Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, March 11, 1990 TAG: 9101180166
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: F/3 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Cal Thomas
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
Media Watch, a conservative media-watchdog group that monitors the press and television in its biweekly news-letters, compiled a list of some of the more laughable predictions about the election. While they are funny in retrospect, something like reading the predictions of astrologers and psychics that did not come true, they also display a clear bias.
On the Feb. 21 "NBC Nightly News," for example, Ed Rabel said, "The election observers say the Bush Administration may have itself to blame for Daniel Ortega's rise in popularity among the voters. The reason, they say, is the U.S. military invasion of Panama. That was a move that was widely denounced here in Nicaragua. It was a close race until the U.S. invaded."
On election day, Rabel had a vision of the outcome: "Polls won't close here for another 30 minutes. But the widespread belief that the Sandinistas will prevail has shifted thinking far heyond the ballot box. The topic of the day is: How will a freely elected Sandinista government be treated by the United States?"
Even Ted Koppel, who normally is above such things, said on the Feb. 23 "Nightline," "Almost certainly, the Sandinistas will win."
Peter Jennings said there was "not much to show" for the efforts of the Reagan and Bush administrations.
Other reporters canonized Daniel Ortega. Mark Uhlig of The New York Times wrote "Perhaps the most striking aspect of the campaign has been Mr. Ortega's personal evolution from an unsmiling, often strident revolutionary leader to a polished, upbeat political performer who could as easily be a teen idol as a lifelong revolutionary."
CNN's Ronnie Lovler gushed, "One observer commented that Ortega will look back on this day as a turning point in his life, when he demonstrated to the world that the onetime guerrilla had truly become a statesman and a leader of his people."
She was half right. Ortega's defeat was certainly a turning point in his life.
This is shameful editorializing disguised as objective reporting and a disgrace to the profession. Who are these "observers" Rabel and Lovler refer to? They never say.
What is missing in journalism is more strident self-policing that could hold reporters accountable for gross negligence, crass editorializing and blatant bias.
The Twentieth Century Fund, a private foundation, established the now-defunct National News Council in the 1973 for just such a purpose. The council was comprised of private citizens and media people, but it went out of business in 1982 because the Twentieth Century Fund quit paying the bills after it saw that many in the press refused to participate. One of the built-in protections for the press was that complainants had to waive any claims to libel action for the council to listen to their beefs.
As one-time council member Ray Miller, former news director of KTRC-TV in Houston, recalls, "It investigated complaints against the press and filed a report which was usually published in Columbia Journalism Review. It had no real power, but it had the merit of giving people the perception they had some say."
The absence of that perception by the public has contributed to the growing arrogance and feeling of invincibility by the press. That arrogance and invincibility has led to a decline in press credibility.
It is in the interest of journalists - print and media - to resurrect the National News Council, or something like it, so that when the Ed Rabels, Ronnie Lovlers and Mark Uhligs editorialize in the name of objective reporting, the complaints of the public will be heard.
by CNB