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 Caveat lector 22 May 2000 Our current howler (part I): Easy as easy can be
The distinction is easy as easy can be—when the press isn't chasing a pol. Last Friday, Gloria Borger profiled Rick Lazio on Washington Week in Review:
The distinction is hopelessly simple. (1) Rep. Lazio is pro-choice on abortion. (2) He's also against federal funding. No one on the PBS panel interrupted Borger to ask what she meant. If there's an easier distinction on earth to explain, we'd like to know what it could be. But back in New Hampshire, leading up to the primary, Bill Bradley was calling Al Gore a Big Liar, and the excitable press corps, thrilled with the chase, was suddenly confused by this concept. In a Durham (N.H.) debate on January 26, Gore described his record on abortion. Gore said he had "always supported Roe v. Wade" (and "a woman's right to choose"), but at one time had opposed federal funding. With Bradley aggressively challenging his honesty, Gore said it again the next day, on a talk show:
Again, the matter could not have been simpler. Gore had supported Roe v. Wade, he said, but had voted against federal funding. It was the same distinction which Borger stated so easily last Friday night. But it doesn't matter how simple a distinction may be. When the modern press corps goes on a tear, ripping up a hopeful's character, there is no distinction so groaningly simple that pundits won't feign Big Confusion. In the paragraph immediately following those which we've quoted, Robinson and Scales referred to Gore's "puzzling metamorphosis on abortion," and Gore's presentation was soon creating confusion all over the Globe. Here, for example, are Jill Zuckman and Bob Hohler, in a page one story on January 29:
But Gore didn't say he'd always supported "abortion rights" (which might be taken to include federal funding). Gore said that (1) he'd always supported the right to choose, but (2) had voted against federal funding. What difference could the Globe's paraphrase make? The writers soon offered a longer account which muddled what Gore had said:
Remarkable, isn't it? Gore had specifically said that he'd voted against funding. But this fact was now dropped from the Globe's account of the Wednesday debate, and the impression was given that Gore's votes on funding may have contradicted what he'd said at the forum. The grisly writing continued the next day in a page-one story by Zuckman and Michael Kranish. Once again, the writers omitted Gore's statement on funding from their account of the Wednesday debate:
In this passage, it seems that Gore's statement on federal funding came several days after the debate. And the writers, adding to the fun, had already baldly misquoted an old Gore letter:
It sure was. And through simple incompetence or love of the chase, the Globe team was playing along. Gore had not said, in the 1987 letter, that abortion was "the taking of a human life." He had said it was "arguably the taking of a human life"—that a reasonable person could so believe. The Globe writers dropped the word of qualification, increasing the effect of their insinuation. (Incredibly, when Gore was quoted, later in the article, correcting the writers on what he had said, Kranish and Zuckman complained that Gore "seemed to choose his words carefully." It's a flaw they might well learn to emulate.) One final note on the Globe-on-abortion: Kranish and Zuckman's critique of Gore's old letter was based on another stone-simple confusion. Suppose Gore had said, in 1987, that abortion was "the taking of a human life?" What on earth would that have to do with whether he supported "a woman's right to choose?" Being pro-choice means the woman gets to choose, whatever the pol's private views may be. Many pols disapprove of abortion but are still pro-choice (Rep. Lazio, dear readers, is one of them). It's the simplest distinction in abortion politics; every political writer knows it. Until, that is, the desire to attack an Official Approved Target comes on. The distortions we saw in the Globe's April 11 piece weren't the first we had seen in the Globe this year. The impulse to improve basic facts had run wild in the paper in January. Case in point: On January 28, Walter Robinson and Ann Scales did an early assessment of Gore's "veracity." And in the excitement, it was bound to happen; Robinson and Scales penned the latest misstatement of a bit of iconic Gore Lore.
Tomorrow: Robinson and Scales fumbled abortion—and they raised a familiar old tale. The morning after? Easy as easy can be: Here's how the Globe described Gore's remarks the morning after the 1/26 debate:
The morning after the Dems' debate, it was easy as easy can be. Hohler and Zuckman clearly stated what Gore said about his past votes on funding. But after that, for three straight days, Globe readers got garbled and misleading accounts. Globe readers were never again told that Gore had stated at the debate that he had once "opposed federal funds being used to pay for abortions." Instead, for three straight days, Globe reporting implied that Gore's past votes on federal funding may have contradicted what he'd said at the debate. It made it seem that Gore had been dishonest—just as Saint Bradley was saying. Was that simple incompetence on the part of the scribes, or were the writers off on a mission? That, of course, we cannot say. But the work was typical of the kind of work that derives from the press corps' pathology. |