Double Vision   

The American public assailed the news media for devoting so much attention to the Monica Lewinsky story; all the while devouring the coverage. What lies behind the apparent contradiction?

Milton Aronson was "madder than hell" about the news media's coverage of the White House sex scandal, labeling it "vicious mob hysteria." In mid-February, the 79-year-old fired off a letter to the St. Petersburg Times:

"Your editors and columnists are puzzled about the very high 'ratings' given to President Clinton at a time when he is being blasted in a media feeding frenzy about his libido.

"The answer: Clinton relates to the average human including his all-too-human faults--which are never venal and malicious, as are the tactics of those who are attacking him in the halls of Congress and the media. The 'little people' recognize a friend, especially when he is besieged."

Aronson, a retired physicist who now publishes three scientific journals, says he went public with his views because "the slightest little bit of evidence, no matter what its source, was blown up into a story. I got sick of it."

Still, despite his charges that the media had "gone crazy" and shown a complete lack of restraint on the Clinton-Lewinsky story, the St. Pete Beach resident remains plugged into the news cycle. "Sure, I still watch and read about it. Why? Because it's a good story; everybody's interested in sex."

Aronson's take encapsulates the seemingly schizoid posture of the American public regarding the White House sex scandal.

Polls show that people are highly critical of the press, condemning its preoccupation with the story as sordid and excessive. As media scrutiny intensified, Clinton's popularity soared. It seemed as if the aggressive coverage of a saga replete with both salacious details and serious elements--possible perjury and obstruction of justice--was driving the electorate into the camp of the beleaguered president.

The press took on the image of a pack of bullies. One disgruntled reader wrote to the Washington Post, "Never in American history has so much been said by so many who know so little about nothing."

And yet....

Like Aronson, millions of Americans claim to be fed up with the media but, at the same time, appear to have an insatiable appetite for information about the president and the intern. In the early days of the most serious crisis of the Clinton presidency, ratings at cable news channels skyrocketed, doubling at CNN and MSNBC. Web sites covering the story experienced record numbers of visits. Newsweeklies printed tens of thousands of additional copies. The alleged affair dominated water cooler conversations and late night TV monologues.

"I don't know how to account for the fact that the public is clearly fed up but continues to watch," ABC's Peter Jennings told the Washington Post. While his fellow anchor, CBS' Dan Rather, made no secret of his disgust at the media's Lewinsky frenzy, Jennings wasn't sure the situation was so clear-cut. "To say this is not the media's finest hour is to fall into the trap of saying that we have done something wrong...," he said. "I don't think we have done badly."

The confluence of a number of trends contributes to the public's duality. The country is in relatively good shape: The economy is healthy, and people seem upbeat about their lives and about the future. With the country on the brink of a budget surplus, as one popular quip put it, people may well be more interested in Dow Jones than Paula Jones.

Attitudes about politicians' adultery have changed sharply. The notion that a sex scandal could destroy Gary Hart's presidential candidacy seems to belong in another century.

And while allegations of illegal behavior lie at the core of the Lewinsky investigation, the plethora of lurid and explicit details about sex leaves the impression that this is all about private behavior. So why pillory a president who is doing a good job running the country for a mere indiscretion, however distasteful?

Moreover, the story emerged with the press already on the ropes, reeling from missteps in coverage of such disparate figures as O.J. Simpson, Richard Jewell and Princess Diana.

There is a growing disgust with journalists swarming over private citizens like ``piranha on an unlucky warthog," as James P. Pinkerton described the phenomenon in Newsday. TV footage of the president's secretary, Betty Currie--caught up in the scandal through no fault of her own--battling a swarm of reporters and photographers after giving grand jury testimony drew a sharp public outcry.

Reporting lapses on Lewinsky--undersourced stories, treating rumor as fact, rushing stories online and into the paper only to retract them--did nothing but reinforce the impression of a news media out of control, obscuring solid reporting on important matters by some news organizations (see ``Standards Are the First Casualty," March).

Yet people keep reading and listening.

David Weaver, an Indiana University journalism professor, likens the public's fascination with the Clinton-Lewinsky saga to a soap opera addiction. ``People want all the gory details, but they don't feel it's important to their lives," he says. ``The problem is, they are not likely to respect soap opera producers or journalists who deal in gossip and innuendo."

What signal does this m¨¨ange of avid interest and disdain send? ``It says the public--the people--are inconsistent, just like we are," says Washington Post columnist David Broder. Broder believes if President Clinton is exonerated, his accusers, and much of the press, will be condemned. But, he adds, ``we are in midstream with this. Anything you say today is likely to be changed radically because this is an evolving story and an evolving process. I wouldn't draw any large conclusions about where the public finally winds up on these questions regarding the president or the press."

Why such hostility toward the media? Some analysts speculate that in the midst of a talk show, tabloid culture, Americans have come to view the media as a monolith, lumping ``Hard Copy" and the National Enquirer with NBC News and the New York Times. Boundaries are blurred between responsible journalists who embrace basic tenets of the profession and entertainers who deliver the seamier side of news events.

Weaver points out that public opinion surveys add to the confusion. ``Now pollsters sometimes just use the term `media.' Maybe not even `news media', just `media'. And that really includes a wide variety of things," he says.

When people are asked to make distinctions, it becomes clear the anti-media sentiment isn't as all-pervasive as it might seem.

Indeed, a study by the Freedom Forum's Media Studies Center found that members of the public gave their primary news sources high marks for coverage of the crisis. Sixty-four percent of respondents rated the coverage provided by the news outlet they depend most on excellent or good. When asked about the news media in general, that number plunged to 36 percent.

That said, there's little doubt that those distinctions have become less pronounced over the years. During a panel discussion at the National Press Club in Washington, Carl Bernstein noted, ``We are a talk show nation, and mainstream journalism has moved over in that direction."

Bernstein said when he and Bob Woodward were breaking Watergate stories a quarter-century ago, gossip, sensationalism and tabloid culture were not media mainstays. G. Gordon Liddy was a burglar, not a talk show host; the New York Post was a bastion of liberalism, not Murdochism. The notion of Matt Drudge, a cybergossip, sitting next to William Safire on ``Meet the Press" would have been unthinkable, Bernstein wrote in a story for the Los Angeles Times. Some of the damage to the media's standing with the public has been self-inflicted.

``The speed with which this story developed and the willingness of a lot of news organizations to use poorly sourced information has caused some of the criticism, and for good reason," says James V. Risser, a two-time Pulitzer Prize winner and now director of the John S. Knight Fellowships at Stanford University. ``It seems to me the media went out of control on this."

Boston Globe Editor Matthew Storin acknowledges there have been excesses on the part of some news organizations. But he adds that he is ``sick and tired" of the pounding the media are taking over covering a ``great story."

He speculates that ``the American people are very fair-minded, and when they think it's an unfair fight, so to speak, they rally to the underdog. Americans always have, and the news media are so pervasive now."

But, he adds, ``the more thoughtful consumers of news will understand that there is a role that has to be played [by the press] and it's not always pretty."

With a popular commander in chief in peril, is it also possible that a ``kill-the-messenger" mentality might be at work? ``Yes, I think that's a little of what's happening," Risser says. ``It may be they're saying they're fed up with the excesses because they still like Clinton and they don't want the media to beat up on him so much. When the public starts criticizing the media, it's hard to tell whether they're really assessing the behavior of journalists or whether they're just mad at the message."

This, he points out, is hardly a new phenomenon. ``When Americans are upset about a crisis, they are as likely to blame the messengers who deliver the bad news as to blame the institutions or people who are the key players."

Thus, it is possible that Americans may be fascinated with the unfolding drama of sex and intrigue at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, but also are determined to withhold judgment until its d¨?nouement. Some may fear repercussions for the country if media probing and Independent Counsel Kenneth Starr's investigation lead to Clinton's political demise. In that light, the press might transmute from watchdog to witch hunter in the public's eyes.

``In all these kinds of cases, the media always get the charge, `You're causing this.' `You're covering it too much,' " Risser says.

Some writers have turned to demographics to explain the lack of resonance of the latest White House sex scandal with the American public.

Jack Torry, a Washington correspondent for the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, explored the possibility that the ``we're OK, he's OK" attitude toward Clinton could be a powerful indicator that baby boomers are in control of America, its politics and its institutions. That could help to explain the seemingly contradictory attitude toward the press in regard to the White House scandal.

``They recognize him as one of their own: Bright, energetic, at times idealistic, but kind of screwed up," Torry wrote in a column. The boomers might also tend to distinguish between private lives and public functions, creating a kind of moral twilight zone.

There is support for Torry's contentions. In his new book, ``One Nation, After All," Boston University sociology professor Alan Wolfe explores middle class values about sex and concludes a ``live-and-let-live" trend toward nonjudgmentalism has taken hold in this country. That may account for the loathing at seeing Clinton unmasked over an alleged sexual misadventure.

A poll released in Februaru by the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press contained little information to brighten the hearts of journalists.

Just one in 10 Americans felt the Lewinsky coverage was excellent. Thirty-six percent rated it good, 32 percent only fair and 19 percent poor.

When it comes to journalism's most basic task, checking facts before reporting them, 65 percent rated the media fair or poor in the current episode.

While some of the findings about overall press behavior were familiar, they were also disheartening--and getting worse. Sixty-three percent said the press was often inaccurate, a seven point jump over 1997.

The Pew polling found that the public thinks that many members of the news media rushed to judgment about the president's veracity in the case. A striking 69 percent of the respondents think that most reporters presume Clinton is guilty of perjury, while only 9 percent of the public thinks this is definitely true.

A Washington Post poll taken 10 days after the story broke showed 74 percent said they believed journalists had given the story ``too much attention."

Yet the Pew poll found high levels of interest in the Lewinsky story. A third (34 percent) said they were following it very closely--far above the average 17 percent who pay close attention to Washington scandals--and 42 percent fairly closely.

Widespread ambivalence in these situations is normal, says Everett Ladd, head of the Roper Center for Public Opinion and Research at the University of Connecticut. It would not be out of character for Americans to view an unfettered press as vital to the democracy and, at the same time, resent aspects they feel are too intrusive, such as scrutinizing the president's sex life.

``In the Clinton-Lewinsky case," Ladd says, ``people might be expressing a loathing of what they view as media overkill in a rush to uncover more prurient information. They also might be separating Clinton the man from Clinton the president.

``When we get these contradictory impulses or nuanced distinctions in response to a poll question, we have to find a way to give it perspective. Otherwise we create the sense of a public without a rudder," says the political science professor.

Stephen Hess of the Brookings Institution, who has long studied the interaction of politics and press, cautions against worrying too much about the poll findings. ``In truth, you've got to take that with a grain of salt," Hess says, noting that poll data also have shown that, for the most part, the public does not understand what makes a ``good" story or how to define newsworthiness.

``Overwhelmingly, a good story is a story that agrees with them," he says. Sex in the White House might not be a ``good" story to many Americans, but it is compelling enough to grab their attention.

Journalists, Hess says, should not worry about being loved. ``If you think it's an important story, if you're doing it fairly and honorably, if you feel the stories are well sourced, if they're written with a degree of balance and objectivity," he says, ``then you are doing your job."

Weaver worries more about journalists being respected and judged credible by the public. ``If you look at these trends over time, you see a drop in people's credibility ratings of the media and how good a job they are doing," he says. The indicators, he believes, are strong enough to warrant serious attention.

Weaver points out that TV ratings, Web site hits and street sales are measures of curiosity, not indications of respect for journalists. ``It's as if the public is asking us, `What's the agenda of the news media?' `Are journalists entertainers or informers?' We know people will pay attention even to what they might view as disgusting or distasteful. That doesn't translate into esteem for the press."

In an opinion piece for Cleveland's Plain Dealer, Washington Bureau Chief Tom Brazaitis explored the notion that entertainment and politics have in fact merged in the media. He points to Clinton's 1992 appearance, wearing dark glasses and playing the saxophone, on ``The Arsenio Hall Show," Henry Kissinger appearing on ``Dynasty," Richard Nixon saying ``sock it to me" on ``Laugh-In."

Journalists regularly appear on Jay Leno and David Letterman, in sitcoms like ``Murphy Brown" and in movies like ``Dave" and ``Contact." The result: a further dimming of distinctions between public policy versus entertainment and traditional journalism versus Hollywoodization, as Brazaitis called it.

Along those same lines, essayist Kurt Andersen argues that Clinton's sudden rise in popularity could stem from the reality that politics in fundamental ways has become entertainment. ``For modern Americans, politics happens on television," he wrote in the February 16 New Yorker.

Andersen contends that often entertainment programs seem best able to strike the appropriate tone. For instance, Andersen believes the most nuanced and interesting remarks by Newsweek reporter Michael Isikoff, who uncovered the story about the president's alleged affair, were on Letterman's show.

``Until now, there had been topical subjects too grubby for anyone except comedians or the tabloids to touch, and on the other side of the bright media line were subjects of high consequence; for the first time ever, there is no line--it's both consequential and as grubby as it gets," Andersen wrote in an essay titled ``Entertainer-in-Chief."

But beyond the confusion over boundaries, the public also has attacked journalists for abandoning basic principles in covering the Clinton crisis. A reader's letter to the Washington Post pinpointed the discontent: ``Pack journalism is a plague on America. Fairness and accuracy have been thrashed for the sake of competition. It is time for responsible media organizations to hit the brakes."

After talking to some of the critics, Keith Olbermann, who has focused heavily on the Clinton-Lewinsky story on his MSNBC program, suspects that many of the media's most ardent accusers haven't been following the story closely enough to accurately assess performance. During an Olbermann appearance on Tom Snyder's television show, a viewer called to complain about the excessive use of sexually explicit terms in television's reporting about such things as DNA evidence and the president's sexual preferences. ``I am in complete agreement with you, ma'am," Olbermann told the caller.

``Then, why are you doing it?" she retorted.

``I told her I have never done it once on my show," Olbermann says. ``We've used the word `sex' in the last month about 12 times when it was absolutely unavoidable. I don't even use the word `affair,' because we're not sure that's what it was. Instead of `scandal' we use `investigation.' I am convinced the people who tend to be the most critical are the ones who haven't seen much of the coverage or were turned off to begin with and decided not to watch it."

He likens reaction to the Clinton-Lewinsky coverage to the public's outcry against sex and violence on TV. ``There's a loud complaint, yet those are always the most highly watched products. How can that be? We analyze it to death," Olbermann says. ``The solution is simple. The people who are complaining are not the people who are watching."

Still, there is disagreement even within the journalism community about whether the strong anti-media sentiments regarding coverage of the White House crisis are justified. And there is confusion about the central theme of the messages news consumers are transmitting. Some journalists have aired distaste for media performance in their news outlets. Often their messages paralleled public sentiment.

In his column for the Capital Times in Madison, Wisconsin, Rob Zaleski described himself as ``repulsed, appalled, horrified and sickened" by much of the coverage. ``And if we can trust the polls--which show President Clinton's popularity at an all-time high--then the American people are clearly sending us a message: Quit the pandering and start reporting on issues pertinent to our lives," he wrote.

But journalists like Laura Archer Pulfer, a columnist with the Cincinnati Enquirer, urge reporters to ignore the criticism and continue pursuing all facets of the story. The president's personal life, says Pulfer, affects the nation's public policy and that makes it fair game for scrutiny.

During a commentary on National Public Radio, Pulfer admonished colleagues who contemplate pulling back: ``Hey, you big weenies. Yeah, I'm talking to you with the notebook and camera and microphone, my fellow members of the Fourth Estate. Why are you acting like such wimps, so guilty, so apologetic? Afraid of losing our popularity? Too late, we're already as popular as Oprah at a cattlemen's barbecue, so we might as well go ahead and do the job."

``If we get tentative about reporting to people what clearly is their business, then I just don't understand what we think we are anymore," she told AJR. ``To suggest that we do a `don't ask, don't tell' with the commander in chief, that's nutty."

After the first flurry of the Clinton-intern stories and the ensuing media drubbing in opinion polls, letters to the editors and e-mail messages sent to newsrooms throughout America, journalists quickly began a regimen of soul searching.

Within days after the story broke, Investigative Reporters & Editors put together a panel in Washington, D.C., to evaluate the performance of the news media. The Committee of Concerned Journalists, headed by Nieman Curator Bill Kovach and Tom Rosenstiel of the Project for Excellence in Journalism, launched a study billed as a ``snapshot of the news culture" in regard to handling of the Clinton- Lewinsky story.

It scrutinized the first five days of news coverage by nightly newscasts, prime time newsmagazines and five newspapers after the Lewinsky story broke January 21.

Some of the findings lent credence to the public's complaints about a lapse in standards. In the early stages, for instance, 41 percent of the media reports were not fact-based, but instead consisted of analysis, opinion and speculation, the study found. The commingling of reporting and opinion the survey uncovered may have contributed to the duality in public thinking.

Could there be a silver lining in the public's mixed messages to the news media? Some journalists believe that efforts to understand and address the public's discontent could lead to serious self-examination within the industry.

How do media professionals move past what Kovach described as ``a stream of polluted information that should qualify for a federal Superfund hazardous-waste cleanup grant"? How can they recover from what appears to be a loss of public trust? Which core principles of the profession are considered sacred enough not to be sacrificed in the rush to publish?

Many journalists feel a sense of lost purpose and are finding it hard to distinguish their craft from ``infotainment," says Kovach, a former editor of the Atlanta Journal and Constitution. His committee is convening forums nationwide in which reporters and editors debate values and responsibilities.

MSNBC's Olbermann believes it's up to journalists to ``turn the heater down," which will require discipline and self-imposed restraint. It all starts with language, he says, because ``the words we choose are so much more important than we know. And if we're restrained about the words, we are restrained about what we put on the air.... It's part of a tough-to-define attempt to slow the process down a bit."

Risser agrees. Although he admits it ``probably is impossible," he would like to see ``responsible" journalists stop being driven by a round-the-clock news mentality that, in this case, was key to a back-sliding on sourcing, attribution and confirmation of information, which, in turn, appeared to anger the public.

``I don't think the news media is being cavalier about this...," Risser says. ``I know from talking to journalists there's been a lot of debate and discussion in newsrooms. And it is that self-searching, he believes, that will lead to a recommitment to basic standards.

Boston Globe editor Storin would remind the public that journalists did not create the White House crisis. ``Even if you don't think this should be important, you've got this independent prosecutor who has made it important. That's not our decision, it's his," Storin says.

``It's up to each individual editor to make decisions that walk a line between fairness and good taste on the one hand, and the need to get in the information on the other. I'm pretty much a hawk on getting the information."

In Olbermann's view it comes down to this: Journalists have to make a conscious choice to pull back in a highly charged media environment. It boils down to day-to-day decision making. ``I just cannot imagine Walter Cronkite sitting there reading a story that argues about the meaningfulness of oral sex or giving graphic details on it," the anchor says.

``Now would be the time [for journalists] to experiment, to say, `Gee whiz, maybe these criticisms about the media lowering standards are correct. Maybe we have gone, if not into the gutter, one foot off the sidewalk in the last 20 years. Now is the time to pull back.'"