Reed Irvine - Editor
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On August 8, The Los Angeles Times ran a front-page investigative report on Democratic presidential nominee Jimmy Carter's campaign expenditures. The L. A. Times dug up evidence of some irregularities in the handling of funds by Carter's minority affairs campaign division.
This division had spent $200,000 in the primaries. The L.A. Times charged that it was difficult to determine the purpose for which most of the money was spent, since it was mostly reported as expended for "advances/other expenses.'
The paper pointed out that the new federal election campaign law requires written receipts for all campaign expenditures above $100 and the explicit reporting of such expenditures to the Federal Election Commission. It noted that violations are punishable by a maximum fine of $10,000 and a maximum prison sentence of five years.
The report cited three cases in which the Carter campaign reports had fisted expenditures as "advance travel" when the money was actually used for other purposes.
According to the story, there was something more than simply sloppy record keeping. The paper discovered that several black clergymen in the San Francisco Bay area had received payments of $1,000 to $2,000 from the Carter campaign with no indication of how the money was spent One minister who was paid $1,000 according to the reports filed with the Federal Election Commission denied having received any money.
One of the ministers who received $1,000 said that his endorsement could mean as many as 40,000 votes for the candidate. Another who got $2,000 said that when the ministers endorsed Carter they were working for him and that they deserved to be paid. He said that he did not tell the Carter people what he was going to do with the $2,000 He claimed to have made payments to other ministers.
While one Carter campaign aide said that he could product written receipts for 90 per cent of the money spent by the minority affairs division, Carter himself estimated that propel accounting was lacking for about $150,000 of his campaign expenditures. An aide said that they night have to return $150,000 in matching funds obtained from the federal government because of this.
The story that Mr. Clean's people had been behaving like machine ward heelers may have been front-page news in Los Angeles, but it hardly caused a ripple in the big eastern papers.
The New York Times played it especially cool. It did not carry anything about the L. A. Times story in its Sunday edition, unlike a number of other papers. It brought the subject up the following day, on page 13, in reporting Carter's response to the charges. The headline and lead noted Carter's denial that he or any of his inner circle had known of or condoned the payments to the black clergymen. The Times then devoted the next four paragraphs to all of the eventful happenings in Plains, Georgia. There was a fish fry. Then there had been Mr. Carter's meeting with a rock music impresario and Ralph Nader. Next there was the softball same, and then the exciting fire at Billy Carter's gas station. All that out of the way, Times correspondent, Charles Mohr, got around to the little matter of those unreceipted expenditures.
He disposed of it in five paragraphs, noting, "The use of subcontractors, or neighborhood leaders, who are given 'walking around money,' is an established part of political life in some cities..." Mohr observed that since Carter had seldom had the support of machines, his campaign 'has seemed less tainted by such practices than some others." He did not name the others.
The dignified N.Y. Times did not stoop to reporting the most embarrassing line in the L. A. Times story. Paul Hemman, Carter's national campaign administrator, had been quoted as saying: "I guess when Jimmy stood in Maryland and said, 'I don't intend to deal with political hacks.'
He was talking about not dealing with white hacks, not black ones." Mr. Hemman later said that this statement was made in jest, and a number of papers, like The N.Y. Times, were nice enough not to report it.
The Washington Post did carry this remark, but it gave the story only modest play, giving it second-billing to a story headed: "Carter Consumer Stance 'Admirable,' Says Nader." This important story was illustrated with a nice photo of Mr. Carter playing softball, with a smiling Ralph Nader umpiring behind the plate.
Although it was clear from The L. A. Times story that some of the black ministers felt that they had collected money from the Carter campaign in return for their endorsement, The Atlanta Constitution on August 9, said: "Asked if the campaign had paid black ministers to deliver black votes to him, Carter said, 'Not as far as I know.' "He suggested that the payments had been made to compensate the churches for the expense of permitting the church to he used for meetings and for distributing literature.
The L. A. Times had quoted Paul Hemman as saying that the Carter campaign had its white hustlers also, but he said they were more sophisticated and "worked under the guise of consultants and free-lance professionals." At his press conference, Carter, in effect, denied this, saying: "I don't believe that any of our people knew ahead of time that any members would keep their money."
It was rather striking that in this era of the much-heralded "post-Watergate morality," the press did not generally report that the Carter campaign may have violated the federal election law requirement that expenditures of over $100 be receipted. Most papers mentioned that the campaign might have to return some federal matching funds because of the lack of documentation, but of the papers we examined, only those that printed the L. A Times story verbatim brought up the fact that failure to obtain receipts for those expenditures was a punishable offense.
And yet the L. A. Times quoted Joseph Holsinger, vice chairman of the Carter campaign's California primary election steering committee as saying: "We never asked them to keep receipts. We trusted them to get the job done and they did turn out the vote. They mid they wanted to work for Carter, so all we did was give them money to maximize their efforts."
AMIN'S ATROCITIES EVOKE MEDIA YAWNS
For weeks our news media have been telling us about rioting by blacks in the Republic of South Africa. On August 10, for example, The New York Times had these headlines on the front page: "Rioting Spreads in South Africa-Two Black Youths Killed as Soweto's Unrest Erupts into 11 Other Areas."
There has been similar attention given to developments in Rhodesia, where guerrillas, supported by neighboring countries, have been trying to launch a terrorist campaign to overthrow the white government.
It might be said that our media's intense interest in these two African countries is related to their concern for human rights and democratic principles. That explanation falls apart when one notes that these same media seem to display very little interest in gross violations of human rights in other African countries.
This contradiction was especially glaring on August 9. The day before, a London paper, The Observer, published a big front-page story under the headline: "The Massacre of Makerere." The Observer said that during the previous week, over 100 students at Makerere University in Uganda had been massacred by the troops of President Idi Amin, The British paper add that over 1000 had been wounded and that 500 to 700 had been arrested, their fate unknown.
The Observer said that the students had assembled at the university to protest a number of grievances. They were attacked by the troops with automatic weapons. The Observer said some students were shot dead. Others were brutally beaten, some being thrown from the windows of the upper floors of the building. Female students were allegedly raped, and The Observer said that doctors were not permitted to give treatment to the injured. One doctor who tried to do so was reported to have been arrested.
This story was sent to the U.S. by UPI, which reported that two other London papers had printed stories similar to that carried by The Observer, except that they were more conservative in estimating the number killed. One put the number of dead at "at least 20." The UPI also reported that diplomatic sources in Uganda had mid that The Observer story was "highly exaggerated" and that possibly "several" students had been killed.
Given the brutal and unpredictable nature of Idi Amin, it may not be safe for either journalists or diplomats to investigate the charges printed by The Observer. If Amin will not permit an investigation, should the papers withhold the unconfirmed charges from their readers? We can be sure that had such a report come out of South Africa, Rhodesia, Chile of South Korea our leading newspapers would have been quick to assume the essential validity of the report. They would have loudly condemned the barbaric action and would have demanded an investigation by some international body.
But our two leading newspapers, The New York Times and The London Observer carried this story on page one on August 8.
The massacre of Makerere from DAVID MARTIN in Lusaka
Report Called Exaggerated 'Massacre' of Students Claimed in Uganda
The Washington Star carried this UPI story on page three on August 9.
The Washington Post did not even print the UPI story in the editions we examined. The Washington Star did use it on page 3 under the headline. "'Massacre' of Students Claimed in Uganda." We found shortened versions of the UPI story in some other papers we examined.
Restraint in reporting the story might be justified on the ground that our papers have not been able to check out the charges published in The Observer. A few years ago the London Times was caught off base when it published a detailed account of an alleged massacre in Mozambique based on third-hand information. In that case the Portuguese, who were then in control of Mozambique, invited foreign journalists to come and make their own investigation. They could not even locate the village where the massacre allegedly occurred.
However, where such investigations are not possible there is a lot to be said for the news media publicizing information that they may not be able to confirm to their complete satisfaction, explaining why confirmation is not possible Otherwise, tyrants like Amin can literally get away with murder and worse. It is hard to justify the action of our two most influential newspapers, The Times and The Post, in closing their eyes to these dramatic charges of murder at Makerere.
A year ago we began issuing a weekly syndicated newspaper column, written by AIM's chairman, Reed Irvine. For a time we were sending the column to 100 newspapers and magazines, but we have recently cut this down to eliminate those that were not making good use of it. The papers that are now getting the column have a combined circulation of over 1.6 million. This is a lot more people than we could hope to reach otherwise, but we would like to get a lot more papers to use the column. We plan to reproduce copies of the column from papers now using it in the AIM Report from time to time.
We suggest that you call it to the attention of the editor of your local paper and urge him to subscribe to the Accuracy in Media column. If you happen to take a paper that uses the AIM column, let your editor know that you appreciate it.
If you would like to see the AIM column regularly, we will add you to the mailing list for $20 a year. But you may wish to subscribe to one of the papers that use it regularly. You might consider, for example, the Houston (Texas) Tribune, a weekly that carries a large number of nationally syndicated columnists. The address is 4901 Richmond Ave., Houston, TX 77027. The column below is from this paper.
THE TRIBUNE, AUGUST 5, 1976, PAGE 11
ACCURACY IN MEDIA
Nixon was disgraced but Schorr is lionized
By Reed J. Irvine WASHINGTON -- A noted writer said in the wake of Watergate that the nation had come to regard lying as the most serious of Nixon's offenses. He thought we would place greater value on simple honesty in the Future. Perhaps. The politicians may be held to a higher standard. Jimmy Carter has promised that he will never lie to us. Politicians have always been considered prone to bend the truth. Can we really expect absolute honesty from them? If so, what should we expect of journalists, whose ethical codes all emphasize dedication to honesty and accuracy? What about the cue of CBS correspondent Daniel Schorr? He arranged for the sale of a copy of the secret report of the House Intelligence Committee to a paper called the Village Voice. The proceeds of the sale were to go to the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press. It was a highly questionable transaction. A reporter asked Schorr if he had supplied the report to the Village Voice. He replied: "I have no knowledge of how the Village Voice acquired its copy. I had no connection with it..." Schorr also denied having made any approach to the Reporters Committee about the assignment of the proceeds of the sale. Furthermore, Schorr did not level with his superiors at CBS News, letting suspicion fall on one of his colleges, Leslie Stahl. Nixon was disgraced and lost his job. Schorr is still collecting his full pay from CBS. He has been suspended from broadcasting, leaving him lots of time to lecture and write to supplement his income. Rather than being disgraced, Schorr was honored with a National Headliners Award shortly after he was suspended. He has been lionized. Even Secretary of State Kissinger told a reporter that Schorr "had gotten a bum rap." Nevertheless, lying by journalists gives the profession a bad name. It can also produce bad reporting that serves the public ill. Several months ago another CBS employee lied in order to bring about a confrontation on the air between an employee of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, Robert Pollard, and the head of the commission, William Anders. This was done for the program "60 Minutes." CBS News had been informed that Pollard planned to resign in order to dramatize his concern about the safety of nuclear power plants. While working with Pollard, they extruded an invitation to Anders in appear on "60 Minutes" to discuss nuclear power safety. Anders' representative made it clear that Anders did not want to appear in a debate or simulated debate. He asked who else was to appear on the program. The CBS representative said she did not know, even though she knew that Pollard would appear with his dramatic statement. Anders knew nothing about Pollard or his resignation until CBS sprang its surprise on him when they taped the interview, Anders was understandably upset and he gave Mike Wallace a tongue lashing for the deceptive tactics used. That, of course, was edited out. Anders also protested to the president of CBS News, Richard Salant, asking why he could not have been told of the Pollard charges in advance. That produced a reply that showed that CBS News doesn't think lying is all that bad--except when done by the President of the United States or some other politician.
Mr. Murray Baron, industrial consultant from Rye, New York, has been named president of Accuracy in Media to succeed the late Dr. Francis G. Wilson. Mr. Wilson C. Lucom has been named vice president, succeeding Mr. Alphons J. Hackl.
Both men have long served on AIM's National Advisory Board and are strong supporters of AIM.
Murray Baron received a degree in law in 1931, and after graduation he went into the labor movement as a union organizer and subsequently served as a union official. He was one of the founders of the Wage and Hour Administration of the Department of Labor. He organized his own firm to advise industry on labor relations in 1942, and he is still actively engaged in advising management in labor matters both in the U.S. and abroad.
Mr. Baron was a founder and former member of both the Liberal Party in New York and the Americans for Democratic Action. He has served on the Board of Trustees of Freedom House. He has described himself as a member of one of the most ignored groups in American society the anti-communist liberals. He has been a leader in the fight against communist totalitarianism for many years, helping to found the Citizens Committee for Peace with Freedom to mobilize support for resistance to communist aggression in Indochina.
He was originally attracted to Accuracy in Media because he recognized the importance of combating the efforts of totalitarian propagandists to manipulate the mass media. An eloquent public speaker, Mr. Baron spoke in favor of the AIM ombudsman resolutions at the RCA annual meetings in 1975 and 1976, warning NBC that unless they took the steps necessary to give the people the balanced truth they were endangering the very existence of our republic. Mr. Baron will be a forceful advocate for our cause.
Wilson C. Lucom was an aide to Secretary of State Edward Stettinius. After the war he served as Deputy Chief of Mission of the UNRRA mission to Ethiopia, before going into business. In his retirement he has devoted his considerable energies to the fight to defend the Free World.
In 1967, he organized the U.S. Anti-Communist Congress. He subsequently organized Concerned Voters, and he is president of both organizations. While Salvador Allende ruled Chile, Mr. Lucom published in this country Chile La Verdad, a newsletter dedicated to exposing the truth about developments in Chile under Allende.
In a recent letter to a number of newspapers he said: "Judging from the attention given to the "human rights" question in Chile, one might think that this small South American country posed the most serious problem for the violation of human rights in the world today. Chile has about the same population as Cambodia had before the Communists took over there. As a result of the murderous communist policies, it is estimated that up to a million Cambodians have perished in the past year, one-seventh of the population. One occasionally reads about this massive genocide in our press, but there is no uproar in this country about Cambodia. Of course, those who helped bring this about by cutting off aid to Cambodia would like to sweep the whole ugly matter under the rug. They would much rather scream about violations of human rights in Chile, even though such violations pale into insignificance in comparison with what is going on in Cambodia and Vietnam."
Mr. Lucom and his wife, Virginia, have been supporters of AIM since its inception in 1969. The Lucoms maintain residences in Bethesda, Md. and in Palm Beach, Florida.
The AIM Report is published twice monthly by Accuracy in Media, Inc. 777 14th St., N.W., Washington, D.C. 20005, Reed Irvine, Chairman; John R Van Evera, Executive Secretary. Subscriptions axe $15 a year. Contributions are tax-deductible.