Notable Quotables - 09/08/1997
Diana's Death: It's a Conservative's Fault
Dan Rather: "What about the
businessmen, the media moguls of tabloid sleaze who pay these photographers
big bucks for what they do?"
Richard Threlkeld: "...Until
[Rupert] Murdoch the paparazzi business was just small potatoes."
Andrew Neil, of The European: "In
this country, Murdoch set new rules. He was prepared to pay big money for
these pictures."
Threlkeld: "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: "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 Worldin Britain."
- September 3 CBS Evening
News, minutes after a seven minute interview with a photographer who was
at the crash scene. Rather asked him very tabloidish questions, such as:
"Could you see her?" and "Could you see her breathing?"
Mike Espy: Too Good to be Corrupt
"When you look at the
charges, you can't help but characterize them, if you see normal indictments
how should I put this euphemistically slightly chicken-turdish. The amounts
really are small, they are inflated. He may have been a real scuzzball
soliciting tickets and plane rides for his girlfriend, but really, this is not
the kind of thing we should have independent counsels doing. We ought to let
the Justice Department do it."
- National Public Radio reporter Nina
Totenberg, August 30 Inside Washington.
"I'm sure he probably thought
it was penny-ante stuff and that nobody would pay that much attention and was
confident that none of these gifts, football tickets in the skybox, something
else here, plane trips and that kind of thing, was enough to corrupt him
because he was confident in his own character. I know Mike Espy and I know he
is a man of character. I think this is a case of a very bright, good man
having done some stupid things. He is not corrupt."
- Gannett News
Service reporter Deborah Mathis, same show.
Bi-Coastal Divide on Minnesota's Welfare
Study Casts Doubt
on Incentives To Get Those on Welfare to Work
- New York Times, August 28
Study Gives
Minnesota Welfare Program Rave Reviews
- Los Angeles Times, same
day
Condemning Its Own Reporting
Anchor Brian Williams: "He
[Clinton] proudly pointed out that a year after he signed welfare reform into
law the rolls are down, way down nationwide. And as NBC's Gwen Ifill reports,
not all of the predictions of disaster have come true."
Ifill: "The homeless shelters
were supposed to be overwhelmed. The soup kitchens overflowing. But that
nightmare hasn't materialized, so far."
- August 12 NBC Nightly News.
vs.
Tom Brokaw: "In Southern
California, the welfare reform requirements could have a disastrous effect.
That's the conclusion of a university study out today. Too much expected too
soon of too many."
George Lewis: "Today's USC
study predicts that welfare reform will push thousands of people deeper into a
life of poverty and overwhelming personal problems....And homelessness could
rise by as many as 190,000 people....Most everyone thought that overhauling
the welfare system would be a good idea. Now, there are new concerns being
raised about the human consequences of doing that."
- NBC Nightly
News, April 10.
CNN on North Korea: Famine is Bad Luck, Not Communist Tyranny
"It depends on whom you talk
to. The international relief agencies, some of the people who work there say
that the plight of the people here is not just the fault of Mother Nature,
that it's also the government's economic policies and agriculture policies.
Government officials dispute that and they say this is solely a problem
generated by Mother Nature and only Mother Nature can solve this problem. So
there's a real dispute about the blame in this case, but General Kim Jong Il
has been personally involved in this. He has ordered all of the entire army,
hundreds of thousands of troops, into the countryside to help the farmers try
to harvest what crops will survive."
- CNN International President
Eason Jordan from North Korea, August 13.
"Clearly, this call [for
reconciliation with South Korea] comes at a time when North Korea is deeply
troubled with famine as a result of natural catastrophes that have occurred
over the last three years."
- Jordan on the CNN special "Inside
North Korea," August 14.
Another Episode of "The Cold War: We Were Right All Along"
"[Tran Quang] Co pointed out
what has become especially obvious since the demise of the Soviet Union:
Vietnam was not a tool of world communism. The theme resounded passionately
throughout the conference. It means that the central premise of the American
motivation to defend South Vietnam was false. If these concepts seemed like
echoes from the past, they were. Much of what the Americans were being told,
and were now accepting, the antiwar movement had argued 30 years before."
- Former New York Times Vietnam correspondent David Shipler in The New
York Times Magazine, August 10.
Tainted Meat? More Government, Please
"In other words, the Congress
will not give the U.S. Department of Agriculture the power to recall food on
its own. We are joined this evening by the Secretary of Agriculture, Dan
Glickman. Mr. Glickman, why won't they give it to you?...And as a result, is
Congress putting Americans at risk?"
- Peter Jennings, August 21 World
News Tonight.
"This month's outbreak of
food poisoning from ecoli-contaminated beef is just the latest incident of
food-borne illness in this country, adding to a growing belief that more
stringent measures are needed to protect America's food supply."
-
NBC's Jodi Applegate, August 26 Today.
Liberal Media Bias Acknowledged....
"Is the overall national
media somewhat liberal in its tendencies, especially in the mid-range of
reporters and editors? I would say so. It's based in New York, it's based in
Washington with a little side-league in Atlanta and a couple of other places.
I don't think there's much doubt. I think everybody needs to be a wary
consumer. That's of Fox, that's of CNN, that's of Newsweek. We are in an age
of labeling. There's labeling on the food, there's gotta be labeling on the
media."
- Newsweek Washington reporter Howard Fineman on
CNBC's Hardball, August 18.
...And Denied
"Scholar after scholar has
disputed, in studying the actual content of the press, what you've just
blithely handed out that it's this left-wing media. That's a charge from the
'50s. That's not the current press. Tom Patterson no, the bias is a bias
against politicians of all kinds, not a bias for one side or other."
-
Ellen Hume, Director of the PBS Democracy Project, reacting to Bob Novak's
assertion the mainstream media are "tilted to the left." July 27 CNN
Reliable Sources.
"I don't think voting for
Clinton makes you a liberal. I mean, Bill Clinton isn't even a liberal, and
second, if you're liberal, does that mean you can't be fair? What hypocrisy
that we sit around and talk about the press like it's some sort of 'they.'
It's us. Are we too liberal? N-o....The bias is in favor of bad news and you
go after whoever is in power, and the name of the game is kill the king, which
is why Bill Clinton does not get a free ride."
- Newsweek's
Eleanor Clift on The McLaughlin Group, July 5.
