Desperately Seeking Susan   

Molinari as CBS anchor? Stephanopoulos as ABC analyst? Bad news for journalism.

"These are the days when anything goes."

– Sheryl Crow

ometimes one unfortunate episode can shine a bright light on a practice that is crying out for reform.

Take the Richard Jewell affair. It was a classic media rush to judgment, with all the trappings we know so well: thinly sourced reporting, world-class conclusion jumping, half-baked character analysis, the dreaded round-the-clock stakeout.

The only upside of such a rank gumbo is the hope, perhaps naive, that it will serve as a sudden slap that can get the attention of an entire profession and lead to much-needed change.

Ôhich brings us to Susan Molinari, keynote speaker at the 1996 Republican National Convention, member of the House GOP leadership and, starting in September, CBS anchorperson (see "The Revolving Door," page 18).

Now Molinari and CBS News President Andrew Heyward hardly invented the revolving door. We've gotten used to politicians with no journalism background assuming high-profile journalism jobs, and to journalists bouncing back and forth between government and politics with dizzying speed.

But there's something about L'Affaire Molinari, coming on the heels of George Stephanopoulos' transformation from Clinton strategist and spinmeister to ABC "news analyst," that suggests the revolving door is spinning completely out of control.

Within months we've been treated to the tableau of two highly partisan political figures leapfrogging over countless trained journalists into jobs people would kill for.

What does this say about the credentials required to work in network television? Can anyone just walk in off the street and suit up?

As a young newspaper reporter I viewed TV journalists with contempt. That was my job. Then a Republican political has-been named Richard Nixon came to town.

ühe year was 1967. For some reason Nixon was stopping in Philadelphia to hold a press conference on his recent trip to the Middle East. For an even harder to fathom reason, the Philadelphia Inquirer assigned its 22-year-old court reporter – me – to cover it.

ý remember the occasion vividly for two reasons. First, while there was widespread concern at the time that Middle East tensions were about to boil over, Nixon assured us that, based on his high-level meetings, they wouldn't; there would be no armed conflict.

This was like weeks before the Six Day War.

Second, I recall how overmatched, how out of our depth, most of the reporters covering the press conference were. We had no clue how to deal with someone of Nixon's stature. We also had no clue about what was going on in the Middle East.

With one exception: Tom Snyder. Snyder was then doing a TV show in Philadelphia. And, unlike virtually everyone else on the scene, he was uncowed by Nixon, and he knew what to ask. Maybe, I mused as I left the press conference, these TV people aren't just pretty faces.

Today no one would deny that Peter Jennings and Tom Brokaw and Dan Rather and Ted Koppel (and many others) are serious journalists.

So what are the Roone Arledges and Andy Heywards of the world thinking when they put politicos/journalism neophytes in such coveted and crucial roles?

2 know, I know. Stephanopoulos is doing "analysis," not reporting. (And Molinari, who will be a CBS anchor on Saturday mornings, will also do some analysis as part of the gig.)

But analysis isn't the same thing as propaganda, as viewing events through a political filter. It's sifting through all of the data and figuring out what to make of it. It's the job of a trained journalist, not a political hired gun.

These two hires should do wonders to restore journalism's credibility.

ýt's easy to dismiss much of the concern over Molinari and Stephanopoulos as sanctimonious, self-serving, self-important. It's easy to point to success stories like Tim Russert, the former Democratic political operative who is widely regarded as one of the best when it comes to political journalism.

But there is something much more serious at stake.

David Broder, the Washington Post political reporter and columnist, is a very careful man. He tends to speak in understated tones.

When David Broder is upset about something, it's a good idea to listen. And Broder thinks that the revolving door puts the very notion of a free press in America at risk.

Here's his argument: The First Amendment's special protection is based on the idea that the press is a group of independent people, of outsiders, whose mission is to cast a critical eye on the workings of government.

ûut when White House aides become TV analysts, when congresswomen become TV anchors, when Pat Buchanan alternates between presidential candidate and CNN host, when David Gergen commutes between the White House and U.S. News & World Report, the line blxrs. Politicians and journalists become a continuum, not distinct entities. It's no longer us and them; it's us and us.

Lhen that happens, the rationale for a free press is seriously undermined.

øuch of the public's displeasure with the news media is directed at the media elite, the insiders who take big speaking fees from interest groups and shoot from the hip on pundit shows and, yes, move back and forth between journalism and politics.

And every time a network poobah makes a Susan Molinari a network anchor, things get that much worse. l