ranking official to date, National Security Adviser Sandy Berger, appeared before the committee. Berger admitted the White House had almost no screening of donors before inviting them to White House events. That night, ABC aired an 18-second brief, and CBS and NBC aired nothing. The morning shows had zero.
Newspaper scoops that underlined Al GoreÆs aggressive role in questionable fundraising practices also drew little network attention. On September 12, The New York Times revealed that talking points given to Gore for a 1996 fundraising meeting "appear to show him actively involved in not just the strategy, but the execution of an all-consuming fundraising effort. The statements contradict the portrait of a Vice President detached from the fine print of fundraising that his aides have drawn in recent weeks."
The Washington Post and the Los Angeles Times led that same morning with new details of the FBI investigation of a Chinese strategy to influence the 1996 elections, focusing on Chinese publisher Ted Sioeng, who sat next to Gore at the infamous Buddhist temple fundraiser. Network coverage of these stories? None.
