‘92 DEMOCRATIC CONVENTION : TELEVISION ANALYSIS : Some Journalists Playing Wrong Roles

Edmund G. (Jerry) Brown Jr. and New York Gov. Mario M. Cuomo were Wednesday’s stars. For the moment, though, flash back to Tuesday.

First came those moving, President Bush-slamming addresses by AIDS patients Bob Hattoy and Elizabeth Glaser. Next came NBC’s Tom Brokaw.

Co-anchoring joint NBC/PBS coverage of the Democratic National Convention, Brokaw angered some gay activists Tuesday night by knifing through the lingering post-speech poignancy with some comments of his own.

Brokaw was guilty of “inappropriate timing” and “inaccuracies,” charged Chris Fowler, acting executive director of the Los Angeles chapter of the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation. Brokaw’s addendum to the AIDS speeches “did a lot to negate their potential impact,” Fowler said.

Brokaw’s comments, in part:

“For the record, the Bush Administration opposes the idea of needle-exchange programs, which some people endorse, and also the President has not been in favor of the distribution of condoms in junior high schools. But he did this year approve a 3% increase in funding for AIDS research and education. It’s now up to somewhere around $875 million.

“Also, there are those who believe, without taking anything away from the poignancy or the personal tragedy . . . that in the competition for federal research health dollars, cancer and heart disease may begin to lose out to AIDS. And they, too, are killers of Americans.”

Although calling Brokaw’s figures “misleading,” Fowler didn’t dispute them. Moreover, by seeking to give context to a speech at a partisan political show, Brokaw was merely doing his job. It certainly wasn’t his job to join in cheering the AIDS speakers.

In charging Brokaw with stepping over an ethical line, Fowler had the right issue but, in this case, the wrong offender.

There are plenty of others to criticize in this television age that has unfurled a dangerous category of journalist: the observer/participant.

Included are network correspondents who routinely slip opinion into their reporting. The new category was also on display during the recent Los Angeles riots when a spate of local news anchors became self-appointed commentators by verbally beating their chests for the benefit of viewers.

And then there is this week’s convention, where some reporters have been sounding at times like extensions of the Democratic Party hierarchy they are supposed to be covering objectively.

There was KCBS-TV Channel 2 reporter Bob Jimenez, for example, reporting from Madison Square Garden on Brown’s ongoing clash with the party leadership: “They (the Democrats) have to leave here with a cohesive state of mind, so at least the public gets that impression.” A viewer might have inferred that Jimenez was proposing that the party use a unified pose to fool voters.

It was Jimenez (“The problem right now is Jerry Brown”) and KABC-TV Channel 7 reporter John North (“The Jerry Brown problem has been solved”) who at times used judgmental words to describe the former California governor’s rebelliousness. Brown followers might suggest that the “problem” was the party leadership.

Now cut to Jim Lehrer of “The MacNeil/Lehrer NewsHour” on PBS. Interviewing the party’s presidential nominee, Arkansas Gov. Bill Clinton, Wednesday night, Lehrer asked: “Did you solve the Jerry Brown problem?” Lehrer’s next question: “Are you annoyed that you still have to deal with guys like Jesse Jackson and Jerry Brown at this stage of the game?”

The tone, resonating the Clinton leadership, was that by not immediately coming into the Clinton fold, Jackson and Brown were troublemakers.

Still more disorienting was a friendly joust Tuesday night between CNN anchor Bernard Shaw and journalist Bill Moyers, who is working as a convention analyst on the network. Moyers has been mentioned as a possible running mate for potential independent candidate Ross Perot.

Without warning, Shaw asked Moyers if he had been approached by the Perot people. The two sparred for several minutes before Moyers said, flat out, that he was not interested in being anyone’s vice president.

Not that it would stop him from continuing to work as a journalist.