Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: TUESDAY, April 13, 1993 TAG: 9304130359
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: A4 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: REED IRVINE
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
MEDIA BITE WATCHDOG: ANOTHER EXAMPLE OF LIBERALLY BIASED NEWS
YOUR APRIL 2 editorial, "AIM and the `My Lai Syndrome,' " gave your readers an unflattering evaluation of Accuracy in Media's critiques of the news media, based on the weekly AIM column that we have been sending you.I understand that you rarely, if ever, share these columns with your readers. Unless they see them in other periodicals or get our twice-monthly newsletter, the AIM Report, there is a danger that they might take your evaluation seriously.
I founded Accuracy in Media 23 years ago because I was fed up with sloppy and biased media reporting that was misinforming the public. In many cases, this was because the great majority of the journalists are liberal. They usually deny that their opinions influence their reporting, but that should be taken with a grain of salt.
A few years ago, one of this number, Ben Bradlee, editor of The Washington Post, showed the falsity of the claim that good journalists feel strongly about not allowing their beliefs to influence their reporting.
At a conference in Washington, two top journalists declared that their news organizations had become advocates on environmental issues. Bradlee responded: "I have no problem with what you say, but there is a minor danger in saying it, because as soon as you say `To hell with the news, I'm no longer interested in news, I'm interested in causes,' there's a kooky constituency out there that you can waste a lot of time responding to."
In other words, let's do it but not admit it publicly.
Accuracy in Media is proud to be part of Bradlee's "kooky constituency," i.e., those who expose the dominant liberal media when they distort or suppress the facts in order to promote causes they favor.
Your editorial said that by your rough estimate, AIM's critiques "are on target maybe 15 percent of the time, belabor the obvious maybe another 15 percent, and are essentially statements or expositions of conservative viewpoints, rather than media criticism, maybe 50 percent of the time. That leaves . . . 20 percent of the time for bilge."
You cited as "bilge" a recent AIM column criticizing the media for giving far more publicity to war atrocities committed by our side than to those committed by the enemy. You didn't deny the fact. You defended it as good journalism, showing that your liberal views influence how you think news should be covered. You reject the conservative view as "bilge."
Here are summaries of other AIM columns we sent to the newspaper in the past two months:
A critique of a "60 Minutes" segment that "vindicated" a former New York Times reporter who had been recalled from El Salvador in 1982 after AIM and others had severely criticized his reporting as advocacy of the cause of the communist-backed rebels. We showed that "60 Minutes" focused on one of his stories that has proved to be partially accurate but ignored others that showed his propensity to use rebel disinformation.
A critique of a "kid glove" interview of Castro by ABC's Diane Sawyer, coupled with remarks of anchorman Peter Jennings suggesting it was time to improve relations with Cuba.
A critique of NBC's reporting on GM pickup trucks and the Clearwater National Forest, for which on-the-air apologies were made. In both cases, the basic problem was that the reporters were engaging in advocacy journalism, advancing a cause by misrepresenting the facts.
A detailed report of the Clearwater National Forest report and the NBC apology, which had been overshadowed by the GM truck affair.
A critique contrasting media coverage of charges that J. Edgar Hoover was gay and was blackmailed by the mafia and charges by Miami attorney John Thompson that Janet Reno, Clinton's nominee for attorney general, was a closet lesbian vulnerable to blackmail. We said the allegations should be investigated.
A critique of the reaction of some liberal journalists to the angry public response to Clinton's plan to lift the ban on gays in the military. This included a criticism of a Washington Post reporter who said this demonstrated the power of evangelicals like Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson, whose followers, he said, "are largely poor, uneducated and easy to command."
An exposure of Time-Warner's efforts to keep its shareholders from seeing portions of the lyrics of rap artist Ice-T whose record distribution had been defended by Time-Warner's chairman.
I invite you to tell us and your readers which of these reports are in the 50 percent that don't involve media criticism, which belabor the obvious, and which are bilge.
Reed Irvine is chairman of Accuracy in Media, Inc., in Washington, D.C.