In reviewing coverage of the Iran affair since last November, the media plan to accomplish two goals becomes clear: First, create and then sustain a "scandal" atmosphere, and second, find the "smoking gun" to both justify the media focus and effectively undermine the president's credibility.
With both liberals and conservatives critical of Reagan's decision to sell arms to Iran, the media seized an opportunity to confront a president who was never before so vulnerable. Here, finally, it seemed to many, was a chance to expose a president who dared implement conservative policies and programs.
Washington Post White House reporter Lou Cannon told Time magazine last December: "People are finally listening to what's wrong with him." About the same time, Post Executive Editor Benjamin Bradlee commented revealingly: "This is the most fun we've had since Watergate."
During the three weeks after the Iran arms sale story broke on November 4, the three evening network newscasts devoted 38 percent of their airtime to the story. After Attorney General Edwin Meese revealed the Contra connection just before Thanksgiving, coverage jumped to 60 percent of total news time, according to a study by the Washington-based Center for Media and Public Affairs headed by Robert Lichter. ABC's World News Tonight ran an incredible 69 stories over the following nine weekdays, an average of eight a night. Over the next few weeks the Washington Post devoted well over half its front-page stories to the affair. Many focused on speculation about Reagan's role and what he did or did not know.
Another Watergate?
Consistent with the "scandal" emphasis, Watergate references jumped from a total of one before the November 25 Contra revelations, to nearly three mentions a night over the next few weeks. For journalists and politicians, at least those fortunate enough to end up in the limelight, Watergate was a boon professionally, and in some cases, financially. The potential of another White House-based scandal offered a new generation of reporters their chance, and veteran journalists another opportunity for glory.
Reporters did their best to turn a policy error into a major crisis. "In remembrances of scandals past, some see resemblances to scandals present," ABC's James Wooten intoned in early December. Dan Rather opened the CBS Evening News one December night by referring to "a Watergate-style scandal in the making."
NBC's Marvin Kolb told viewers in January that "for almost six years the president's vision was tailor-made for the times, popular, simplistic, a nostalgic anticommunism heavy on rhetoric and symbolism, light on accomplishment." Carrying this theme, CBS News State Department correspondent Bill McLaughlin concluded a story in mid-February on Reagan's foreign policy record by comparing it to Carter's. "An Iran crisis crippled President Jimmy Carter's administration," McLaughlin told Evening News watchers, "but by that time Carter could point to a few victories," including SALT II and the Panama Canal treaty. In contrast, "the Reagan administration," he asserted, "is still in search of a foreign policy triumph." Apparently, Pershing missile deployment in Europe, initiation of SDI research, and the liberation of Grenada were not
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