In This Issue
No Divisive Probe of Democratic Factions; NewsBites; Lobbing the Ultimate Conversation Stopper; Hillary Reagan Clinton?; Sober and Sensible Polls?
No Divisive Probe of Democratic Factions
National political reporters perform a curious ritual in election years. They break down the Republican Party into constituent groups and gravely report on internecine battling between, for example, "moderates" and the "religious right" which threaten to scare off "independent and moderate" voters. In January, MediaWatch noted that in 1995 and 1996, three national newspapers usually applied a conservative label to the Family Research Council (in 63 percent of stories), Concerned Women for America (71 percent), and Eagle Forum (75 percent).
But these reporters rarely create a story out of discord between moderate and liberal factions of the Democratic Party. In January, MediaWatch found abortion advocacy groups were labeled as liberal in only 2.8 percent of stories in three national newspapers in 1995 and 1996. So what about liberal gay groups? In mid-September, Vice President Gore will engage in his latest courting of the gay left by appearing at the annual dinner of the Human Rights Campaign, a year after President Clinton made the "historic" decision to address that event.
To document the labeling patterns of national reporters on gay-left activist groups, MediaWatch analysts used the Nexis news data retrieval system to analyze every news story on five gay groups from January 1, 1995 through June 30, 1998 in The New York Times, USA Today, and The Washington Post. In 411 stories, the five groups were labeled only five times, or in 1.2 percent of stories.
The Human Rights Campaign was tagged only three times in 226 stories (1.3 percent). Only one came within a news story. In a January 28, 1998 Washington Post-Style section feature on Clinton’s post-Lewinsky State of the Union address, Frank Ahrens noted a party "thrown by several groups, many of them lefty" — including the HRC. "And, as the President appeared on the big screen, a deafening cheer went up." The other two came indirectly in headlines. A January 27, 1996 report on Rep. Ron Wyden’s successful Senate campaign was headlined "Candidate’s Backers Hope to Make Oregon a Liberal Proving Ground." The March 26, 1996 USA Today featured the headline "For liberals, Clinton only choice: President has grudging but solid support."
But two stories downplayed the HRC’s partisan leanings. On June 18, 1995, USA Today described HRC as "the nation’s largest non-partisan gay group." A June 2, 1996 Post feature on gay GOP Congressman Steve Gunderson described HRC as a "bipartisan gay political organization." The HRC often went label-free even as Democrats flocked to their side:
- The Washington Post reported on July 5, 1998 that one HRC activist said of Dick Gephardt: "I have taken note that in the last six to 12 months he has been much more clear and forthright on gay and lesbian issues." Gephardt was keynote speaker at a Human Rights Campaign dinner in Denver.
- The Post reported that HRC estimated "openly gay donors gave $3.2 million to Democrats [in 1995 and 1996]. Two-thirds of self-identified gay voters backed Clinton in 1996, providing seven percent of his total votes, according to an independent exit poll." The HRC itself says it gave $1.1 million in the 1995-96 cycle and dispatched staff to work on key races.
- In 1997, Hillary Clinton headlined a Barbara Boxer fundraiser at the home of HRC Executive Director Elizabeth Birch.
- Ted Kennedy spoke at their 1996 "United in Victory" convention rally in Chicago. Clinton sent a videotaped message to the group claiming his administration "has taken more steps than any other to bring the gay and lesbian community to the table."
- The weekend before the 1996 GOP convention, HRC aired TV ads asking "Why are Bob Dole and Congress wasting our time with new laws attacking gay relationships?" HRC drew a label in none of these reports.
The National Gay and Lesbian Task Force drew only two labels in 72 stories (2.8 percent), both of them indirectly in headlines. On May 27, 1996, the New York Times headline on page 10 was "Many Disllusioned Liberals See No Alternative to President." In the article, former NGLTF head Urvashi Vaid said she could not vote for Clinton. On October 9, 1996, the Washington Post headline read "Despite Some Discontent, Clinton Manages to Consolidate Core Liberal Base." On July 6, 1997, the Post identified conservative opposition, but not liberal advocacy in the headline "More Companies Reaching Out With Gay-Friendly Policies; Domestic Partner Benefits Gain Momentum in Tight Labor Market, Despite Risk of Offending Conservative Customers."
Post reporter Megan Rosenfeld explained NGLTF’s view on May 22, 1996: "Unofficially, the task force sees itself as a funkier alternative to the officially non-partisan, dollar-oriented HRC." Vice President Gore spoke to their annual awards ceremony on September 15, 1997, and hosted an event for gay activists at the vice presidential mansion where Tipper Gore introduced him as her "partner." In 1995, NGLTF Policy Institute head John D’Emilio told The New York Times about conservative "pro-family" rhetoric: "Overtly, it’s a claim to defending tradition. What it in fact turns out to be is a deeply anti-feminist and homophobic message with a strong tinge of racism."
The Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation was awarded zero ideological labels in 81 stories. GLAAD is more media-oriented than the HRC or the NGLTF, wielding a lot of power in Hollywood to insure positive portrayals of gay characters. USA Today noted on April 20, 1998 that CNN’s Larry King spoke at the annual GLAAD Media Awards banquet: "It’s all about applauding the media, TV, and movies for their efforts in presenting gays in a favorable light."
GLAAD was portrayed as the opposite of conservatives without getting labeled in a June 11, 1998 New York Times story on Internet filtering services. Reporter Pamela Mendels referred to an appeals panel that included "representatives of groups as diverse as the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation and the conservative group Morality in Media."
The same phenomenon occurred in the September 16, 1995 Washington Post, when reporter Jay Mathews covered Coors offering domestic partner benefits: "The Christian right and the gay protesters appear somewhat disoriented at finding themselves assailing the same enemy....The move stunned conservative Christian groups that had been accustomed to Coors support for anti-gay rights efforts."
Founded in 1991 to support gay candidates, the Gay and Lesbian Victory Fund drew no labels in 18 stories. Even the waning militant protest group ACT-UP (searched under its full name, the AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power) had no liberal tag in 14 stories. The New York Times noted their decline with the headline "A Decade-Old Activism of Unmitigated Gall Is Fading."
Whether most voters (or most reporters) agree or disagree with the policy agenda of liberal gay groups, if reporters think it fair to describe the religious right as "extreme" or threatening to "moderate" voters, shouldn’t they apply the same standard to the gay left? That’s especially true when the gay left regularly describes their opponents as extreme. "All political stripes reject the extremist anti-gay agenda," HRC’s Elizabeth Birch has claimed. Reporters’ use of labels helps to place the far left squarely in the mainstream, while conservatives are placed on the fringe.
NewsBites
Silent Splits
The highest ranking Democrat in the House
refused to rule out impeachment of Clinton and a respected
Democratic party elder suggested the President resign, but the
networks stayed almost silent.
The August 23 Washington Post carried an op-ed by retired Senator Sam Nunn (D-Ga.) stating that Clinton must disclose all of his illegal behavior, which Nunn concluded "will require personal sacrifice and may even require his resignation, but it would fulfill the President’s most important oath — to preserve and protect our nation." Network coverage? On Sunday’s Meet the Press moderator Tim Russert asked James Carville to react to Nunn, but no evening newscast or morning news show uttered a word.
The August 26 Washington Post reported Minority Leader Dick Gephardt said: "Impeaching the President — and effectively overriding the election of 1996 — should not be undertaken lightly...that doesn’t mean it can’t be done or shouldn’t be done; you just better be sure you do it the right way." Coverage of this major break away from the Clinton line by an influential and leading Democrat? One 15-second item on ABC’s Good Morning America.
That morning on Today, NBC’s Matt Lauer failed to raise the issue during an interview with Lanny Davis and Stuart Taylor, but he did note the Post’s August 24 front-page story on the Speaker of the House: "Stuart, Newt Gingrich has said he wants to see more information on this, he wants to see everything. And as you mentioned before, he’s looking, he says impeachment inquiries shouldn’t go forward unless they can find some sort of pattern of felonies, not a single human error. Does Ken Starr owe it to Newt Gingrich to show him what he’s come up with over these four and a half years?"
Lost in Space
Something was missing in the recent John Glenn encomiums offered up by Time and Today. The August 17 Time
cover said of Glenn’s October space mission: "A gimmick? No, a
timely reminder that we can still have heroes." But Glenn,
depicted by Time’s Jeffrey Kluger as the quintessential
"elder statesman," played an important role last summer in
stonewalling and toeing the White House line during the Senate
fundraising hearings. Time featured a brief interview
titled "The Soul of a Senator," in which Kluger and Dick Thompson tossed
softballs at Glenn: "Do partisan attacks cross the line into
personal attacks these days?" Glenn was allowed to wax
philosophical on the dangers of partisanship and the need to
work together without any mention of last summer’s hearings.
Back then, Time only noted Glenn’s partisan antics in three captions, two under photos and one under a cartoon calling Glenn and Sen. Fred Thompson "old vaudevillians upstaging each other."
On the August 25 Today, reporter Mike Boettcher spoke almost entirely of Glenn’s career as an astronaut in the ‘60s, not as an obstructionist in the ‘90s: "He was an American hero then, and will be again when he makes his second trip into space." After the glowing piece, Jodi Applegate spoke of Glenn’s "terrific opportunity" and Matt Lauer wondered aloud: "How cool is he?" Even the avuncular Al Roker couldn’t resist: "He’s the best."
Tortured Mort
U.S. News & World Report
Editor-in-Chief Mortimer Zuckerman lashed out at Bill Clinton
in the August 31 issue: "How, we must ask, could someone be so
reckless as to stake his public reputation and effectiveness as
a national leader on the discretion of a young woman who was
looking for a Washington adventure, a woman who would hold on to
a dress as a souvenir of a sexual relationship? What appalling
judgment to get involved with such a woman in the first place —
and then expect her to keep quiet about it."
But the press never made his recklessness an issue. Take for example, the same Zuckerman in the February 10, 1992 U.S. News, ripping into Gennifer Flowers and an alleged Clinton-hating press: "The prospect of bringing down one of the best candidates in the Democratic field was far too exciting for second thoughts and clouded otherwise sound minds.... Legitimate press standards do not include rummaging in the garbage of White House contenders."
Lobbing the Ultimate Conversation Stopper
Three days after admitting a sexual affair with Monica Lewinsky, Bill Clinton authorized cruise-missile attacks on suspected terrorist sites in Afghanistan and Sudan. Was this attack intended to divert attention from Monicagate?
All the networks noted the similarities to the satirical film Wag the Dog, in which the White House creates a fictional war with Albania to distract from a sex scandal. If the timing had been a cynical damage control strategy, it surely worked in the short run: From Thursday to Sunday, the evening shows on ABC, CBS, NBC, and CNN carried 78 stories on the attack to just six Lewinsky pieces (one report mixed the stories together). In the four mornings after the attack, from Friday through Monday, the Big Three aired 61 full segments on the attack to just seven on Lewinsky (another 13 segments mixed both).
Media and Republican figures initially questioned the attack’s timing, but the backlash came quickly. In Time’s daily Internet update, Frank Pellegrini reported: "Although Clinton-haters Newt Gingrich and Dan Burton have avowed their support of the strike, Republicans Arlen Specter and Dan Coats did not shy from the low road." U.S. News & World Report writer Stephen Budiansky flayed the press: "The only comforting bit of normality in the entire week was provided by the reliable inanity of the Washington press corps. The reporter who demanded to know if Defense Secretary William Cohen had seen the movie Wag the Dog reassured us that in one corner of the globe, the world was all right."
On Nightline, Ted Koppel noted an ABC poll which found 30 percent believed in a Wag the Dog strategy: "Those are the times we live in... I have to assume that there is a sense of embarrassment among all of us. Let me just speak for myself. I have sense of embarrassment that we are even raising questions like this at a time like this." Koppel ended: "This, the President tells us, was one of those few exceptions, one of America’s rare opportunities to fight back. To doubt his word on this occasion may cross our minds but is, in the final analysis, unthinkable."
But Koppel did not find it "unthinkable" in 1991 to charge that the 1980 Reagan campaign delayed the release of American hostages in Iran. Nor was it "unthinkable" days before the 1992 election to wonder if the Bush administration secretly armed the Iraqis before the Gulf War: "This story is not a trivial issue." In both cases, Koppel devoted major resources to proving those false, insulting theories were true.
Hillary Reagan Clinton?
A&E "Investigative" Tribute
With a name like Investigative Reports, one might assume the Arts & Entertainment Channel’s report on Hillary Clinton would investigate Hillary scandals. Instead, host Bill Kurtis (once with CBS) treated viewers to "a search for the core of her values."
"Her story plays like a Greek drama: the quest for power, the intoxication of success, the labyrinth of personal and political intrigue," he began. "It’s about triumph and tragedy, it’s a love story set against a backdrop of war [clip of Ken Starr], fraught with the dangers of what the Greeks called hubris. It is a play not finished, yet its storyline captivates the world....In this edition of Investigative Reports, we focus on a main player in this drama and aim for a glimpse into the inner workings of perhaps the most influential woman of the last half-century."
Kurtis’s "investigation" took him to Hillary’s "village," as he referred to her hometown of Park Ridge, Illinois, and followed her as she celebrated her 50th birthday there in October 1997. In tracing her growing up into politics, Kurtis championed her commencement speech at Wellesley: "She gained national attention for supporting the right to student protest, in the process taking to task then-Massachusetts Senator Edward Brooke. As she met her husband-to-be and moved into public life, her politics continued to move unquestioningly to the center. Yet her moral compass, even 30 years later, has never really left Park Ridge."
Despite touching on liberal items like the ill-fated 1300-page health plan, Kurtis continued to praise the First Lady as somewhat conservative. "A blend of her conservative past and political present, Hillary Rodham Clinton defies the pigeonhole, and it would appear, that is just the way she likes it."
Citing her book It Takes a Village, Kurtis claimed Mrs. Clinton holds old-fashioned views: "That traditional view includes the subject of divorce. For the First Lady, simply put, divorce means failure...It's a distinct position, evocative of another time and place."
Kurtis ended the "investigation" with apprehension over whether in the end Hillary’s legacy will triumph: "A sense of nobility. As her days in the White House dwindle to a precious few, it provides, perhaps, a last refuge for this First Lady, her work in child care, education and women’s rights affording a safe harbor from the taint of scandal, and a glimmer of hope for her own political future. For now, the Clinton administration is a drama without a final act, but the elements are there for a suspenseful conclusion: the spreading stain of scandal, the politics of power, the weight of history. For Hillary Rodham Clinton, there is something else at stake: Is there enough time to put the legacy she wants together before the final act is written?"
Sober and Sensible Polls?
Since the beginning of Monicagate, the networks have used their pollsters to reinforce how popular Bill Clinton is and how most people don’t care about perjury concerning his "private life." But on August 12, five days before Clinton’s grand jury date, ABC News polling analyst Gary Langer rejoiced in the results on ABCNews.com:
"As the Monica Lewinsky affair spins toward its rendezvous with destiny, it’s worth celebrating what has been perhaps the biggest surprise of the scandal: the sober and sensible way average Americans have responded to the whole brouhaha....Pundits hate this kind of thing; Those who declared him dead have had to reconfigure their best lines to accommodate — drat! — actual public opinion."
Langer explained: "It turns out that most Americans have responded to the Lewinsky affair with more of a head scratch than a knee jerk. Their message on this score has been steady: Clinton’s personal behavior, however unsavory it’s alleged to be, is indeed personal."
As the President’s admission drew nearer, Langer endorsed the White House spin that a strong economy negates sex, lies, and perjury: "Lewinsky’s a far juicier story, but when it comes to evaluating presidential performance, average Americans check their wallets. The lowest unemployment in a generation, trivial inflation, growing personal income: What’s a stained dress in the face of these? So far, not much."