Janet Cooke Award
CBS News: Bush Bashing
George Bush has been on the receiving end
of plenty of disparaging stories. CBS News correspondent Bob Faw,
however, earns the November Janet Cooke Award for a particularly
one-sided and misleading Evening News piece which parroted the
Dukakis campaign line on Bush's inexperience and inability to lead.
"George Bush has talked up the many
jobs he's held in government as one reason he'd be good at the top job
as President," Dan Rather told viewers on September 25, cautioning,
"Bob Faw has been checking the facts on Bush's resume." Faw
began with eight month old Bob Dole primary campaign commercial which
stated: "They call them footprints, these marks of achievement.
Isn't it interesting that George Bush has never left a single footprint
behind."
Faw picked up on the theme: "Bush's
detractors say it's still true. While Bush showed up for work, he really
didn't get that much done, scarcely made an impression at all." To
support his claim, Faw brought on two prominent Democrats, Senator
Howell Heflin and Carter CIA Director Stansfield Turner. Heflin
sarcastically asserted that Bush has left footprints -- "tippy-toe"
ones. Turner, who Faw failed to label a Democrat, characterized Bush as
"a lightweight" and a man who "had not absorbed any of
those details." Faw quoted a Washington Post survey of 200
"Bush associates" which concluded that Bush was "a nice
guy who was often detached, who rarely tried to master the subject
matter."
Only one minute, or 29 percent, of the
three and one half minute report touched on Bush's accomplishments.
Senator Phil Gramm and Nixon confidant Leonard Garment were given just
ten seconds together to support Bush. Liberal Connecticut Senator Lowell
Weicker got two ten second segments, one of which echoed Faw's anti-Bush
theme. After listing the positions held by Bush: Vice President, U.N.
Ambassador, CIA Director, Ambassador to China and Republican National
Committee Chairman, Faw brought on Duke University professor James David
Barber to present what Faw portrayed as an objective view. Barber said:
"Another person, I think, in those jobs, would have defined them as
a chance for major leadership of policy innovation, that Bush did
not." Barber asked: "Is that plausible, that he's been a
secret Superman with the shirt underneath his regular shirt, and now
it's going to be revealed?" Barber answered his own question:
"Don't put your faith in the idea that there's going to be a new
Bush."
Who is Barber? Faw labeled him a
"noted scholar of the presidency." Indeed, he has written
extensively on the presidency, but even New York Times
columnist R.W. Apple describes him as a "liberal presidential
scholar." Barber has also played a prominent role in the "neoliberal"
movement, attending a strategy session of prominent politicos in late
1983 designed to "match their evolving ideas with a constituency
they feel is waiting to a mobilized," according to the New York
Times.
In a March 9, 1987 Time
interview, Barber charged that "Reagan has been guilty of
misleading people," that he displays "indifference to the
facts in significant areas of public policy," while his
"rhetoric is far removed from reality." Barber admitted to MediaWatch
that he is a registered Democrat, but denied there is ever any political
motivation behind his television appearance or his writing: "I'm
not coming on there as some sort of idealogue, but as a scholar."
Throughout the report Faw concurred with
Barber and Bush's detractors. In between Barber soundbites, Faw
observed: "No one doubts that Bush was a good soldier. The doubts
are whether a good follower is necessarily a good leader."
His conclusion was just as powerful. With
the use of an anonymous source. Faw dismissed everything Bush defenders
said on the air: "His critics counter that what Bush did or didn't
do in previous jobs speak louder than any words. 'We keep dreaming that
someone who's 64 can change character,' said one, 'and we keep getting
fooled.'" When MediaWatch spoke with Faw,
he defended his characterization of Barber as a scholar: "I don't
know anyone in America who would dispute the fact that he is a
distinguished scholar of the presidency." Pressed about whether it
was accurate to present Barber as objective given his liberal views and
associations, Faw refused to yield: "To say that Barber is partisan
is really reaching. If you're going to use that argument I guess you
can't put anyone on the air."
Faw denied the piece mimicked the
Democratic line or that he had any partisan intentions in reporting on
Bush. Faw noted that Lesley Stahl did a piece earlier in the week that
"tore apart" the Dukakis record in Massachusetts. That's not
entirely true. Stahl tried to find out why the Governor was so unpopular
in his won state. She found people upset about policies he implemented
and resentment over his presidential run. In contrast to Faw's attack,
she did not dig up partisan attacks on his character and fitness for
office.
It seems Faw's litmus test for balance is
simply that he put on Republican sources at times in the piece:
"What we did was try to speak with a number of people who have
either positive or negative things to say about the job that he did and
that's exactly what the media ought to do. If I had gone on there to
give just my opinion, brought up one side and not the other, which
you're going to say we did so I don't know why we are having this
conversation, but in any event it was what we thought was a balanced
piece...It gave the chance for someone sitting at home to perhaps
scratch his head and say "humph" and think about it."
Faw was right. We are going to say it:
Faw promoted his own negative opinions about Bush. It's evident in the
amount of time he gave to Bush detractors and his commentary throughout.
A viewer couldn't help but come away scratching his head and having a
negative impression of George Bush. Most indicative of how Faw really
saw Bush and his record was his use of an anonymous source in his
conclusion. Asked why he didn't name the person, Faw reached for this
excuse: "I didn't think the people would recognize the name and at
the time I didn't have the two or three seconds to name him."
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