LOS ANGELES — Like umpteen million other Americans, my father and I spent the past week frantically gobbling up each new development on the Gary Condit/Chandra Levy case. We were largely without computers or televisions, so before leaving a Redding, California motel room Sunday morning, we flipped on CNN to catch the latest.
Instead, we got Bernard Kalb and Howard Kurtz.
"Have the media declared open season on Gary Condit's sex life?" intoned Kurtz, the Washington Post's tireless media reporter and CNN's Reliable Sources host, just hours after the Modesto Congressman finally admitted — under pressure from new revelations by Levy's aunt — that he had had a sexual affair with a missing Bureau of Prisons intern.
Kalb, the Reagan administration PR flack-turned media scold, knew the answer all right — it's the damned hyper-competitive media, rushing unedited rumor to the airwaves to serve their corporate paymasters. Even if every journalist you ask explains otherwise.
"Let's talk about what this story is and what it isn't. What this story is really is about a missing person," he barked. "There are hundreds, thousands of those stories every year. Why is this one being covered?"
Fox News' Rita Cosby explained the obvious: "Because of Congressman Condit."
Not good enough for our Bernie. Must be a rush to judgment.
KALB: Rita, a couple of quick questions. How soon after the interview is completed did Fox run it on the air?
COSBY: We ran it on the air ...
KALB: How much time?
COSBY: Several hours.
KALB: Several hours?
COSBY: Yes.
KALB: And was that time used to check out claims that ...
COSBY: Yes, yes. And the other thing that's important ...
KALB: Did anything she tell you not check out?
COSBY: No, no.
Turns out, Kalb and his tiresome ilk have been railing against the "tabloidization" of this story, and its parallels to the Clinton/Lewinsky flap, almost since it came out. Here he is, wrong again, haranguing CBS' Gloria Borger June 23:
"What about [Condit's] characterization of the way the media has been covering this story, Gloria? He used the word 'tabloidization.' This story is so critically media-driven, taking place against the backdrop of the Monica and the president, now we have that extraordinary sexy word, 'intern.' Say 'intern' and bingo, all the networks go."
It was pointed out that two of the networks, CBS and ABC, had not in fact run the story in prime time.
KALB: So, a direct question: has the media gone nuts on covering this story?
BORGER: No, I don't think the media has gone nuts on covering this story.
And on June 16, Kalb spelled out his objection to covering this newsworthy story:
"We called it a 'major media story,' and I think we should focus on why the word 'major' was used. Other people are missing around the country. They're not even a minor story, so why is this one a major story? Because in my view, the press has a whiff of the possibility of a Congressman and an intern played out against the backdrop of Monica Lewinsky and the president. And the press finds that irresistible. It has reading potential. People are looking through the transom, et cetera. But is this story worth all that extra space that other missing people do not get? I don't think so."
And there's the nut — since newspapers don't cover individual missing-person cases, that means they shouldn't cover this one! Especially since it involves the private sex life of a politician!
This is the same warped flapdoodle that journalism professors and other critics have been using for years to criticize "trash TV" and "tabloids" — like the New York Daily News and New York Post — for having the bad taste to cover actual crime that happens to actual people, while recognizing that (shudder!) scandal coverage of the rich and powerful attracts an audience. It's sensationalist! It doesn't take the broad view!
Here's a typical argument, from syndicated columnist Andrew Glass of the journalistically challenged Cox Newspaper chain:
"We [should] strive to place the story of the congressman and the intern in the broader context of political life and familial isolation."
Right. Fire up that 12-part series on "familial isolation," and in the meantime ignore the fact that a married, family-values Congressman who favors putting the Ten Commandments on school walls and famously slammed Clinton for not coming clean about Lewinsky, has lied, repeatedly, about his relationship with a federal employee, who was reportedly in love with him, and has now disappeared mysteriously, shortly after telling confidants she had some "big news."
Though good people (like most of my friends) disagree with me about the relevance of Bill Clinton's sex habits to his governance, there is certainly several worlds of difference between getting caught in several lies about several escapades (and even pushing to discredit the women) ... and being dishonest and unforthcoming about a woman who may well be dead. I have even heard journalists debate whether the airline stewardess' accusations — that Condit pressured her to lie to the FBI about their affair — was perhaps "not relevant" to the Levy case, mostly because "Condit is not a suspect."
Well, "not a suspect" is legalese for "hasn't been read his rights, because the police have deemed it more useful to coax cooperation rather than force no-comments." Of course police have been investigating Condit's role in the disappearance; I would argue that they have made a grave miscalculation in not forcing him to admit his relationship several weeks ago, when the Levy trail would have still been relatively fresh.
What has the "competition-driven sensationalism" produced? Besides a lot of admittedly airy television, it smoked out the aunt's revelation that Levy told her all about an affair with Condit, which in turn finally triggered Condit's apparent confession to the FBI. It has put Levy's face everywhere, which will be useful on the odd chance that she's still alive. And, with relentless pressure, it has exposed Condit as a power-abusing fraud who is trying to hide his potential culpability. Isn't that what a free press is supposed to do?
It is worth noting that most of the journalism guardians who whine, illogically, about "competition," work for deeply uncompetitive organizations called "newspapers." Thanks to their federally protected monopoly status in nearly every city in the country, publicly owned newspapers earned 17.6 percent pre-tax profit in the first quarter this year. "Ask Ford Motor Co. if they'd like 17.6 percent," newspaper analyst John Morton told the L.A. Times' David Shaw earlier this month. "Ask Safeway. Ask almost any industrial enterprise if they'd like 17.6 percent."
Even so, because that figure is down from 22.6 percent last year, virtually every newspaper company in the country is slashing jobs right and left to cope with the "crisis."
The role of the modern journalism critic — in 180-degree contrast to the beloved "father" of media criticism, A.J. Liebling — is to decry competition, and attack all "values" (especially "conservative" ones) that differ from those of the mono-dailies. As a result, they effectively lobby (wittingly or not) for a deepening of the uncompetitive, unremarkable and dead-boring status quo. Nothing draws the modern newsman's ire more than those "irresponsible" tabloids in New York and London, despite the fact that New York and London are two of the last great newspaper towns.
We have now devolved to the sad state of affairs where Jimmy Breslin actively roots for the New York Post to go out of business, Berkeley academics wonder aloud if it might be better for the San Francisco Examiner to fold rather than fight the Chronicle, and hand-wringers everywhere fret about Fox News. There are few people left who will defend the huge headline, or admit that news should have entertainment value.
Journalists who don't think the Gary Condit saga is a legitimate story don't belong in the business.
Leave it to a press-loving outsider, Britain's terrific Economist, to appreciate the political and journalistic role being played by such taboo publications as the National Enquirer and the Star.
"The tabloids still tackle the questions that higher-minded journalists steer clear of in their writing but then spend most of the week discussing at lunch," the paper writes this week. "The weekly tabloids have this year been responsible for more hot political scoops than any of the mainstream media. ... [Partially because of] the prissiness of America's broadsheets, still the only form of daily newspaper in most of the country. New York city is the only place with a daily tabloid press that a European would recognize. Many of the country's top journalists think that their job is to analyse 'policy'; they do not wish to discuss, in print, tittle-tattle about 'personality.' Such high-mindedness may have its merits, but the supermarket tabloids do not share it. They say the job of the press is to expose the personal failings of the powerful as well as to discuss greenhouse gas emissions."
Los Angeles writer Matt
Welch writes The $75
Outrage for WorkingForChange. To see more of his work, visit mattwelch.com
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Journalists who don't think the Gary Condit saga is a legitimate story don't belong in the business.
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