Davids Medienkritik: Biased Reporting In The Nixon Era: It Sounds Very Familiar

Ray put this piece online. It's former Vice President Agnew's Speech on the News Media at Montgomery, Alabama, November 20, 1969. And it sounds VERY familiar.

...a broader spectrum of national opinion should be represented among the commentators of the network news. Men who can articulate other points of view should be brought forward.

And a high wall of separation should be raised between what is news and what is commentary. ...

When 300 Congressmen and 59 Senators signed a letter endorsing the President's policy in Vietnam it was news-it was big news. ... Yet the next morning the New York Times, which considers itself America's paper of record, did not carry a word. Why?

If a theology student in Iowa should get up at a PTA luncheon in Sioux City and attack the President's Vietnam policy, my guess is that you would probably find it reported somewhere in the next morning's issue of the New York Times. But when 300 Congressmen endorse the President's Vietnam policy the next morning it is apparently not considered news fit to print.

Just this Tuesday, when the Pope, the Spiritual Leader of half a billion Roman Catholics, applauded the

President's efforts to end the war in Vietnam, and endorsed the way he was proceeding-that news was on Page 11 of the New York Times. But the same day, a report about some burglars who broke into a souvenir shop at St. Peters and stole $9,000 worth of stamps and currency-that story made Page 3. How's that for news judgment? ...

I am not asking any immunity from criticism. That is the lot of the man in politics; we would not have it any other way in this democratic society. But my political and journalistic adversaries sometimes seem to be asking something more-that I circumscribe my rhetorical freedom, while they place no restrictions on theirs. ...

We do not accept those terms for continuing national dialogue. The day when the network commentators and even the gentlemen of the New York Times enjoyed a form of diplomatic immunity from comment and criticism of what they said is over. Yes gentlemen, that day is past.

Just as a politician's words-wise and foolish-are dutifully recorded by the press and television to be thrown up at him at the appropriate time, so their words should likewise be recorded and likewise recalled.
When they go beyond fair comment and criticism they will be called upon to defend their statements and their positions just as we must defend ours. And when their criticism becomes excessive or unjust, we shall invite them down from their ivory towers to enjoy the rough and tumble of public debate.
I do not seek to intimidate the press, the networks or anyone else from speaking out. But the time for blind acceptance of their opinions is past. And the time for naïve belief in their neutrality is gone.
But, as to the future, each of us could do worse than take as our own the motto of William Llloyd Garrison who said: "I am in earnest. I will not equivocate. I will not excuse. I will not retreat a single inch. And I will be heard."

And here's an excerpt from another Agnew speech, delivered 13 Nov. 1969, in Des Moines, IA.

Monday night a week ago, President Nixon delivered the most important address of his Administration, one of the most important of our decade. His subject was Vietnam. My hope, as his at that time, was to rally the American people to see the conflict through to a lasting and just peace in the Pacific. For 32 minutes, he reasoned with a nation that has suffered almost a third of a million casualties in the longest war in its history.

When the President completed his address -- an address, incidentally, that he spent weeks in the preparation of -- his words and policies were subjected to instant analysis and querulous criticism. The audience of 70 million Americans gathered to hear the President of the United States was inherited by a small band of network commentators and self-appointed analysts, the majority of whom expressed in one way or another their hostility to what he had to say.

It was obvious that their minds were made up in advance. ...

When Winston Churchill rallied public opinion to stay the course against Hitler’s Germany, he didn’t have to contend with a gaggle of commentators raising doubts about whether he was reading public opinion right, or whether Britain had the stamina to see the war through. When President Kennedy rallied the nation in the Cuban missile crisis, his address to the people was not chewed over by a roundtable of critics who disparaged the course of action he’d asked America to follow. ...

Several years ago Fred Friendly, one of the pioneers of network news, wrote that its missing ingredients were conviction, controversy, and a point of view. The networks have compensated with a vengeance. ...

Now, my friends, we’d never trust such power, as I’ve described, over public opinion in the hands of an elected Government. It’s time we questioned it in the hands of a small unelected elite. The great networks have dominated America’s airwaves for decades. The people are entitled a full accounting their stewardship.

Spiro Agnew was no saint himself, but I think his views on the biased reporting of the media are as valid today as they were in the Nixon era.