[Cross-posted at For the Record]
Jamison Foster of Media Matters has done a great job of compiling the stats on the differential treatment in the NYT and WaPo of stories (and related opinion-page calls for independent investigations) pertaining to Bush's authorizing NSA eavesdropping without a warrant (in clear violation of the law) vs. stories pertaining to Clinton's sexual peccadillos with a willing intern, and to a 20-year-old land deal in which the Clintons lost money.
Foster first compared coverage of the Lewinsky vs. NSA affairs. The summary for coverage the day after the stories broke:
All told, on January 22, 1998, the Times and the Post ran 19 articles (five on the front page) dealing with the Clinton investigation, totaling more than 20,000 words and reflecting the words of at least 28 reporters -- plus the editorial boards of both newspapers.
In contrast, on December 17, the Times and the Post combined to run five articles about the NSA spying operation, involving 12 reporters and consisting of 6,303 words.
And 35 days later:
On February 25, 1998, 35 days after the story first broke, the Post ran four articles and an editorial about the Clinton investigation, totaling 5,046 words, involving 11 reporters, and the paper's editorial board. The Times ran four articles, two opinion columns, and an editorial -- seven pieces in all, totaling 5,852 words and involving at least six reporters and columnists, in addition to its editorial board. The papers combined for 12 articles, columns, and editorials, involving 17 reporters and columnists, as well as both editorial boards.
On January 20, 35 days after the NSA story first broke, the Times ran one 1,324-word article about the NSA operation written by two reporters. The Post ran one 945-word article written by one reporter. Combined: two articles, three reporters, 2,269 words.
Some readers responded that maybe the differential coverage could be explained by the fact that sex supposedly sells. So Foster compared media coverage of the NSA scandal with the oh-so-unsexy Whitewater story:
Media coverage of Whitewater reached a frenzy, with calls for special counsels and investigations, long before the Lewinsky story broke. In the mid-1990s, Whitewater was a nearly 20-year-old land deal in which the Clintons lost money. As a January 5, 1994, Washington Post editorial explained, "[t]his should be stressed -- there has been no credible charge in this case that either the president or Mrs. Clinton did anything wrong."
And yet the news media covered Whitewater as though it was Watergate, Teapot Dome, and Iran-Contra all rolled into one. [...]
Whitewater was a story that, according to Kurtz, the American people weren't following closely. According to the Post, there had been "no credible charge in this case that either the president or Mrs. Clinton did anything wrong." Yet ABC devoted an entire broadcast of Nightline and 18 of 22 minutes of World News Tonight to it -- and that's just one network, one day. [...]
[Surveys show that] the public didn't care about Whitewater and didn't think Clinton had done anything wrong. Most Americans approved of Clinton's handling of his job, and even more of them had a favorable personal opinion of him. There was "no credible charge in this case that either the president or Mrs. Clinton did anything wrong," according to The Washington Post's editorial board.
And yet, that same Washington Post editorial called for the appointment of an independent counsel to investigate ... well, to investigate "no credible charge."
If a charge with no apparent credibility is worthy of independent counsel, you'd think that the charge that Bush ignored [uh... do we mean violated?] "a clearly worded criminal law" would be so worthy:
[T]he Post argues that the Bush administration is "ignor[ing] a clearly worded criminal law," "show[ing] a profound disregard for Congress and the laws it passes," "appears to violate the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act," and "must be forced to explain itself comprehensively." The Post finds the administration's "legal justification" for the spying program unconvincing and "disturbing." And yet the Post has not called for an independent investigation.
Why not?
It cannot be because the Post considers the allegations against Bush less credible than those against Clinton; the paper itself has argued exactly the opposite. It cannot be because there is no public desire for an independent investigation -- there is. A January 20-22 CNN/USA Today/Gallup poll found that 58 percent of Americans think a special counsel should be appointed to investigate the spying program.
How 'bout the NYT? As Foster documents, the editors had a slathering fit over the failure of Janet Reno (Clinton's Attorney General) to seek an independent prosecutor to investigate the Clintons's Whitewater connections. But the NYT calls for in response to the NSA scandal is that Bush take back that darned illegal authorization, and if he won't do it himself (the meanie) then Congress should "force" him to cry uncle:
... The New York Times denounces, as it did in a December 18, 2005, editorial, "illegal government spying on Americans." It asserts that "Nobody with a real regard for the rule of law and the Constitution would have difficulty seeing" the program as a violation of civil liberties. It concludes "[W]e have learned the hard way that Mr. Bush's team cannot be trusted to find the boundaries of the law, much less respect them."
Yet the Times does not call for a special counsel. Instead, it declares "Mr. Bush should retract and renounce his secret directive and halt any illegal spying, or Congress should find a way to force him to do it."
But what gives the Times reason to believe that Congress would do so even if it could? Five days later, another Times editorial described the relationship between the Bush administration and Congress: "Mr. Bush and Mr. Cheney are tenacious. They still control both houses of Congress and are determined to pack the judiciary with like-minded ideologues."
Why on earth would the Times dare to hope that a Congress under the "control" of Bush and Cheney would "find a way to force" Bush to do anything? Just this week, the Times reported that the Bush Administration "declines" to provide the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee documents it has requested as part of its investigation of the administration's handing of Hurricane Katrina, and refused to make administration officials available for sworn testimony. What makes the Times think the Republican-controlled Congress will want to "find a way to force" Bush to do anything? Or that it would be able to even if it wanted to?
Today's NYT editorial comes right out and uses the l-word concerning Bush admin claims about the warrantless spying program, but still fails to call for an independent counsel:
The Senate Judiciary Committee is about to start hearings on the domestic spying. Congress has failed, tragically, on several occasions in the last five years to rein in Mr. Bush and restore the checks and balances that are the genius of American constitutional democracy. It is critical that it not betray the public once again on this score.
So despite the NYT's board noting that "Mr. Bush's team cannot be trusted to find the boundaries of the law, much less respect them" and that the Senate Judiciary Committee has "failed, tragically ... to rein in Mr. Bush" for the last five years, it still fails to call for an independent counsel.
Foster asks:
What explains the Times' refusal to call for a special counsel in the case when it believes the Bush administration, led by the president himself, is acting illegally? Why was a special counsel more justified in 1994 than now?
Why oh why? As usual in the U.S., one just has to follow the money (readers may be getting tired of this post... but if the explanation fits, I say advertise it). In order for the WaPo and NYT to retain any semblance of respectability as sources of information, they can't entirely ignore the breathtakingly myriad Republican scandals. Corporate understands this, but (as Foster's analysis makes crystal clear) there are limits (and imperatives):
1. Bare minimum coverage of Republican misdeeds on the news pages
2. The occasional hand-wringing editorial about Republican misdeeds allowed
3. Explicit calls for prosecution of Republican misdeeds not allowed (unless, as with Delay, the Godfathers deem said miscreant an un-made man). Obviously, sitting presidents and vice-presidents are completely off limits.
4. So long as the Democratic party remains less Corporate-friendly than the Republican party, Democratic misdeeds (real or imagined) are to be hyped to the high heavens.
In other words: Corporate allows media to whine a bit at Republicans from their editorial corner, but growling is strongly discouraged and under no circumstances can media bite the hand that feeds it. Mauling of Democrats for any and all reasons, however, will get Scooby lots of revenue snacks.
Recent Comments