Food Lion obtained video outtakes which showed how ABC misled viewers, but network stories Wednesday night insisted the accuracy of ABC's story was beyond argument and, therefore, the decision would have a chilling effect.

On the January 22 CBS Evening News Dan Rather announced:

"A federal jury in North Carolina ordered ABC television today to pay the Food Lion supermarkets five and a half million dollars in punitive damages, that's in connection with an undercover news investigation that proved to be true. But ABC News producers covered their true identities to get jobs at Food Lion and jurors decided that amounted to fraud."

After soundbites from two jurors, Rather continued: "The ABC report accused Food Lion of selling spoiled food and other unsanitary practices. Important to note that the truth of the report was never at issue in the lawsuit, not even challenged, only the journalistic techniques. ABC is appealing the verdict and ABC News President Roone Arledge says, and I quote, 'If large corporations were allowed to stop hard-hitting investigative journalism, the American people would be the losers.'"

The network in question, ABC, gave a fuller view of the issues involved. Reporter John McKenzie began his story:

"The jurors had already found ABC guilty of fraudulent job applications and trespassing. Today's award, they said, was meant to send journalists a message." Following two juror soundbites McKenzie allowed Chris Ahearn of Food Lion to assert: "This case was about wrongdoing on the part of ABC and the jury agreed with Food Lion that ABC broke laws and today they agreed that ABC needed to be punished for that illegal activity."

A bit later in the piece ABC News President Roone Arledge expressed the widely held all or nothing media view:

"From the beginning, Food Lion has never been able to attack the story itself. They have gone about attacking us because of the way we gathered it. The reason that the award today is outrageous is that this is precisely the kind of story for which investigative techniques like these are appropriate."

Arledge failed to consider another spin: Undercover reporting that accurately and fairly documents wrongdoing is fine, but the public doesn't approve of the media abusing its power and then delivering a distorted story.

On NBC Nightly News Tom Brokaw declared:

"NBC News In Depth tonight, Food Lion versus ABC -- punishing the messenger..." But reporter Bob Faw proceeded to provide the only story of the night which explored why the media have turned off the public.

Faw began: "Insisting it had broadcast the truth, ABC said every American should be troubled by the decision. One..."

Bill Jeffries, ABC lawyer: "that vastly exceeds the actual damages incurred by Food Lion."

Faw: "That, said jurors, misses the point."

Juror: "They're going to have to go about gathering the news in a different way. You can't misrepresent yourself just to get the news."

Faw: "What we love on television, we condemn in the jury box."

Faw went on to explain that the public believes the media violate people's privacy, have a superior attitude and employ trickery. Faw ran a soundbite from Richard Jewell and then let former Senator Alan Simpson assert that investigative reports are not done to reveal the truth but "to draw blood."

Faw explained: "And, when like ABC, the press piously proclaims that the ends justify the means, the public and jurors say no, it does not."

MRC Chairman Brent Bozell: "There's a growing sense of alienation between the public and the press."

Faw: "A public which ironically continues to say it wants the media to catch the bad guys. Now, say investigative reporters, that will be harder."

Jane Kirtley: Reporters' Committee for Freedom of the Press: "A decision like this is going to have a great chilling effect on news organizations pursuing stories like this."

Faw: "A decision where jurors said candid camera yes, sucker punch no."

Tom Brokaw then interviewed Newsweek's Jonathan Alter, who insisted: "This is an alarming case because what it suggests is that you can do a report that is substantially accurate and still be penalized for it. And that can set a chilling precedent for stories that news organizations want to do that might cause a lot of opposition on the part of the subjects of the story."

Instead of considering whether ABC went too far, Brokaw asked: "Is there any doubt in your mind that we have to work a little harder at getting the public to understand just what we do and why we do it?"

Food Lion could not release this video while it was evidence, but AP reported that after Wednesday's verdict they distributed a highlight tape to reporters.

Powers suggested why news magazines have an incentive to exaggerate what they discover: "These hidden-camera investigations are costly, and it's hard for producers to go back to the office and say the sorts of things newspaper reporters tell their editors all the time: 'the story didn't really pan out'....Unlike newspapers, the networks don't have subscribers who will be back for the next edition no matter what, and they can't bury a less than fab story on page B-19. They have to draw in a large audience for every show, or risk losing ratings and advertisers. And they do so by painting broad, sensational strokes."

For more on ABC's manipulations, see item #5 below.

Kaplan may soon take a top slot at CNN. Kaplan is now a special events producer for ABC Television. He left Prime Time Live in 1994 to become Executive Producer of World News Tonight where he remained until about a year ago.

Back on January 3 The Washington Post's John Carmody reported that Kaplan "is being eagerly sought to take over a major job at the 24-hour channel," elaborating that "speculation in Atlanta has Kaplan being put in charge of all CNN programs and program development."

As examined in MediaWatch a few years ago, Kaplan is a Friend of Bill who advised Clinton during the 1992 campaign -- a time when Kaplan was working for ABC News. Here's an except from the front page story in the January 1994 MediaWatch:

Kaplan, Executive Producer of Prime Time Live since 1989, advised Clinton in 1992. When the Gennifer Flowers story broke in February, "Clinton called Kaplan for advice," Los Angeles Times reporter Tom Rosenstiel recounted in his campaign book Strange Bedfellows. On the way to the airport, Clinton made another call to Kaplan and the "night ended for Kaplan at 4am, when Clinton called one last time."

Rosenstiel reported that Clinton "was considering doing 60 Minutes. If you do, Kaplan said, it should be with Mike Wallace or Morley Safer or Ed Bradley. Otherwise tell them forget it....[Voters] are going to remember that you stood up to Mike Wallace."

Two months later as Clinton's campaign floundered in New York, aides suggested an appearance on the Don Imus show. "The appearance was clinched," CNN producer Matthew Saal recalled in the January 1993 Washington Monthly, "when Rick Kaplan... called the radio show host to see if he could get the pair together. The answer was yes."

Kaplan's closeness has impacted coverage. In a March 11 Prime Time Live story, Sam Donaldson explained that he added a positive remark at the end of a pre-election Clinton interview because Kaplan said "the overall [interview] atmosphere was too tough." In the March 21 Washington Post Magazine, David Finkel quoted Kaplan as he watched Donaldson's interview: "I'd just like to do this one over again...I'm getting angry watching this...You didn't treat Bush this way."

Kaplan kept up his cozy relationship after the election. He "played golf with Bill shortly before the inauguration and watched movies with both Clintons at the Governor's mansion," Jacob Weisberg reported in the April 26 New Republic.

What views does Utley hold? Well, some quotes run in past issues of Notable Quotables show he's not very conservative.

Utley anchoring the October 17, 1992 NBC Nightly News: "When I covered Bush's 1980 primary campaign against Ronald Reagan, he opposed Reagan's economic program. He called it 'voodoo economics' -- said it wouldn't work. But then of course, Bush agreed to be Reagan's running mate. For eight years, he supported policies which, it is now widely acknowledged, contributed mightily to our excesses then and our economic problems now; above all, America being held hostage by debt. George Bush went along to get ahead, and it worked. He became President. Now Ronald Reagan is in happy retirement in California, and President Bush is left to pay the price. The price for supporting something he did not believe in to begin with. He knows it -- knows it is now too late to do anything about that fateful bargain he entered into twelve years ago. Going along to get ahead made George Bush President. Now it may unmake him. The ancient Greeks wrote about this sort of thing. They called it tragedy."

Utley anchoring the January 25, 1992 NBC Nightly News: "Yes, times are tough because of mistakes we made in the past, including voodoo economics supported by George Bush, among others."