What News? Media Focus Only on Scandal

As Americans celebrate 222 years of independence from the British redcoats this weekend, a demand from the public for independence from 165 days of President Bill Clinton/Monica S. Lewinsky from the ink-stained, lap-topped, national press corps is rising across the land. While Clinton talks to hundreds of millions of Chinese about the meaning of liberty, the U.S. press corps is talking about the meaning of Linda R. Tripp’s testimony before the Kenneth W. Starr grand jury. Enough! Take a break. Eat a hot dog and watch the fireworks. Just please shut up, already.

When historians look back at the headlines in America’s leading newspapers for the last days of June 1998, they will surely be amazed that “Clinton Engages Chinese Leaders on Tiananmen Massacres on Chinese TV” shares top billing with “Monica Hiking Friend Says Bill Didn’t Go All the Way.” Or right next to “Chinese Leaders Signal Willingness to Meet With Dalai Lama on Tibet” is “Tripp Tells All on Monica/Bill Sex Tapes.” Or this double feature: “Clinton Tells Chinese Students Democracy Is Their Destiny in 21st Century” adjacent to “Hubble Tax Case Dismissed--Judge Says Starr Overreaches.” Surely, these historians will think the press had lost its collective mind.

Apparently, what the press is not willing to accept is that the public seems perfectly willing to wait until all the facts are collected and presented to Congress by the independent counsel before reaching any definitive judgment on the president. So why does the press keep wanting to shove our collective noses in every little and often unsubstantiated detail?

Answers to this question abound among critics of the press. Some contend that competition from an ever-growing number of competitors, particularly the 24-hour news channels, forces reporters to keep finding new angles to this story while throwing away long-standing journalistic standards of reporting. In a recent study by the Committee of Concerned Journalists, on more than 1,500 press allegations and statements concerning the Clinton/Lewinsky story, 41% of them were based on anonymous sourcing from a single, unnamed source. Only 1%, or one in 100 statements, were based on two or more named sources, a standard that used to be the norm for a story like this. Others claim this story is firing up the young journalists raised in the school of Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein’s Watergate reporting. Who will be the first reporter to bag another president?

Some or all of this may be at work here. But I have another theory I call the “cleanse thyself” syndrome, which is peculiar to this president. Sure, other presidents have been hounded by the press on scandals. Even partisan Republicans will concede that Clinton/Lewinsky does not nearly match the magnitude of Watergate, but even Watergate was put on a back burner when President Richard M. Nixon went to the Soviet Union in 1973, a trip many saw as a weak attempt to divert attention from the scandal. A “weak attempt” that worked. So why did Nixon get a break when he went to Russia and Clinton did not on his China trip? The answer lies, in part, on past criticism of Clinton’s press coverage.

The national press corps took a ferocious beating from conservatives for bias toward Clinton in both the 1992 and 1996 campaigns. The press was criticized in 1992 for downplaying Clinton’s alleged affairs, specifically one involving Gennifer Flowers, and for putting Whitewater on the back burner until after the election. Then in 1996, the press came under attack by Republicans for ignoring the growing money scandal surrounding the Clinton/Gore 1996 reelection campaign.

Don’t think for a second that this criticism was missed by editors, publishers and TV news executives. When the first news of an alleged affair between Clinton and a White House intern surfaced, the press rushed headlong into a story that, from the beginning, they misread. Remember how certain so many reporters were that Clinton was finished, many saying he would not last a week? Remember Dan Rather, Tom Brokaw and Peter Jennings rushing back from the pope’s historic visit to Cuba to cover the end of the Clinton presidency? What a deal! A chance to “cleanse thyself” for being Clinton patsies.

Well, things didn’t quite work out that way. The story became more complicated than an alleged sexual liaison; the president became more skilled than ever at survival; the first lady more determined to save her husband and, by extension, herself, and the smell of a right-wing conspiracy was more than just left-wing propaganda. The story did not and still does not have a clear ending. But the press had planted its flag. They were on this story’s turf to stay--to be vindicated.

Ironically, as the press provided seemingly endless coverage of the scandal, conservatives intensified their charges of Clinton patsyism on the part of the mainstream press. They charged that the press was going along with the great White House cover-up of the whole affair. The press, seemingly, can’t win. Report more, get criticized more and, worse, be listened to less. No wonder the mainstream press has collective heartburn this holiday weekend.

What to do? Simple. Light the barbecue, kick back, watch the fireworks--and give us all a break.