A real media critic's take on Shill's Content:
***Media Research Center CyberAlert***
Monday June 15, 1998 (Vol. Three; No. 94)
ÿÿÿ > 1) "At last, the media's free ride has come to a screeching
halt." So exclaimed huge lettering on the outside of a direct mail
piece pushing the new Content magazine. Since re-named the more
egomaniacal "Brill's Content" after founder Steve Brill, the
premiere issue generated plenty of publicity over the weekend not
for taking on the media but for taking on Ken Starr. How original
and unique. And many reporters acted as if the revelation that
Starr talked to reporters was new when, in fact, they must have
know colleagues who had been to Starr's office.
ÿÿÿ (Brill created CourTV and his American Lawyer magazine carried
Stuart Taylor's November 1996 article detailing the case for Paula
Jones. But now Brill dismisses Stuart as a "partisan." Ralph Nader
and Rush Limbaugh endorsed Content in an insert in the direct mail
package for the magazine.)
ÿÿÿ The cover of the premier issue announced: "In Watergate
reporters checked abuse of power. In the Lewinsky affair they
enabled it by lapping up Ken Starr's leaks which he now admits for
the first time." How does that correspond with what Brill promised
potential subscribers? A letter from him in the direct mail
package asked: "Name the industry that, when it comes to power,
lack of accountability, arrogance, and making money in the name of
sacred constitutional rights, actually makes lawyers look good."
His answer was not the bar or independent counsels but "The
media."
ÿÿÿ A color flyer in the subscription package, with a dog on the
cover, declared: "Now there's a fearless media watchdog," and as
you turn the pages you read, "that holds journalists' feet to the
fire...exposes incompetents & charlatans...applauds the ones who
get it right...separates wheat from the chaff on the Web...debunks
long-standing myths...and helps you get to the truth...introducing
Content."
ÿÿÿ Yet, in his 28-page article he denounces Starr's investigation
as an "abuse of power." To the extent he takes on the media he
does so from the left, from an anti-Starr point of view, thus
hardly offering a fresh or unique watchdog role. CNN aired an
anti-Starr special, "Investigating the Investigator," back on
February 5! And as any CyberAlert reader knows, questions about
whether Starr has "gone too far" and labeling him "partisan" are a
regular feature of network news.
ÿÿÿ The cover story "contains considerable criticism of the press
as a 'cheering section' for Starr and unsubstantiated reporting,"
The Washington Post's Howard Kurtz observed in a June 14 story.
Kurtz elaborated: "Brill said The Post's [Susan] Schmidt 'does
stenography for the prosecutors' and NBC's David Bloom does
'lapdog-like work' as 'a virtual stenographer for Starr.'"
ÿÿÿ Someone really interested in offering a refreshing publication
"that holds journalists' feet to the fire," would go outside of
conventional media wisdom. How about a look at how good a job the
media did in providing their readers and viewers with both sides
when one side (the White House) had a staff of current and former
flacks while the other side (the independent counsel) had nobody
on staff and was constrained from talking about the very issues
the White House put into play. I haven't seen Brill's piece yet,
but that doesn't sound like an issue he considered.
ÿÿÿ Despite Brill's promise to be a watchdog on the media like
they are on everybody else, the founder, CEO and Editor-in-Chief
of Content spent Sunday morning denouncing not the media but Ken
Starr. Brill popped up on Fox News Sunday, Face the Nation and
CNN's Late Edition as well as NBC's Today to claim Starr had
violated federal evidence Rule 6(e) which prohibits disclosure of
grand jury testimony.
ÿÿÿÿ
ÿÿÿ Bob Schieffer opened Face the Nation: "Today on Face the
Nation: Has Ken Starr been manipulating the media to get the
President? Our guest today, the editor of a new magazine about the
media, suggests he has..."
ÿÿÿ Brill made no effort to move beyond attacking Starr and when
challenged about how Starr's interpretation may be correct in that
he can brief reporters before testimony and in order to make sure
reporters know the facts, Brill insisted: "Every court that had to
take a look at it has flatly contradicted the use of that kind of
loophole." On Late Edition he argued about the matter with a
former Attorney General -- Richard Thornburgh.
ÿÿ Brill's story is so one-sided that it even embarrassed the
Washington press corps. Examples:
ÿÿÿ -- On Face the Nation, Gloria Borger of U.S. News & World
Report, propounded: "Ken Starr's people might say that the media
had been manipulated in fact by the White House on this story."
ÿÿ Bob Schieffer made the obvious point that Brill's theory is
contradicted by reality: "Do you think in fact this has helped Ken
Star because his poll ratings, when you go out around the country,
if he was using the media in this way it does not seem to have
helped him."
ÿÿÿ In the next segment, George Washington University law
professor Jonathan Turley declared: "It hardly makes a basis for
suggesting actual wrongdoing in any legal sense. I'd be surprised
if this article made it past the copy editor of a small town
newspaper. It's very, very one sided."
ÿÿÿ -- CNN's Wolf Blitzer pressed Brill on Late Edition: "In your
article, which basically makes two very serious allegations one
against Ken Starr, a second one against several reporters, who are
accused of basically being spoon fed by Ken Starr and his staff in
printing, and reporting, whatever they are told, there still is --
you don't get into the whole question of anything that the White
House may be doing, similarly trying to leak information,
sensitive secret information. Is it fair to say that this is a
one-sided, simply anti-Ken Starr article that you have written?"
ÿÿÿ -- After interviewing Brill Fox News Sunday brought on
Lucianne Goldberg to criticize his reporting. Brill's polemic was
too much even the liberal Juan Williams, who declared during the
end of the show roundtable: "I thought it was horrifically one-
sided. I can't quite grasp, other than he idea he's trying to get
publicity for his magazine, why he would do such a one-sided
piece..."
ÿÿÿ But Ruth Conniff of the far-left Progressive loved it: "I
think it's an excellent piece. I think it does exactly what Brill
has set out to do, which is to be a watchdog on the media..."
ÿÿÿ Despite the morning scrutiny, though the June 14 evening show
stories included Starr's denial of any wrongdoing, the network
newscasts led with the White House spin:
ÿÿÿ -- ABC's World News Tonight/Sunday. Anchor Carole Simpson
intoned: "Independent Counsel Kenneth Starr has admitted in an
interview released today that he and his office were the source of
some of the leaks about his investigation into President Clinton.
The news may come as no surprise in Washington, but the fact that
he said it -- that's another matter."
ÿÿÿ -- CBS Evening News. Anchor John Roberts announced: "The White
House is jumping all over the news that independent counsel
Kenneth Starr has been talking to the media about witnesses who
are appearing before his grand jury. The White House is calling
for an investigation of the investigator, claiming that Starr may
have broken the law. But as Bob Schieffer reports, Starr is
proclaiming his innocence."
ÿÿÿ Schieffer trumpeted how "Steven Brill drops a bombshell..."
ÿÿÿ -- NBC Nightly News. Anchor Len Cannon told viewers: "The man
heading the investigation of the President, Independent Counsel
Kenneth Starr, has his own problems tonight concerning briefings
he gave he media an an unidentified source."
ÿÿÿ Reporter Suzanne Malveaux included Rahm Emmanuel's comments o
Meet the Press calling the Brill charges a "bombshell, very
serious" and "grave," adding: "Some legal experts say this is
serious." Georgetown University law professor Paul Rothstein
insisted: "If there's a lot more under the surface it could lead
to possible dismissal of Kenneth Starr."
ÿÿÿ Final Thought. When I first heard about Content I was excited
that someone with Brill's heft would be able to force the media to
confront and answer the same questions reporters force everyone
they cover to deal with. I hope that's what he will offer and may
even have done so in the current issue outside of the cover story,
but judging by his Sunday appearances and theme of his cover
story, he may just have created another Columbia Journalism
Review: a publication where journalists are applauded for pursuing
liberal agenda items and castigated when they stray off the media
reservation to the right.
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