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angrier, and they sued. Cranberg, whose goal is to develop nonlitigation
methods to deal with libel complaints, gives the following advice to
editors:
• Remind employees of the great power of the press to hurt people
and of the need therefore to treat complainants courteously.
• Assign responsibility for dealing with complaints to a person who
has good human relations skills and who is not also responsible for
news coverage.
• Develop written policies and procedures for addressing com
-
plaints.
• Make sitting on serious complaints a firing offense.
105
By following these rules, public attitudes toward the media are likely to
be improved and serious grievances avoided.
CONCLUSIONS
On a day-to-day basis, a business that dislikes a news story about itself
can call a medium’s reporter and editor or producer and voice its dis-
pleasure. Corrective action may or may not follow, and the long-term
impact of such calls may be minimal. New strategies are more powerful
and are aimed at producing institutional changes in media structure
and behavior. By supporting media-monitoring activities and news
watchdogs, corporations can expose bad reporting and undermine pub-
lic confidence in the media. The public journalism movement is one sign
the media are sensitive to public opinion and want to involve the public
more. However, the ultimate weapon of business is to sue news organi-
zations—not only for libel but also for using illegal news-gathering
techniques. Occasionally those sued are not the media but activists who
allegedly make wrongful accusations that garner media attention.
APPENDIX
GM ONE-UPS NBC ON
“WAITING TO EXPLODE” PICKUP TRUCKS
On November 17, 1993, a 15-minute segment on Dateline NBC showed
how a GM pickup truck with a side-mounted gasoline tank exploded
and burst into flames when another vehicle struck the tank side of the
truck. Viewers were led to believe what some motorists and the National
Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) were claiming, that
the 10 million pickup trucks built between 1973 and 1987—4.7 million
of which were still on the road—were unsafe.
106
GM had insisted the
trucks were safe and posed no greater risk of postcollision fire than Ford
and Dodge full-size pickups. NBC’s “Waiting to Explode” show seemed
to undermine GM’s position.
192 I CHAPTER 7
Not only was GM’s reputation at stake; it also faced 30 separate class
action suits. In a major defeat in February 1993, GM was struck with a
whopping $105.2 million verdict in an Atlanta court in the highly pub
-
licized case of 17-year-old Shannon Moseley, who, in 1989, was killed
in a crash of a GM pickup truck.
107
Secretary Federico F. Pena of the
NHTSA stated GM “appears to have made a decision favoring sales over
safety,” and asked for a recall of the trucks.
108
GM could have faced $1
billion in costs, plus lost sales.
Good luck, followed by careful investigation, exposed the fact that
the NBC reporter had placed incendiary devices under the GM truck,
overfilled the gas tank, and left the gas cap loose so the truck would ex
-
plode and burst into flames. The break for GM came when the editor of
Popular Hot Rodding magazine received a call from a reader telling him of
a firefighter who was on the scene of the staged crash and videotaped
the whole test, saying he thought the explosion had been rigged. After
investigators checked 22 junkyards, they found the trucks used in the
test and discovered a spent model rocket engine in the bed of one of the
pickups. (It was later disclosed the rocket engines had been detonated by
remote control.)
109
Using this evidence, GM general counsel Harold J. Pearce held a news
conference in Detroit and, after revealing the facts, called NBC’s news
program an “outrageous misrepresentation and conscious decep-
tion.”
110
The two-hour news conference was telecast to GM offices, fac-
tories, and dealers throughout the country.
111
Although in January GM had sent a letter outlining some of its find-
ings to Dateline producer Robert Read, he did not inform NBC News
president Michael Gartner. The latter learned about GM’s letter only af-
ter a second letter, dated February 1, was copied and sent to him and to
NBC president Robert Wright.
112
After NBC held its crisis meeting, Gart-
ner sent a letter to GM asserting three separate times that the NBC story
was entirely accurate: “NBC does not believe that any statements made
… were either false or misleading.… The Dateline report … was and re
-
mains completely factual and accurate.”
113
However, after NBC officials
watched the GM news conference, they decided on a settlement. Jane
Pauley, the anchor, apologized on the air the next day.
114
Mounting criticism from the journalism establishment and concerns
by NBC affiliate stations about withdrawal of advertising by GM dealer
-
ships helped convince NBC the settlement was desirable. Marvin Kalb, a
former network news correspondent, commented that a television jour
-
nalist would have been fired for pulling such a stunt in years past; he la
-
mented, “But so radically have journalistic news standards changed
over the last 20 to 30 years that a network can now do this kind of sim
-
ulation—and then argue that it pursued a proper journalistic course. I
find it rather astounding.”
115
CBS’s 60 Minutes executive producer Don
Hewitt stated, “There was no reason to do that. They had a pretty good
story up to that point. You can’t ever play fast and loose with the people
who watch you, or you lose them.”
116
HOLDING THE MEDIA ACCOUNTABLE AND SUING I 193
Gartner stated he would move with “deliberate speed” on an internal
review of what went wrong, but in early March he decided to resign.
117
ENDNOTES
1. Donald K. Baldwin, editor, Making Sense of the News (St. Petersburg, FL: Mod
-
ern Media Institute, 1981), p. 6.
2. Claude-Jean Bertrand, Media Ethics & Accountability Systems (New Bruns
-
wick, NJ: Transaction, 2000), p. 149.
3. Susanne Fengler, “Holding the News Media Accountable: A Study of Media Re
-
porters and Media Critics in the United States,” Journalism & Mass Communi
-
cation Quarterly, Vol. 80, Winter 2003, p. 818.
4. Ibid., p. 819. Refers to Bertrand, op. cit., p. l32.
5. Ibid., pp. 819–820.
6. Ibid., p. 826.
7. Editorial, “Leadership at The Times,” New York Times, June 6, 2003, p. A32.
8. Jame Bandler, “Report Cites ‘Virus of Fear’ at USA Today,” Wall Street Journal,
April 23, 2004, p. B1.
9. See Jonathan Chait, “Bad Press,” The New Republic, Vol. 229, November 10,
2003, pp. 20–23.
10. Brooks Barnes and Joe Flint, “Four to Leave CBS News in Wake of ‘60 Min-
utes’ Probe,” Wall Street Journal, January 11, 2005, p. B1. Also see James
Rainey and Scott Gold, Los Angeles Times, January 16, 2005, p. A1.
11. Joe Flint and Greg Hitt, “Rather Retreats, Calling Report ‘A Mistake,’ ” Wall
Street Journal, September 21, 2004, p. B1.
12. Ibid., p. B4.
13. See Bob Davis, “Self-Styled Media Critic Dissects TV Coverage to Expose Per-
ceived Liberal Bias at Networks,” Wall Street Journal, August 15, 1996, p.
A12.
14. “Watchdog Watch,” American Journalism Review, Vol. 5, April 1993, pp.
32–34.
15. Eric Altman, “Anchors Aweigh: The Refs Are Working,” The Nation, Novem-
ber 1, 2004, p. 12.
16. Ibid.
17. Ibid.
18. Said on “The Connection,” a WBUR program in Boston, January 18, 2005.
19. Ad appeared March 31, 1996, p. E15.
20. Jude Wanniski, 1991 Media Guide, 6th annual edition (Morristown, NJ:
Polyconomics, 1991).
21. Charlene J. Brow, Trevor R. Brown, and William L. Rivers, The Media and the
People (New York: Holt, Rinehart & Winston, 1978), pp. 395–396.
22. Ibid., p. 232.
23. Ibid., p. 172.
24. “Blowing the Whistle,” Industry Week, July 21, 1980, p. 42.
25. Ibid.
26. William Rivers, Backtalk: Press Councils in America (San Francisco: Canfield
Press, 1972), p. 115.
27. Thomas Griffith, “Watchdog Without a Bite,” Time, April 9, 1984, p. 103.
28. Alicia C. Shepard, “Going Public,” American Journalism Review, Vol. 19, April
1997, p. 29.
29. Ibid., p. 28.
194 I CHAPTER 7
30. “News Council Finds Coverage ‘Untruthful,’ But Wins Emmy,” pr reporter,
Vol. 39, November 11, 1996, pp. 1–2.
31. Ibid.
32. Ibid.; G. Bruce Knecht, “Media: Rare Breed: Media Watchdog With Some
Bite,” Wall Street Journal, November 20, 1996, p. B-1; Mike Wallace, “The
Press Needs a National Monitor,” Wall Street Journal, December 18, 1996, p.
A20; and Shepard, op. cit., pp. 24–29.
33. Shepard, op. cit., pp. 28–29.
34. “Beware Media Consolidation,” BusinessWeek, May 26, 2003, p. 126.
35. Joseph Weber, “This Old-Media Deal Has New-Media Promise,”
BusinessWeek, March 27, 2000, p. 46.
36. Susan E. Tifft, “American Journalism Loses Another Family,” Wall Street
Journal, March 14, 2000, p. A30.
37. Katharine Graham, “Journalistic Family Values,” BusinessWeek, July 8,
2002, p. 118.
38. Martin Peers, Nick Wingfield, and Laura Landro, “Media Blitz: AOL, Time
Warner Leap Borders to Plan a Mammoth Merger,” Wall Street Journal, Jan
-
uary 11, 2000, p. A1.
39. Catherine Yang, “A Real Test for Trustbusters,” BusinessWeek, July 17, 2000,
pp. 78, 81.
40. Dan Carney, “Who Will Watch AOL’s Watchdog?” BusinessWeek, January 8,
2001, p. 39.
41. Lawrence K. Grossman, The Electronic Republic: Reshaping Democracy in the
Information Age (New York: Viking, 1995), pp. 200–201.
42. Ibid., p. 173.
43. Ibid.
44. Editorial, BusinessWeek, July 8, 2002, p. 118.
45. Editorial, “Protecting Media Diversity,“ New York Times, February 23, 2002,
p. A14.
46. Gary C. Woodward, Perspectives on American Political Media (Boston: Allyn &
Bacon, 1997), p. 31.
47. Morton Mintz, “The Pro-corporate Tilt,” Nieman Reports, Vol. 45, Fall 1999,
p. 24. Mintz is a former reporter at the Washington Post and chair of the
Fund for Investigative Journalism.
48. Michael Parenti, “The Myth of a Liberal Media,” The Humanist, Vol. 55, Janu
-
ary 1995, p. 7.
49. Ibid.
50. Grossman, op. cit., p. 175.
51. Tom Shales, “The Endangered NBC Peacock: How Owner GE Is Ravaging the
Once-Proud Network,” Washington Post, March 29, 1991, p. B1.
52. Bruce Orwall, “Disney’s ABC Keeps Ad Hole Mouse-Friendly,” Wall Street
Journal, July 17, 1997, p. B1.
53. Elizabeth Jensen and Thomas R. King, “World of Disney Isn’t So Wonderful
for ABC,” Wall Street Journal, July 12, 1996, p. B1.
54. Bruce Orwall, “Disney to Show Its Animated Film Hits on ABC,” Wall Street
Journal, January 6, 1997, p. B6.
55. Ibid.
56. Kathy Chen, “Disney Frets Over AOL Merger Plan,” Wall Street Journal,
March 23, 2000, p. A24.
57. Mintz, op. cit., p. 32.
58. Parenti, op. cit.
59. Mintz, op. cit., pp. 31–32.
HOLDING THE MEDIA ACCOUNTABLE AND SUING I 195
60. Ibid., p. 25.
61. Christopher Conte, “Angels in the Newsroom,” Governing Magazine, August
1996, p. 20.
62. Guido H. Stempel, III, Media and Politics in America: A Reference Book (Santa
Barbara, Calif: ABC-CLIO, 2003), p. 52.
63. G. Bruce Knecht, “The Newsmakers: Why a Big Foundation Gives Newspapers
Cash to Change Their Ways,” Wall Street Journal, October 17, 1996, p. 1.
64. Ibid.
65. “Public Journalism: Possible Answer to What Ails the Press,” in Julie Rovner,
“Covering Health Care: Are Reporters Missing the Beat?” A Special Supple
-
ment to Advances, Issue 3, 1996, p. 2.
66. Ibid.
67. Knecht, op. cit., p. 1.
68. News release, “Public Journalism Can’t Do It All,” by the Pew Center for
Civic Journalism, Washington, DC, May 21, 1997.
69. David Blomquist and Cliff Zukin, “Does Public Journalism Work?: The
‘Campaign Central’ Experience,” Pew Center for Civic Journalism, Washing
-
ton, DC, May 1997, p. 30.
70. Ibid., p. 6.
71. See William M. Carley, “Bad Reception: As Television News Reporting Gets
More Aggressive, It Draws More Suits,” Wall Street Journal, January 21,
1983, p. 1. For a scholarly compendium of the many recent lawsuits against
the press, see Rodney A. Smolla, Suing the Press: Libel, the Media, and Power
(New York: Oxford University Press, 1987).
72. Kyle Pope, “ABC Network Loses Libel Suit Over ‘20/20,’” Wall Street Journal,
December 19, 1996, p. B1.
73. Ibid.
74. Ibid.
75. Carley, op. cit.
76. James E. Roper, “Who’s Behind the Media Libel Suits,” Editor and Publisher,
March 2, 1985, pp. 9–10.
77. Carley, op. cit., pp 1, 15.
78. Milo Geyelin, “Limits on Shield for Reporters Alarm Media,” Wall Street Jour-
nal, September 28, 1993, p. A5.
79. Kevin Helliker, “Feathers Fly: CNN Got Its Story About Poisoned Eagles but
Rancher Cries Foul,” Wall Street Journal, September 25, 1997, p. Al.
80. For background of this case, see Barry Meier and Bill Carter, “Undercover
Tactics by Television Magazines Fall Under Attack,” New York Times, Decem
-
ber 23, 1996, p. A1.
81. Elizabeth Jensen, “ABC Reporters Committed Fraud in Undercover Report,
Jury Rules,” Wall Street Journal, December 23, 1996, p. B5. The year 2000
started with the announcement of the biggest merger of all: AOL’s acquisi
-
tion of Time Warner for $156.14 billion.
82. Elizabeth Jensen, “ABC Aggressively Contests Suit Over News Gathering,”
Wall Street Journal, August 29, 1995, p. B6.
83. Dorothy Rabinowitz, “ABC’s Food Lion Mission,” Wall Street Journal, Febru
-
ary 11, 1997, p. A20.
84. Ibid.
85. Susan Paterno, “The Lying Game,” American Journalism Review, Vol. 19, May
1997, p. 40.
86. Ibid., p. 43.
196 I CHAPTER 7
87. Ibid., p. 42, which refers to Doing Ethics in Journalism, a handbook by the So
-
ciety of Professional Journalists.
88. Scott Andron, “Message to Journalists More About Trust than Law,” Quill,
Vol. 85, September 1997, p. 15.
89. Barry Meier, “ABC Held Liable for Fraud in Reporting on Store Chain,” New
York Times, December 21, 1996, p. 8.
90. Peter Johnson, “Walters: Viewers Don’t Care About News Purity,” USA To
-
day, October 14, 1997, p. 3D.
91. Scott Andron, “Scratched Car Saves ABC,” Quill, Vol. 85, September 1997, p. 14.
92. Laura Jereski, “Oprah Knocks Beef, and a Big Rancher in Texas Has a Cow,”
Wall Street Journal, June 3, 1997, p. A1.
93. Ibid.
94. Ibid., p. A8.
95. Sue Anne Pressley, “Oprah Winfrey Wins Case Filed by Cattlemen,” Washing
-
ton Post, February 27, 1998, p. A3.
96. Katherine Evans, “Declarations of Victory,” New York Times Book Review, April
5, 1987, p. 13.
97. Alex Berenson, “‘60 Minutes’ Producer Aims Bitter Blast at Ex-Colleague,”
New York Times, June 4, 2000, p. NE26.
98. Ibid.
99. Ibid.
100. Bill Carter, “CBS Executives Killed Story, ‘60 Minutes’ Broadcast Says,” New
York Times, November 13, 1995, p. B8.
101. Ibid.
102. In small towns, politicians and businesspeople often gang up on editors
and bombard them with lawsuit threats. The size of awards, besides the ex-
penses, intimidates editors. Even libel insurance does not help small papers
because they may not be able to afford the deductible and insurance does
not cover the time, energy, and loss of morale involved in lengthy court
battles. Observers see a danger as small papers pull out of investigative re-
porting and leave large papers the responsibility to speak out. “Try to
imagine a world in which the only available outlets for communication are
the huge institutional media.” A lawyer for the Libel Defense Resource Cen-
ter in New York warns that “there are certain officials who don’t accept the
fact that there’s supposed to be a give and take in public issues. They don’t
believe there should be criticism.” David Zucchino, “Publish and Perish; Li
-
bel and the Little Publication,” Washington Journalism Review, Vol. 7, July
1985, pp. 28–35.
103. Gilbert Cranberg, “The Libel Alternative,” Columbia Journalism Review, Vol.
24, January–February 1986, p. 39.
104. Ibid., p. 40.
105. Ibid., pp. 39–41.
106. Douglas Lavin, “GM Plans a Public Relations Battle After Punitive Award in
Pickup Trial,” Wall Street Journal, February 8, 1993, p. A4.
107. Douglas Lavin, “GM Emerges Victorious as Court Overturns Truck-Safety
Verdict,” Wall Street Journal, June 14, 1994, p. B10.
108. Douglas Lavin and Daniel Pearl, “GM Trucks Had Fuel-Tank Flaw, Regula
-
tors Find,” Wall Street Journal, October 18, 1994, p. A3.
109. Elizabeth Jensen, Douglas Lavin, and Neal Templin, “Tale of the Tape: How
GM One-Upped an Embarrassed NBC on Staged News Event,” Wall Street
Journal, February 11, 1993, p. A1.
HOLDING THE MEDIA ACCOUNTABLE AND SUING I 197
110. Douglas Lavin, “GM Accuses NBC of Rigging Test Crash of Pickup Truck on
‘Dateline’ Program,” Wall Street Journal, February 9, 1993, p. A3.
111. Jensen, Lavin, and Templin, op. cit., p. A7.
112. Ibid.
113. Ibid.
114. James B. Treece et al., “Now, the Court of Public Opinion Has GM Worried,”
BusinessWeek, February 22, 1993, pp. 38–39.
115. Elizabeth Jensen, “Some Journalists Join GM in Criticizing NBC’s Treat
-
ment of Truck-Crash Story,” Wall Street Journal, February 10, 1993, p. B1.
116. Ibid.
117. Elizabeth Jensen, “Off the Air: NBC News President, Burned by Staged Fire
and GM, Will Resign,” Wall Street Journal, March 2, 1993, p. A1.
198 I CHAPTER 7
Chapter 8
Bypassing the News Media:
Direct Communication
The most drastic way business can reduce the media’s power is to break
its monopoly as the sole deliverer of news to the public. Companies can
bypass the mass media and reach target audiences directly. Tradition-
ally, companies communicate with the public by sending news releases
to the media—increasingly electronically by using Business Wire and
other electronic news delivery services—and, if the news is sufficiently
important, by holding a news conference. This process places the news
at the mercy of reporters, editors, producers, and hosts of the mass me-
dia who serve as gatekeepers. They decide what stories or segments will
be used and what slant each will be given.
This control by the media over what messages reach the public is
analogous to labor union control over management communication
with unionized employees in the 1940s, which was prescribed by the
National Labor Relations Act of 1935. When the Taft-Hartley Act of
1947 finally broke this supposed monopoly of the unions, companies
were again allowed to communicate directly with their employees. In
the same spirit, companies now want to communicate with their im
-
portant audiences directly through private or alternative channels, tak
-
ing advantage of new communication technologies.
Some companies are also rebelling against what they see as the news
media’s perversion of the traditional reportorial role of objectivity and
devotion to news values. Companies in trouble seek other options when
they see themselves “being served up as the day’s or week’s entertain
-
ment for the masses by media desperately trying to survive and politi
-
cians desperately trying to divert attention from their wholesale
failure,” says pr reporter. The new corporate strategy is to “adopt a low
profile, concentrate their energies directly on key stakeholders, avoid
199
controversy and even visibility, focus on your mission and growl at
those who try to pull you off course.”
1
Bypassing the news media and
dealing with the public directly becomes an attractive alternative.
DISENCHANTMENT WITH THE NEWS MEDIA
Public opinion polls, panel discussions, and news stories about ques
-
tionable behavior by journalists reflect the decline of trust in the news
media by both business and the public. Business has some serious mis
-
givings about the media’s objectivity, fairness, and devotion to news
values. If public cynicism about the media continues to grow, the me
-
dia’s effectiveness may erode to a point where corporate communica
-
tors must substitute other channels of communication and influence.
Illustrative of the many questionable journalistic practices that have
added to public cynicism is Connie Chung’s “Just Between You and Me”
episode with Newt Gingrich’s mother. Interviewing Gingrich’s mother
off-air, Chung implied she would keep her comments confidential. Not
having had experience in dealing with reporters, Mrs. Gingrich took her
promise at face value and gave an honest reply. Chung, however, pub-
licly reported what was said, namely, that her son, Newt Gingrich,
thought Hillary Clinton was a “bitch.”
2
Trust in the media wanes as the
public learns of these improprieties.
Polls Reveal Public Doubts About the Media
The “State of the News Media 2004,” which is described as “An Annual
Report on American Journalism,” reports that public distrust of the
news media has been declining over the last 18 years, except for the one
up-tick in November 2001, after the 9/11 terrorist attacks. The report
asks, “How long can the profession of journalism endure if people in-
creasingly don’t believe it?”
3
Some of the changes between 1985 and
2002 include: The number of Americans who think news organizations:
• Are highly professional declined from 72% to 49 %.
• Generally get the facts straight declined from 55% to 35%.
• Care about the people they report on declined from 41% to 30%
• Are politically biased rose from 45% to 59%.
The believability of most news organizations has declined. By August
2002, the percentage of Americans who rated their daily newspaper as
highly believable fell from 80% to 59%. The believability ratings of na
-
tional television networks also declined: ABC News fell from 83% to
65%, CBS from 84% to 64%, and NBC from 82% to 66%. Local news sta
-
tions also lost believability, falling from 81% to 65%. Among the few
who stand out for their relative stability are public broadcasting’s
NewsHour and The Wall Street Journal. Andrew Kohut of the Pew Re
-
200 I CHAPTER 8
search Center concludes that today the public considers the news media
less professional, less accurate, less moral, less helpful to democracy,
more sensational, more likely to cover up mistakes, and more biased.
The larger problem, he says, is a disconnection between the public and
the news media over motive: “Journalists believe they are working in
the public interest and are trying to be fair and independent in that
cause, but the public thinks these journalists are either lying or deluding
themselves. The public believes that news organizations are operating
largely to make money and that the journalists who work for these or
-
ganizations are primarily motivated by professional ambition and
self-interest.”
4
A 1996 survey of 3,000 respondents by the Center for Media and
Public Affairs showed that a majority of Americans believe “special in
-
terests, such as corporate media owners and advertisers, as well as pres
-
sure for profits, improperly influence the way news is gathered and
presented.”
5
Perhaps for this reason, this survey also reports that 53%
support licensing of journalists and 70% favor court-imposed fines for
inaccurate or biased reporting.
6
Other findings reveal that the media
have a negative impact on society:
• 73% of the American public blame the news media for making
them dissatisfied with the way things are going in this country—
with 43% saying they are dissatisfied “a lot” and 30% saying
“somewhat.”
• 48% believe that the media make things sound worse than they
really are.
• 62% (another survey says 71%) feel the news media get in the way
of solving the country’s problems.
7
Researchers and critics have interpreted these survey results in worri-
some terms. Kohut says the 1996 survey amounts to a sweeping indict-
ment by a public that appreciates the media’s watchdog role but hates
the way they practice their craft. He adds that most of the anger is di
-
rected at the mainstream media, especially television, which is seen as
drifting toward a tabloid mentality that blurs the line between news and
entertainment.
8
The late social critic Christopher Lasch worried about
the steady decline in Americans’ knowledge of public affairs even while
they are drowning in information.
Concerns about the failings of journalism were voiced and elaborated
on in a 2-day discussion by a panel of journalists and nonjournalists
moderated by Hodding Carter III. The panel concluded that journalism
has been corrupted and that there exists no mechanism of accountabil
-
ity that fosters trust in the media. Journalism is corrupt in several
ways, said the panel: (a) journalistic arrogance, which is manifested
when journalists spend more time talking with one another than with
people in their communities; (b) too close identification of journalists
with their sources to protect their celebrity status, and sacrificing the
BYPASSING THE NEWS MEDIA I 201