Reed Irvine - Editor
|
|
|
The American media have been stung by criticism that they do not adequately identify Soviet "journalists" such as Vladimir Posner, who appear frequently on our television. On August 13, ABC's "Good Morning America" host David Hartman gave it his best shot. Introducing a discussion on arms control with Posner and Senator Sam Nunn (D-Ga.), Hartman identified Posner as "an official commentator for Radio Moscow" and "a representative of, and spokes- man for, the Soviet government." However, Hartman was at a loss for words when Posner issued this rejoinder: "This may be disappointing, but I am not a member of, or representative of, the government. For the record." Posner, whom we exposed as a paid liar in the June-B AIM Report, had lied again. Unfortunately, Hartman was not prepared to expose him.
For the record, Posner is both an employee of, and a representative of, the Soviet government. Many people who have seen him on American television probably think of him as the Soviet equivalent of Dan Rather. But this is far from true. What Hartman should have made clear to his American viewers is that there is no such thing as a journalist or even a "commentator," in the way we understand these terms, in the Soviet Union. Soviet journalists such as Posner are employees of the state. They are paid to report what the government wants reported and cover up what the government wants hidden. The idea of criticizing or challenging government policies in the media is alien to the communist system.
This has been made clear by Nikolai Setounski, the New York bureau chief of the Soviet news agency TASS, who was recently interviewed on Doug Hoerth's talk show on KQV in Pittsburgh. At first, Setounski tried to downplay the differences between the American and Soviet media. He said the Soviet news agency TASS, in a certain way, had the "same purposes" as American news agencies such as United Press International (UPI) and Associated Press (AP). He said TASS "gathers information" that is made available to Soviet newspapers, television and radio, and even to American news outlets such as the New York Times and the Christian Science Monitor. When asked by Doug Hoerth about charges that the Soviet media weren't really free, Setounski said that was a "distortion."
AIM Chairman Reed Irvine, who was also a guest on the show, had a chance to question Setounski, and the great differences between the U.S. and Soviet media were made clear. Irvine asked if the Soviet press had reported the big explosion at a nuclear weapons plant at Kyshtym in the Soviet Union that had spewed radioactive material over a wide area of the southern Urals in 1957-58. Setounski said he had heard about this disaster, but only from the American media! It was never reported in the Soviet Union. He said he was "not in a position to confirm or reject" the reports of the Kyshtym disaster. Asked if Soviet journalists had tried to investigate these reports, he said he didn't know. Asked if he would ask TASS to investigate, Setounski said that he could, but didn't know whether he would bother. It was clear that he wouldn't.
Irvine noted that Vladimir Posner had said during his visit to this country that he thought the Soviets should quit jamming the Voice of America broadcasts. Did TASS report that to the Soviet Union? Setounski said no. Had Posner himself, as a commentator for Radio Moscow, ever said on the air that the jamming should be halted? Setounski claimed Posner could do so, but he didn't know if he had. Again, that wasn't news- worthy.
Irvine also noted that Posner had said that anyone who wanted to emigrate from the Soviet Union should be free to do so. Did Setounski agree? Yes, he said, except those privy to national security information. Did he then agree that Kaisa Randpere, a three-year-old Estonian child whose parents had defected and are now living in Sweden, should be allowed to join her parents? Yes, Setounski said. Was he then willing to write about this and put pressure on the Soviet authorities to release her? Setounski said that wasn't his job. When asked if it was not the job of the press to expose such wrongs, Setounski abruptly hung up.
In a follow-up interview, AIM's Director of Media Analysis, Cliff Kincaid, asked Setounski why he had not reported Posner's statement about halting the jamming of the Voice of America broadcasts. He said that the comments were made in a "private conversation" and were of no interest to the people in the Soviet Union. Actually, the comments were made in public and were widely reported in the American press. Setounski terminated this inter- view, saying, "I'm not paid to talk to you."
What is Setounski paid to do? He said he is supposed to report news from the United States. When two high wire artists from the Moscow Circus defected in Argentina and sought asylum in the United States, we thought that might be of interest in the Soviet Union. When the two stars arrived in this country on August 7, they told the press, "We did not come here to buy blue jeans...We want to be free people." They said that in the Soviet Union, "The only way you can live is to think one way, speak another way and act a third way."
This was reported in our papers the same day they reported that the former CIA agent who spied for the Soviets, Edward Lee Howard, had surfaced in Moscow. Howard's defection was big news here. How did TASS report the arrival of Bertalina Kazakova and Nikolai Nikolski, the first defectors from the Moscow Circus, in this country? Kincaid put that question to Setounski. He said that TASS "doesn't usually publicize those things." He said it was "not of any importance to the Soviet population" and that the Soviet people are "not interested in it."
The Con Artist From 5th Avenue
An even more dramatic proof that Soviet "journalists" think in terms of what the government wants report- ed, not in terms of what would interest readers and viewers, is TASS's handling of Joe Mauri, the American star of a Soviet documentary called "The Man From Fifth Avenue." In the documentary, Mauri was portrayed as an unemployed homeless New Yorker, telling of the misery of life in the United States. He was then invited to go to the Soviet Union, at their expense, to tell his story in person. While he was there, The New York Times revealed that Mauri lives in a New York residential hotel and has a job that pays him $680 a week, when he wants to work.
The New York Daily News found that, in addition, Mauri has a rent-controlled apartment in another building and that his hotel room is subsidized by the taxpayers to the tune of $182 a month. It noted that the Soviet documentary had pictured him as having been "flung out of a third dwelling by a cruel landlady." The News said the landlady had offered to find him another apartment and pay his moving expenses.
Mauri is a regular substitute mailroom worker for The New York Times and, according to The Times, would almost certainly be given work anytime he showed up, if he worked five days a week, he would earn over $35,000 a year, but Mauri has worked less than one day a week this year. The men just below him on the substitute list has been working five days a week. Mauri told The Times he didn't work regularly because he suffered from chronic hepatitis, but the union shop steward said Mauri "didn't want to work."
Even though this story broke while Mauri was in Moscow, TASS's man in New York said he had not filed a story; he had only sent along the clippings about Mauri. He had seen nothing in the Soviet press about these disclosures. Asked why he hadn't filed a story, Setounski said he didn't believe the press reports. He admitted that he had done nothing to check them out.
It's safe to say that Joe Mauri, dubbed the "Con Man from Fifth Avenue" by the Daily News, will not be exposed by the Moscow media. The Soviets have too much invested in him. But our own media also have a big investment in Mauri. Even while recognizing that he was being exploited by the Soviets to serve their propaganda ends, our own reporters bought most of his story.
On August 7, the CBS Evening News featured a story on Mauri's Soviet tour. Charles Kuralt introduced the report, saying: "The Soviet Union is trying to gain propaganda mileage from a visit by a homeless man from New York City." He said it was a case of "an American man of the street (who) met the Soviet man on the street." Correspondent Wyatt Andrews showed clips from the Soviet documentary about Mauri, in which he was described as "a man evicted from his New York apartment by a woman he calls his greedy landlady." Mauri, Andrews re- ported, "takes his Soviet film crew on a tour of poverty and homelessness, a goldmine for Soviet propaganda." He is shown saying, "My human rights were denied to me. I'm being put on the street."
Ironically, Andrews reported that Soviet workers who were introduced to Mauri were raising questions about his claims. One worker wanted to know why Mauri, an able-bodied man, didn't have a job. Another wanted to know how he expected to support himself, if he didn't work. And another wanted to know what, if anything, he had been trained to do. These were legitimate questions that apparently never occurred to Andrews, who concluded his report by saying that Mauri admitted to being used by the Soviets "to draw attention to America's homeless." The Soviets, Andrews said, "preach to their people that life in America is fatally flawed because society tolerates a class of poor and homeless people. Joe Mauri's tour to the Soviet Union is designed to give that outlook a face." While acknowledging that Mauri's trip was being used for propaganda, CBS cooperated by portraying Mauri as a helpless victim of our system.
ABC's World News Tonight also aired a report on Mauri's Soviet tour on August 7. Correspondent Mike Lee identified Mauri as an "unemployed American who calls himself a campaigner for the downtrodden of New York City," and who had become a "national celebrity" and a "household word" in the Soviet Union because of his role in the Soviet documentary. Lee didn't report that Mauri had been met with skepticism by some Soviet workers, but he did ask Mauri if he believed he had been exploited for propaganda purposes. "Of course not," Mauri replied. "I know they want to use me, but I'm using them, too." Lee, who had identified Mauri as "unemployed," had also been used.
Not all American correspondents bought Mauri's bad luck story. Correspondent Walter Rodgers seemed skeptical when he reported on "The Man From Fifth Avenue" in a report on ABC's World News Tonight that aired April 10 of this year. Rodgers did not report as fact that Mauri was either unemployed or homeless. He said only that Mauri had been described as such in the Soviet documentary. Rodgers also reported, "It's not clear how Mauri was selected. He once visited the Soviet Union, but denies being paid by the Russians."
After showing excerpts and describing the anti- American nature of the film, Rodgers concluded, "An absence of fairness and balance (is) the standard in Soviet reporting, but this documentary was especially vicious. And one of its co-authors was Leonid Zamyatin, who is Mikhail Gorbachev's principal press spokesman."
The Zamyatin connection and the fact that Mauri once visited the Soviet Union suggest that the film was a high-level disinformation operation. The Soviets may have known from the start that Mauri was a fraud. Since Soviet journalists like Nikolai Setounski of the TASS bureau in New York either refuse or are not permitted to investigate such cases of high-level deception, the Soviet authorities can rest assured that they will never be exposed, at least in the Soviet Union.
Sad to say, those here who have done the most to publicize Mauri's alleged homelessness, the TV net- works, have not clone any better than the Soviet media in setting the record straight. Mauri's two residences and his well-paying job haven't been reported on any of the three network evening news programs.
While "The Man From Fifth Avenue" was designed mainly to make America look bad in the eyes of the Soviet population, its treatment by some of our media helped undermine the confidence of some Americans in our own system. At the same time, the Soviets are enjoying great success in getting their spokesmen on American TV and in manipulating American reporters in Moscow. Arkady Shevchenko, the Soviet who served as Under-Secretary General of the United Nations before his 1978 defection, discussed this in an article in the August 8 issue of TV Guide titled, "Danger: The Networks Are Misreading the Russians."
Shevchenko was critical of what he called "the Soviet invasion of our living rooms," in which official Soviet spokesmen such as Vladimir Posner appear on American television. In 198S alone, he said, official Soviet spokesmen appeared 130 times on our networks, without spokesmen for the U.S. getting similar access to Soviet television. Shevchenko said Posner and the others are regarded by the Soviet government as "workers on the ideological front" and "the ideological programming they disgorge on television networks and elsewhere in the West is one of the most important weapons in the arsenal of Soviet communism."
Shevchenko criticized ABC anchorman Peter Jennings and CBS correspondent Wyatt Andrews for reporting naive "generalities" about the Soviet Union, but his harshest comments were directed against CBS correspondent Bernard Goldberg. He singled out a March 4, 1986 report on the CBS Evening News in which Goldberg, on temporary assignment to the Soviet Union, said, "As incredible as it may sound, Soviets not only think they're free, they think they're freer than we are."
To prove his point, Goldberg served up brief inter- views with the ubiquitous Vladimir Posner, a Soviet publisher, and a stylishly dressed "woman in the street" who spoke excellent English. CBS likes to get English-speaking Soviets for its "man-in-the- street" interviews, and we are informed that it regularly finds them at a foreign language school which trains Soviet diplomats, KOB officials and other members of the privileged class.
Goldberg commented, "The Soviets call it a workers' paradise. Americans call it a police state, and we think that if only the Iron Curtain were lifted, they'd be at the border in a New York minute. Well, we'd be wrong." The only person he could find who admitted that he wanted to emigrate was a talented pianist who had been blackballed by the regime after asking for permission to emigrate. Goldberg thinks that artists such as this are the rare exception.
Schevchenko commented in his TV Guide article: "I myself belonged to the Soviet elite, and I can assure anyone that even among that group, many of us did not feel free in the Soviet Union. Of course, in any country there are people who are genuinely content. But I can say with certain knowledge that interviews such as Goldberg conducted are far from candid or spontaneous. Foreign TV correspondents in the Soviet Union are constantly under KGB surveillance. This makes it easy for the Soviets to stage 'spontaneous' encounters with ordinary people. It also makes it easy for the KGB to remember anyone who might offer a dissenting opinion about the Soviet system."
Kazakova and Nikolski, the Moscow Circus high wire artists, had been dreaming of escaping to America for seven years before they finally got their chance on their first trip to a Free World country. Obviously, they would not have confessed that dream to any TV correspondents before making good their escape. Goldberg served the Soviets well by airing the official Soviet line and never raising the question of why the Iron Curtain even exists if the only ones who want to leave the Soviet Union are a few eccentric artists.
Bernard Goldberg is a member of that class of Wes- tern journalists who cannot comprehend the magnitude of the evil in the oppressive Soviet system, but who are quick to condemn anti-communist governments for real or imagined infringements on human rights.
On the August 4 CBS Evening News, for example, Goldberg narrated a report about the situation in Chile, a country friendly to the U.S. In Chile, as distinct from the Soviet Union, Goldberg found what he called a "military dictatorship" that was "turning on its own people." He narrated film foot- age of "militant communists" conducting their operations. "They allowed a free-lance camera crew working for CBS News to take these pictures," Goldberg explained. Although Goldberg referred to the communists as terrorists, he made it sound as though they were fighting for a good cause. They were shown hijacking a meat truck in a poor neighborhood and then giving the meat away to the people. "Free food for the hungry," Goldberg reported. "It is an offer they cannot refuse."
One day later, on August 5, Goldberg was responsible for a report on the CBS Evening News that portrayed the governments of both the United States and El Salvador in a bad light. His report focused on the fact that members of El Salvador's National Guard and National Police were being trained in anti-terrorism in the U.S. under the auspices of the State Department. But Goldberg said, "CBS News has learned that three National Guardsmen who were training in Phoenix, Arizona, last month are terrorists themselves, members of El Salvador's right-wing death squad." A spokesman for the State Department was allowed to rebut accusations by a Salvadoran exile and Senator Tom Harkin (D-Iowa) that the trainees were killers. But Goldberg rebutted him by claiming that anonymous intelligence officials had confirmed that the trainees were, in fact, members of the death squad.
An investigation by AIM discovered that the Salvadoran exile was actually a liberal activist, and that a staffer with the far-left Institute for Policy Studies (IPS) had been working with Sen. Harkin and other liberal Democrats on this issue. Sen. Harkin is on the far-left wins of the U.S. Senate and has Ions been supportive of the IPS. Together, they have specialized in trying to discredit U.S. policy in Central America.
Moreover, we discovered that the State Department had issued a statement on the charges against the Salvadorans on July 30, almost a full week before Goldberg's report was aired. State noted that no details--names, dates or places--of any human rights abuses had ever been offered, only "vague generalities." State also noted that the Salvadorans were being trained not only in anti-terrorism, but in respect for human rights and professionalism. Goldberg, of course, didn't mention that.
While Goldberg was unable to find tyranny in the Soviet Union, he was able to find it in--of all places--Miami, Florida, where, he suggested, anti-communist Cubans were threatening the First Amendment rights of their political opponents. "Just beneath the tranquil surface," Goldberg reported on May 19, 1986, "there is controversy raging through Miami, controversy involving charges of intolerance and tyranny. And Miami's staunchly anti-communist Cubans are right in the middle of it. A lot of Miamians are saying too many refugees are becoming just like the dictator they fled. Too many exiles, they say, don't know the meaning of free speech."
As evidence, Goldberg cited
(1) the disruption of a rally against aid to the Nicaraguan contras by "Miami Cubans" in favor of such aid,
(2) the cancellation of a play because "Cuban exiles" accused the author of being soft on communism,
(3) "accusations that some exiles are trying to stifle free speech" at a demonstration, and
(4) a rally by "Cuban refugees" against communism, in which their own rally was referred to as being for "democracy" and the counter-demonstration was described as being for "communism." Goldberg also aired statements by various individuals suggesting that some anti-Castro Miami Cubans are very extreme in their views. "Their anti-communist passion comes from the fact that they lost their homes and their homeland when Castro came to power," Gold- berg said. "The sad irony is that some who came here to embrace America now stand accused of not really understanding America at all."
Goldberg's report was a classic in the use of the tactics of guilt by association. He held a whole group of people responsible for the actions of a few. It is Goldberg, the author of this carefully crafted smear, who stands accused of not really under- standing what America is all about.
Advertisers cannot and should not control the con- tent of news programs, but they have the right to criticize misleading reports and those responsible for them. We have shown that CBS correspondent Bernard Goldberg has been responsible for an in- credibly misleading report on the Soviet Union, one singled out for criticism in Shevchenko's TV Guide article. On the other hand, he has pictured Communist terrorists in Chile as Robin Hoods, a sensible training program for Salvadoran military and police personnel as giving training to death squad members, and anti-Castro Cubans in Miami as dangerous extremists. In the "Notes from the Editor's Cuff," we list several regular advertisers on the CBS Evening News. Write to them, telling what you think of Goldbers's reporting and urging that they convey their opinion of this type of reporting to CBS.
AIM REPORT is published twice monthly by Accuracy In Media, Inc., 1275 K Street, N.W., Washington, D.C. 20005, and is free to AIM members. Dues and contributions to AIM are tax deductible. The AIM Report is mailed 3rd class to those whose contribution is at least $15 a year and 1st class to those contributing $30 a year or more. Non-members subscriptions are $35 (1st class mail).
NOTES FROM THE EDITOR'S CUFF By Reed Irvine
WE STARTED THIS ISSUE OF THE AIM REPORT SHOWING THE SHARP DIFFERENCES BETWEEN journalism in America and journalism in the Soviet Union. In the USSR, all journalists are servants of the state and the Communist Party. A recent article in Pravda said: "True to Leninist precepts, the Soviet press serves as a collective organizer of the masses. The efforts of editorial staffs are concentrated on illuminating the work of party organizations.... " It is no wonder that Soviet "journalists" such as Nikolai Setounski, the New York bureau chief of the Soviet news agency, TASS, would never think of reporting what the Soviet government doesn't want reported. We describe in our lead story some of the things that Setounski doesn't find newsworthy.
BUT WHEN YOU READ THIS ISSUE, YOU MAY BE STRUCK, AS I WAS, WITH THE FACT THAT A lot of our journalists seem no more interested in reporting stories embarrassing to the Soviet government than is Mr. Setounski. I wonder how much you heard about Joe Mauri, the con man of Fifth Avenue. The chances are pretty good that you heard about Mauri's starring role in the Soviet documentary, "The Man From Fifth Avenue," last spring. Mauri's serving as a guide to the Soviet camera crew, showing them the misery of the homeless in New York City, attracted a lot of attention. You may also have heard about Mauri's having been invited by the Soviets to travel to the USSR to tell Soviet workers personally how bad things are for workers in the U.S. That got pretty good coverage. But when The New York Times and The New York Daily News revealed that Mauri was a fraud, an allegedly homeless and unemployed man who had two separate residences and a job that would pay him over $35,000 a year if he chose to work five days a week, the TV network news shows, Time and Newsweek and many others in the press showed little or no interest in the story. Their reaction could be compared with that of TASS.
WE ALSO FOCUS ON CBS NEWS CORRESPONDENT BERNARD GOLDBERG, WHO WE DISCUSSED IN THE March-B AIM Report (Notes), after he aired that incredible report that people in the Soviet Union consider themselves free, freer than we are. I mentioned that I had written to Van Gordon Sauter, the president of CBS News, about that program. I had replies from both Goldberg and Emerson Stone, vice president for news practices. Stone said: "We both know, as correspondent Goldberg does, that many would decamp from the Soviet Union, given half a chance." But Goldberg obviously doesn't know that. His letter explained that the Soviets go to enormous expense to control their borders because they don't want to lose their "best and brightest." He says Vladimir Feltsman, the blackballed pianist who wants to leave, says virtually no one would leave if the borders were open. "Certainly, the dissidents would, "Goldberg says, "but they are not many by anyone's count." Goldberg informs me that the Russians have lived under dictatorships for one thousand years and that they have no longing to be free, the way Americans do.
I SUGGEST THAT YOU WRITE TO SOME OF THE ADVERTISERS ON THE CBS EVENING NEWS, SUGGESTING that they tell CBS what they think of the kind of reporting Goldberg has done. The following companies all advertised on CBS News programs cited in this AIM Report.
Mr. Wm. E. LaMothe, Chrm. Kellogg Company 235 Porter Street Battle Creek, MI 49016
Mr. Edward A. Brennan, Chrm. Sears, Roebuck & Co. Sears Tower Chicago, IL 60684
Mr. C. S. Hatch, Chrm. Clorox Company 1221 Broadway Oakland, CA 94612
Mr. James D. Robinson, Chrm. American Express Company American Express Plaza New York, N.Y. 10004
Mr. Donald E. Petersen, Chrm. Ford Motor Company The American Road Dearborn, MI 48121
Mr. William B. Johnson, Chrm. IC Industries (Midas Mufflers) One Illinois Center Chicago, IL 60601
AIM IS HOLDING A ONE-DAY CONFERENCE ON SEPTEMBER 27 IN WORCESTER, MASS. ON THE impact of the media on public policy. The conference will be held at the Sheraton Lincoln Inn, 500 Lincoln St., (Rt. I-290, exit 20). This is 5 minutes from the Worcester airport and an hour by limo from the Boston airport. Rates at the hotel for conference participants are $47 single and $52 double. The conference registration fee is $40, which includes luncheon and a reception. Speakers include Allan Brownfeld, Aradom Tedla, Dolf Droge, Murray Baron, Dan James, Henry Kriegel (Comm. for Free Afghanistan), and Les Csorba (Accuracy in Academia). I will be the luncheon speaker. Hotel reservations should be made directly with the hotel. The number is 617-852-2800. Conference reservations should be made by calling or writing Vernita Grimes at AIM (202-371-6710). I hope to see many of you there.
AIM'S FILM, "TELEVISION'S VIETNAM: THE IMPACT OF MEDIA," HAS NOW BEEN ACCEPTED FOR airing by 55 public television stations, and we expect many more will accept it after they have a chance to see it and the accompanying half-hour panel discussion. We are transmitting this 90-minute package to them via PBS satellite on August 24. They will be able to tape it, view it and decide whether or not to put it in their schedule. If the public TV station in your area has not already accepted the program, please call them and urge them to put our film on the air in a good time slot. The panel discussion, which we ended up producing ourselves, is an excellent addition to the program. It is moderated by Barry Farber, a popular New York radio talk show host, and includes Howard Handleman, a veteran reporter who covered World War II and Vietnam, Donald Kirk, who covered Vietnam and is now with USA Today, David Kusnet, v.p. of People for the American Way, and myself. I withdrew from the panel discussion that was aired by KBDI-TV of Broomfield, Colo., which we had originally planned to attach to our film. It became clear that KBDI intended to convert their roundtable into a debate about AIM and media issues unrelated to our film. That was not acceptable to me. KBDI ended up with only two panelists, Charles Mohr of The New York Times and Jeff Cohen, a lawyer who has started a group called Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting, which is providing media criticism from a far-left point of view. Neither panelist liked our film, but they and the moderator, John Schwartz, the founder of KBDI, all agreed that PBS should have shown it. KBDI is going to offer their roundtable to PBS stations in competition with ours. There is no comparison between the two in terms of either production quality or the quality of the discussion. Ours is far superior, and I'm sure the stations will recognize that.
EIGHTEEN ADDITIONAL STATIONS HAVE AIRED OR WILL HAVE AIRED THE FILM BEFORE THIS AIM Report reaches you. We can still use contributions to help place ads in the papers and TV Guide to inform viewers when the film will be shown, boosting the number of viewers.