SURVEY SAYS “HORSE RACE”: Is it possible for voters to cast an informed ballot based on the information they get from the mainstream media? To answer that question, FAIR surveyed more than 500 election articles from three national dailies–the New York Times, the Washington Post and the Los Angeles Times. The articles included every news story on the presidential campaign from Jan. 14, when the first special campaign section was begun, until Feb. 19, the day after the New Hampshire primary.
The survey, conducted by FAIR research associate Janine Jackson, found that only 12 percent of campaign articles included substantive information on candidates’ proposals and public record. “Many of the articles that were counted as issue stories only recited a few facts out of context, or buried them near the end of the piece,” Jackson reported.
Much more common were articles that covered the campaign as a horse race, or examined candidates’ campaign strategies. This sort of campaign analysis made up 38 percent of election coverage. These articles often reduced issues to props, as when the New York Times (1/25) quoted an aide to Bob Kerrey as saying that the campaign had no plans to publish a pamphlet on economic issues, but “if it did,” it would be “40 to 45 pages.”
AFFAIRS AND FUNNY HATS: Election coverage also focused on the candidates’ personal lives, particularly Bill Clinton’s. During the month of coverage surveyed, more than 10 percent of all stories dealt with either Clinton’s draft record or allegations of extramarital affairs. The papers of record also provided trivia on other candidates, such as the fact that as a boy, Jerry Brown “once refused to wear a funny hat” to a parade (Washington Post, 2/6).
“Journalists might do something to combat…apathy by providing election coverage that critically investigates candidates’ proposals and records, and links them to the issues that affect readers’ lives,” Jackson concludes. “A look at the coverage of the first few weeks of the ‘92 campaign suggests that while the papers of record acknowledge the challenge, they are not living up to it.” (FAIR’s survey of election coverage will be published in the June ’92 issue of FAIR’s magazine Extra!. Sample copies are available on request.)
LOVE GONE BAD: While the press corps may have started out the campaign, as Maureen Dowd said (New York Times, 2/16), “smitten and worshipful” of Clinton, the relationship has soured into a love/hate relationship. The change is illustrated by two newsweekly covers: Newsweek’s “Can He Beat Bush?” (3/30), with a glossy, glamorous photo of Clinton looking like a movie star, vs. Time’s “Why Voters Don’t Trust Clinton” (4/20) with a reversed image that looks more like the star of a horror movie.
WHAT THEY WANT TO SEE: On April 29, NBC News had a segment complaining that backers of billionaire candidate H. Ross Perot “see what they want to see in the man”: “It appears that Perot supporters will wait to size up their horse after they get him into the race.” But nothing in the story would help anyone know what Perot really stands for. Isn’t it time to stop doing stories like this, and start doing stories that really cover Perot’s public record and policy proposals?
For starters, why not an examination of Perot’s tentative pick for vice president, James Stockdale, a board member of the far-right Rockford Institute, an organization whose own affiliates have charged it with antisemitism? Or how about Perot’s membership in the Reagan administration’s Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board–how well did Perot help to “oversee” William Casey’s CIA? Can we learn more about Perot’s excursions into private foreign policy–like his failed attempt to help Oliver North buy the release of terrorist held hostages by putting up a $2 million ransom? Until mass media start seriously examining who Ross Perot really is, it’s hardly fair to blame voters for seeing what they want to see in him.
DRUG BUST: By now, many have criticized ABC’s “expose” on supposed drug use at Jerry Brown’s house in the 1970s. The allegations were trivial in any case–on Nightline (4/9), ABC’s star witness couldn’t even say for sure that Brown knew about the purported drug use–but the accounts by the named, visible sources who rejected the charges seemed more credible than the anonymous, masked accusers.
One of those who dismissed the suggestion that Brown tolerated drug use was then-L.A.P.D. chief Ed Davis. Not only was Davis a political enemy of Brown, but in the ’70s, his department’s massive intelligence-gathering operation spied on political figures and activists in contact with Brown. If anyone had knowledge of incriminating connections between Brown and drugs, it would have been Ed Davis.
The real story here may be how ABC got the story in the first place. On Nightline, reporter John McWethy claimed to have just sort of stumbled on to it, but McWethy–ABC’s “national security correspondent”–is famous for his ability to take a leak. Known around ABC as “General McWethy” for his identification with his military sources, he used anonymous official sources to report in 1984 that Nicaragua had received high-tech MiG fighters from the Soviet Union. The story was bogus. He’s also the reporter who kept ABC from reporting on the invasion of Grenada while it was underway–after his source in the Pentagon, “an extremely reliable guy,” told him that troops on the move were just on their way to Lebanon. (See On Bended Knee, by Mark Hertsgaard.)
ABC News’ July 21, 1989 “video simulation,” which showed a balding actor playing diplomat Felix Bloch handing over a brief case to another actor playing a KGB agent, was accompanied by McWethy’s voiceover citing unnamed U.S. officials who said Bloch had been photographed committing such an act. Bloch was never prosecuted.
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