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Nets Skipped Chinese Military-DNC Donation Link; Gas vs. Milk for Kids
>>> April 5 MediaWatch now online. Check out a front page article titled "Two Thumbs Down for Oscar's Honors," by MRC analyst Jessica Anderson and a Review by the MRC's Tim Graham: "Meet the Obedient White House Press." On the back page, an On the Bright Side item headlined "CNN Catches Gore Gaffes" and a piece on how "CNN's Cold War Rewrites the '80s." Plus, Newsbites on the networks treating the China scandal as a partisan GOP gimmick, Time magazine falsely hyping Al Gore's claims about suburban sprawl and how CNN and NBC picked up on negative NARAL ads against Elizabeth Dole and George W. Bush. To read these articles, go to the MRC home page and click on the "News Division" button on the left. <<<
On this past
weekend's Inside Washington, liberal advocate and National Public Radio
reporter Nina Totenberg defended President Clinton's decision to play
golf one day last week: I can't beat Charles Krauthammer's response, so I'll go with it: "The comparison to FDR is simply absurd. That was a war that lasted half a decade. This was Day 6 of the bloody campaign..."
The Times disclosed that the FBI feared at one point last year that a "hit squad" had been sent from China to kill Chung and conveyed the import of its reporting: "Chung's testimony has provided investigators the first direct link between a senior Chinese government official and illicit foreign contributions that were funneled into Clinton's 1996 reelection effort." Network reaction: Zilch Sunday night. Not a syllable on ABC's World News Tonight, CBS Evening News or CNN's The World Today, though each had time for at least one less than pressing non- Kosovo story. (NBA basketball bumped NBC Nightly News in the East.) ABC found room for a look at how baseball's opening game was to be played in Mexico and how baseball is marketing itself to Mexicans; CBS featured a story on how high schools are considering later start times to accommodate teenage sleep patterns and a report on the spread of Hepatitis C. CNN's 9:30pm ET edition of The World Today ran a lengthy piece on a medical school which teaches future doctors about alternative medicine. The LA Times story did generate brief mention on Fox News Sunday and NBC's Meet the Press: NPR's Mara Liasson asked guest Pat Buchanan about it on Fox and NBC's Tim Russert raised the story in his last question to Secretary of State Madeleine Albright. I missed Face the Nation, but did not hear the story mentioned on ABC's This Week. Network producers can't say they missed the West Coast paper's story on the Easter holiday, as the Washington Post printed a condensed version of the story on page A10, though sans the portions about FBI concerns about Chung's safety. "Testimony Links Top China Official, Funds for Clinton," announced the April 4 Los Angeles Times headline. Since this all may be news to readers outside the LA and Washington, DC areas, below are some excerpts from the lengthy 3,500 word piece by Washington bureau reporters William C. Rempel, Henry Weinstein and Alan C. Miller: The chief of China's military intelligence secretly directed funds from Beijing to help reelect President Clinton in 1996, former Democratic fundraiser Johnny Chung has told federal investigators. Chung says he met three times with the intelligence official, Gen. Ji Shengde, who ordered $300,000 deposited into the Torrance businessman's bank account to subsidize campaign donations intended for Clinton, according to sources familiar with Chung's sealed statements to federal prosecutors. During their initial meeting on Aug. 11, 1996, in Hong Kong, Ji conveyed to Chung the Chinese government's specific interest in supporting Clinton: "We like your President," Ji said, according to sources familiar with Chung's grand jury testimony. Chung testified that he was introduced to the intelligence chief by the daughter of China's retired senior military officer. Chung's testimony has provided investigators the first direct link between a senior Chinese government official and illicit foreign contributions that were funneled into Clinton's 1996 reelection effort. It is the strongest evidence to emerge -- in two years of federal investigations -- that the highest levels of the Chinese government sought to influence the U.S. election process. Key aspects of Chung's testimony, which has not been made public, have been corroborated by financial records in the United States and Hong Kong, according to law enforcement and other sources.... Gen. Ji, the Chinese intelligence chief, was named by Chung in sworn grand jury testimony and in statements made to Justice Department investigators during extensive interviews from December 1997 through March 1998. Chung also turned over cartons of financial records. Chung told investigators that he and Ji were brought together by Liu Chaoying, the daughter of retired Gen. Liu Huaqing. At the time, she was a Chung business partner as well as a lieutenant colonel in the People's Liberation Army.... Chung's relationship with federal authorities took a dramatic turn last spring when teams of federal agents moved him and his family into protective custody, law enforcement sources told The Times. The FBI feared for Chung's safety after he received veiled threats and bribe offers from individuals pressing him to keep silent about his China dealings. Those concerns grew after the FBI received information from overseas indicating that Chung could be in danger. For 21 days in May and June, Chung and his family were kept under 24-hour guard in hotels near Los Angeles International Airport by teams of heavily armed FBI agents. And, as recently as two weeks ago, special agents again secluded the Chung family in a Torrance hotel for three days over still-unexplained safety concerns.... During this period when Chung and his family were kept in hiding, FBI counterintelligence agents also monitored groups of Chinese visitors traveling in Southern California, according to law enforcement and other sources. At least one group was regarded by U.S. intelligence operatives as a possible "hit squad," said one federal law enforcement official.... He met Liu in July 1996. She was not only a ranking military officer but also vice president of a Hong Kong subsidiary of China Aerospace Corp., a government-owned company that deals in satellite technology and missile sales.... END Excerpt The LA Times normally only keeps articles up for a day, but in this case this article will probably remain accessible for a few days. Along with the story text, the Web site version provides a detailed time line for Chung's activities and a half dozen audio clips of reporter William Rempel talking about the story. Go to: http://www.latimes.com/HOME/NEWS/POLITICS/NATPOL/lat_china990404.htm [1]
A couple of hundred people protesting police brutality made it onto both CBS and NBC and about a dozen people on a sidewalk complaining about gas prices generated a hysterical story on CBS, complete with a woman screaming about how higher gas prices mean she can't buy milk for her children. -- Police
brutality. The April 3 CBS Evening News gave a few seconds to a rally in
Washington, DC, but NBC treated it as a seminal event. NBC Nightly News
anchor John Seigenthaler intoned: "To Washington now where families
from across the country staged a protest against police brutality." Sounds like a major protest and NBC only showed close-up video so you could not measure how many attended. Reality Check: The April 4 Washington Post allocated this story to page 3 of the Metro section, reporting that "hundreds" attended. The Washington Times reported that the rally attracted "a couple of hundred people."
ABC's story was reasonable compared to the wackiness delivered by CBS. Anchor John Roberts introduced the April 3 CBS Evening News story on complaints about rising gas prices by calling it the latest form of "road rage." Over video of
barely a dozen people on a Los Angeles sidewalk, reporter Vince Gonzalez
asserted: "In car crazy California, motorists are doing the
unthinkable: Leaving their cars and taking to the streets to protest the
price of gasoline." Gonzalez explained
how gas prices are up 40 cents a gallon in the past month from record
lows. After playing a clip of a woman at a gas station complaining,
Gonzalez featured a man claiming it's all because of "greed"
by the oil companies: Instead of dismissing Dei as a wacky crank, Gonzalez took her cause seriously, outlining how protesters have called for "a national gas out day." Reality
Check. ABC and CBS ignored two
factors in the price of gas in California: environmental rules and
excessively high taxes. As an April 2 AP story on the then upcoming
protest organized by a "community activist" noted: In other words, taxes on a gallon are greater than the recent 40 cents per gallon rise. +++ Watch the woman with the wild claims and see the small size of the crowd. To see and hear the CBS story, including the humorous jump from the gas station owner claiming no one is screaming to the screaming woman, go to the MRC home page where Kristina Sewell and Sean Henry will post a video clip Monday morning in RealPlayer format. Go to: http://www.mrc.org [2] To see past video clips, including Today's Matt Lauer condemning the HillaryNo.com Web page and Dan Rather kissing up to Bill Clinton last week, go to the MRC's video page: http://www.mediaresearch.org/news/biasvideo.html [3]
Thomas, a conservative columnist and former aide to Jerry Falwell, has co-authored a new book titled, "Blinded by Might: Can the Religious Right Save America?" After allowing Thomas to explain his thesis that the Religious Right became too entangled in politics, how some leaders got their priorities mixed up as ordained ministers got away from their true calling, and urging conservatives to encourage bubble up morality, Shriver pounced. Shriver: "So
what would you say to Reverend Robertson? A lot of people look to him to
figure out where they should vote, what they should think -- to be guided
by him. What would you say?" Thomas proceeded to explain his view that when religious leaders became so active in politics it looked like they were saying being religious means you must be a conservative Republican. Shriver, MRC
analyst Mark Drake noticed, then pressed Thomas: "What do you think
is the biggest mistake, single biggest mistake, you, Reverend Falwell, the
Religious Right made?"
>>>
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After six days Clinton was as stressed as Roosevelt, so deserved a break
to play golf.
"The chief of China's military intelligence secretly directed funds
from Beijing to help reelect President Clinton in 1996, former Democratic
fundraiser Johnny Chung has told federal investigators," Sunday's
Los Angeles Times reported in an explosive front page story bridging the
campaign fundraising and espionage scandals.
How many liberals protesting does it take to generate a network TV story?
Very few. Saturday's newscasts provided an illuminating demonstration
that it is not how many who are protesting that determines network
interest, but if the cause appeals to network producers.
On Friday's Today NBC's Maria Shriver kept pushing Cal Thomas to admit
the Christian Right set a bad "tone" in the 1980s. Earlier,
matching the derogatory liberal view that Rush Limbaugh listeners are
automatons, Shriver claimed "a lot of people" look to Pat
Robertson to tell them "what they should think." (Shriver filled
in last week for Katie Couric.)