If David Westin, the president of ABC News,
were to ask the magic mirror on the wall who was fairest of them all,
the answer would disappoint him just as it did the wicked queen. Westin,
a lawyer with no journalistic experience who took over the news
division less than six months ago, already has badly tarnished what
conservatives used to regard as the fairest of the TV network-news
operations.
He is proving that there is some merit to the claims of
leftists who maintain that the capitalists who control news-media
companies can and do shape the way the news is covered. The leftists'
claims were rooted in their ideology, not based on any concrete evidence
of management's meddling in the news-rooms. Marxists, knowing how they
would dictate to editors and reporters if they were in control, assume
that capitalists must do the same thing.
I found out how wrong they were during the Soviet invasion of
Afghanistan. The head of the Committee for a Free Afghanistan, knowing
that I was on friendly terms with Leonard Goldenson, the chairman of
ABC, asked me to inform Goldenson that a story ABC News was planning to
air could jeopardize an important channel of aid to the Afghan freedom
fighters. I discussed this with Goldenson. He agreed that would be an
undesirable outcome. He said he would see what he could do about it, but
it turned out that he could do nothing. He agreed with those who told
him that it would be improper, even in this case, to violate the rule
that management should not try to influence news coverage.
Tom Murphy, Leonard Goldenson's successor, took a similar
hands-off approach, even resisting persistent efforts by Accuracy in
Media to get him to direct ABC News to correct a serious error. But now
Michael Eisner, the chairman of the Walt Disney
Co., is the ultimate boss of ABC News. He has shown that he wants David
Westin and the ABC newsroom to respect his wishes. One of his wishes is
that ABC News refrain from airing stories that are damaging to Disney.
He made this clear on Sep. 29, when Eisner said on Fresh Air, a National
Public Radio program: "I would prefer ABC not to cover Disney ... ABC
News knows that I would prefer them not to cover [Disney]." Only days
later, a story that was to air on 20/20 exposing Disney's lax attitude
toward employing pedophiles at its theme parks was killed by David
Westin.
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