Four Campaigns, Eight Conventions...But Just One Spin
Table of Contents:
Controversies: Separate and Unequal Treatment
When a candidate or a party become embroiled in controversy, the ensuing media feeding frenzy can affect public perceptions for years. When these controversies — usually ethical or political scandals — are magnified by the hothouse atmosphere that typically surrounds conventions, the media’s influence on public opinion can be magnified many times over.
In his 1984 research, Bill Adams did not specifically focus on the networks’ coverage of political controversies. Since 1988, the Media Research Center has heavy coverage of controversies surrounding Republican politicians, and light coverage — or no coverage — of similar controversies surrounding Democratic politicians.
That year, controversy surrounding the military service of Vice Presidential nominee Dan Quayle dominated interviews and journalistic discussion at the GOP convention. Of the 898 questions asked at the Republican convention, almost half of them (438) dealt with Quayle, and 125 specifically concerned the National Guard or Quayle’s connection to lobbyist Paula Parkinson.
Prior to pouncing on the Quayle story, the networks frequently discussed other Republican controversies, including the Iran-contra affair, the Bitburg cemetery flap, the Beirut bombing, or the so-called "sleaze factor," i.e., alleged corruption of some Reagan administration officials. Many of these controversies had long since faded from the headlines, but reporters had no problems resurrecting them for the convention.
Yet, Democratic controversies from that year — including charges of unethical conduct by House Speaker Jim Wright, criticism of Dukakis for continuing the policy of furloughing first-degree murderers, running-mate Lloyd Bentsen’s short-lived "Breakfast Club," and the investigation of a high-ranking Dukakis administration official in Massachusetts — yielded little coverage. Apart from Quayle, mentions of Republican controversies outnumbered Democratic scandals 32 to 4; including Quayle, the disparity was an astronomical 190 to 4.
In 1992, MRC found little more than passing mentions of ethical controversies surrounding Democratic nominee Bill Clinton, but also noted only minor coverage of ethical questions surrounding the incumbent Bush administration. Instead, the networks found controversy in the alleged negativity and exclusiveness of the GOP convention, while giving short shrift to similar Democratic controversies.
On more than 20 occasions, for example, MRC researchers caught journalists pushing the notion that Republicans were trying to exclude people from their party. For example, on the second night of the convention, NBC’s Tom Brokaw told Pat Buchanan that: "You gave the impression that if you’re not a white, heterosexual, Christian, anti-abortion, anti-environment, you're somehow not welcome in the Republican Party." A month earlier, the Democrats’ decision to bar pro-life Pennsylvania Governor Bob Casey from speaking in New York garnered only six references: an interview on NBC and an interview and four mentions on CNN.
Similarly, on 70 occasions the networks suggested to viewers that the Republicans’ ‘92 speech-making had been too negative. On the convention’s third night, CNN’s John Holliman inquired of a panel of voters: "You know, there's been a lot of criticism that the Republicans have been bashing the Democrats fairly big time in this campaign... Have the Republicans been too heavy-handed in being critical of the Democrats?" Yet when Jesse Jackson compared Dan Quayle to the baby- killing King Herod, none of the networks labeled his oratory "mean" or "personal."
Four years ago, Bill and Hillary Clinton arrived in Chicago under active investigation by an independent counsel for a variety of alleged improprieties, but their scandals received only seven references on ABC, CBS, CNN and NBC over the four nights of the Democratic convention. Reporters did mention Whitewater, but never talked about the FBI files scandal or investigations into Cabinet Secretaries Mike Espy or Henry Cisneros. Yet controversies surrounding GOP figures, such as questions about Elizabeth Dole’s blind trust, were also ignored.
Instead, the networks focused on a "scandal" where they could hit the Democrats from the left: welfare reform. MRC researchers found 44 references to this controversy, more than six times as many as referenced the Clintons’ personal foibles. At one point, CNN’s Judy Woodruff pleaded with Hillary Clinton to help save the nation’s children: "We were just reminded in that moving film that we saw here of your lifelong work as an advocate for children’s causes. And yet, late last week, your husband signed a welfare reform bill that as you know, Senator [Daniel] Patrick Moynihan and other welfare experts are saying is going to throw a million children into poverty. Does that legislation undo so much of what you've worked for over the years?"
Coverage of the Democrats’ 1996 convention was remarkable for the scant attention paid to what were even at that time well-established controversies surrounding the incumbent President who would be re-nominated. Eight years earlier, many of the same network personalities gave far more attention to controversies surrounding a Republican President who was leaving office, and many hours more coverage to relatively minor allegations surrounding a Vice Presidential nominee. That’s the sort of double standard that has convinced many conservatives that they just can’t get a fair shake from the predominantly liberal national media.
