Year in Review: Blowing the Presidential Election; Coming Era of Big Media Mergers
HOWARD KURTZ, CO-HOST: A rough year for the media: blowing the presidential election, the Elian obsession, the hounding of Wen Ho Lee, and the coming era of big media mergers. Welcome to RELIABLE SOURCES, where we turn a critical lens on the media. I'm Howard Kurtz along with Bernard Kalb. And joining us to look at the major media stories of 2000, Michael Isikoff, investigative reporter for "Newsweek" magazine; Jodie Allen, assistant managing editor at "U.S. News & World Report"; and Barbara Cochran, president of the Radio and Television News Directors Association. We begin our year in review with election 2000, starting in the heart of the primary season, with the press' fascination over John McCain.</s>BRIAN WILLIAMS, MSNBC ANCHOR: John McCain has apparently turned the tide on George W. Bush...</s>UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Supporters are starting to use a word they say seemed unimaginable just a week ago: "front-runner."</s>KURTZ: When you're on the bus, do you make a conscious effort not to follow under the magic of McCain's spell?</s>JAKE TAPPER, SALON.COM: Oh, you can't. You become like Patty Hearst when the SLA took her.</s>GOV. GEORGE W. BUSH (R-TX), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: This administration had its moment, they've had their chance. They have not led; we will!</s>AL GORE, VICE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: If you entrust me with the presidency, I know I won't always be the most exciting politician.</s>DANA MILLBANK, "WASHINGTON POST": This is summer camp for journalists. That's why there are 15,000 there: not for the story, but so we could hang out and go to parties and eat our food.</s>BRIT HUME, FOX ANCHOR: And welcome back to our FOX News election coverage. I'm Brit Hume. It's 6:00 p.m. in the East, and polls have now closed...</s>JUDY WOODRUFF, CNN ANCHOR: A big call to make...</s>WILLIAMS: Mr. Gore will take the state of Florida.</s>TOM BROKAW, NBC ANCHOR: What the networks giveth, the networks taketh away.</s>DAN RATHER, CBS ANCHOR: Bulletin: Florida pulled back into the undecided column.</s>RATHER: We made a mistake. We were wrong. We were just flat- wrong.</s>KURTZ: First, a reality check: While campaign 2000 seemed the center of the journalistic universe, the week after election day ranked only No. 6 on the Pew Research Center's survey of the year's top stories which 38 percent of the public followed closely. Topping the list were the hike in gas prices, the attack on the USS Cole, the Firstone tire recall, a failed shooting by a 6-year-old in Michigan, and -- no surprise -- Elian Gonzalez. The Bush-Gore recount fight did, however, beat out the Super Bowl. Michael Isikoff, the election: Compared to some of the tabloid fast-food that we've gorged ourselves on in the past, this seemed like a relatively nutritious episode for the press. So why do I have this feeling of indigestion afterwards?</s>MICHAEL ISIKOFF, "NEWSWEEK": Well, there's a lot to digest. I actually think it was just one hell of a story. It probably was the most wild, crazy story I've ever covered with more plot twists and more of a sense -- one of the few stories I've ever been involved where you really didn't have any idea how it was going to turn out. There was genuine suspense, and that just makes it a great story. But you know, that said, I think, you know, a lot of people are focused, as you clearly are, on the wrong calls that were made election night, which clearly, you know, were big gaffes for the networks.</s>KURTZ: But beyond the wrong calls, Michael...</s>ISIKOFF: Yes.</s>KURTZ: Let me turn to Jodie Allen. I have this nagging feeling that, you know, the pathetic coverage of the Ryder truck carrying the ballots to Tallahassee, the relentless nature of the coverage, that the media have only one volume: really loud.</s>JODIE ALLEN, "U.S. NEWS & WORLD REPORT": That's clearly -- that's clearly true, Howie. But as Mike said, forgive us, this was for journalists a great, great story, although it did -- it had its flagging moments. But -- and the public, for a political story, was paying a considerable amount of attention. Look at CNN's ratings during that period, MSNBC. Put them all back, all the cable, back on the map. So that for a political story, it generated a good deal of public interest, and I don't think you can blame the media for covering it: although I am struck by the fact that in the end the public doesn't view these things as earth-shaking as we do. They are more worried about gas prices than about whether their kid might get shot at school.</s>BERNARD KALB, CO-HOST: Well, given this obituary for journalism in the year 2000, will I be driven off the set if I say something nice about the coverage of this year? That's all I want to say, "something nice." Now, let's get it serious. When planes land, nobody writes a story. When a plane goes down, it's headlines. And that's essentially what happened with November 7. That was one hell of a yarn, and you used the keyword. The word is "suspense." When we don't know the outcome, we all</s>BARBARA COCHRAN, RADIO-TV NEWS DIRECTORS ASSOCIATION: Well, I think there were a lot of very interesting things that happened there, and you know, as much as the campaign seemed like kind of a cut-and- dried piece up until election night, all the excitement happened after the normal time when the story would have been finished -- and that was pretty interesting. But I think the public got to see its institutions, its democratic institutions working up close and personal. One of the most fascinating things was how much exposure we had to what went on in courts, because of cameras in the Florida Supreme Court. We even got the Supreme Court of the United States to release an audiotape. And after it was all over, I think part of the reason the public accepted the outcome was because they were able to observe so much of what went on, thanks to the news media.</s>KURTZ: I know that the election night fiasco by the television networks, biggest blunder in 40 years easily. Looks even worse now that we have the report of the Voter News Service. It turns out that this -- all the networks rely for these projections. It turns out that they expected half -- twice as many ballots -- I'm sorry. They expected half as many ballots to be counted after 2:00 a.m. than was actually the case, and they expected half as many absentee ballots as turned out to be the case. This was shaky stuff. But Barbara, you talk about observing the institutions in action. We certainly got to see the media, you know, making the sausage, so to speak. And I'm reminded of that night, Michael Isikoff, of the Supreme Court ruling that in effect handed the presidency to George W. Bush, and cold reporters standing out on the street. And why can't -- is television incapable of saying, give us five minutes to read the opinion and we'll get back to you?</s>ISIKOFF: Yes, because everybody wanted to know right away. We had an incident in our story, Bush was calling from Austin Don Evans, had on the cell phone the second this opinion came out, and Don Evans is telling Bush, we'll have to call you back, we'll have to call you back. He wants to know. What did it say? Nobody knew. Everybody wanted to know. And you've got to feel sorry for those correspondents out there. I mean, it was a very difficult opinion to get through and figure out what it meant. And everybody was standing there reading...</s>ALLEN: Well, it was so difficult that even people that did study at great length still can't figure out what it meant, and I think they did an incredible job.</s>COCHRAN: And in the age of the clicker, you know, if you aren't at least acting as if you're going to tell somebody something pretty soon, the thumb will go and they'll be on to the next person who makes that comment.</s>KALB: Is there any chance that one of the lessons coming out of this, the question I asked you that you chose to duck, is there any chance, for example. of the next election being called off and the entire election being entrusted to the Supreme Court?</s>COCHRAN: Oh, of course not. Of course not.</s>KALB: ... very simple. You know, you have a vote, put it up to the nine justices and so forth.</s>COCHRAN: Well, I think one of the more serious outcomes for the networks and their election night calls is that Congress is getting into the act now...</s>KALB: Yes.</s>COCHRAN: ... and is threatening to do things like ban exit polls and so on. The networks need to make a report. They need to go public with their findings on what wrong that night. But they need to be the ones in charge of preventing mistakes in the future. Not Congress.</s>KALB: This is a media show, right? And we've often talked about where lawyers stand, as if</s>ALLEN: Well, Bernie, I don't think anything does wonders for the media...</s>KALB: Either way.</s>ALLEN: ... overnight. But I think that, by and large, setting aside election night, the media actually learned to be more careful. If you look at the post-election coverage, it was pretty careful, the post-election. There was a minimum of overhyping of this or that, an attempt to downplay even the demonstrations and to not overhype it. I think that there were lessons learned, which isn't to say that we will not be back sensationalizing next year, because, as Barbara picks out, if we don't -- points out -- you know, people will be clicking the clicker.</s>KURTZ: Let me jump in, because we're very short on time. Michael Isikoff, the press and John McCain was a huge story. People called it a swoon, a romance. I'm wondering if perhaps McCain found a new way to deal with the press, or was this unique to Senator McCain, the idea of being accessible almost all the time to reporters...</s>ISIKOFF: No. Actually, he sort of paved the way. I mean, you had, if you remember -- I mean, Bush was completely inaccessible in those early months of the campaign and then became much more open with the press, as did Gore to a -- a more limited degree, but more open so than before, and because of the success McCain had with the press. Yes, there was an element of swooning, people went a little overboard in the -- in the coverage of McCain. But again, he was the most exciting candidate in the field at the time. He was the one threatening to shake things up more than anybody else. And it was natural that the press was going to, you know, seize onto his candidacy.</s>KURTZ: OK, I've got to call a timeout. There's a lot more to say here. When we come back, the 6-year-old who dominated the newscast for weeks and the nuclear scientist presumed guilty by the press -- next.