The P.U.-litzer Prizes were established more than a decade ago to recognize the stinkiest media performances of the year.
As usual, I have conferred with Jeff Cohen, founder of the media watch group Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting (FAIR), to sift through the large volume of entries. In view of the many deserving competitors, we regret that only a few can win a P.U.-litzer.
And now, the 12th annual P.U.-litzer Prizes, for the foulest media performances of 2003:
• Media Mogul of the Year: Lowry Mays, CEO of Clear Channel. Some broadcasters care about programming, but the CEO of America’s biggest radio company (with more than 1,200 stations) admits he cares only about the ads. The Clear Channel boss told Fortune magazine in March: “If anyone said we were in the radio business, it wouldn’t be someone from our company. We’re not in the business of providing news and information. We’re not in the business of providing well-researched music. We’re simply in the business of selling our customers products.”
• Liberating Iraq Prize: Tom Brokaw. Interviewing a military analyst on the first day of the Iraq war, NBC anchor Brokaw declared: “Admiral McGinn, one of the things that we don’t want to do is to destroy the infrastructure of Iraq, because in a few days we’re going to own that country.”
• “The More You Watch, The Less You Know” Prize: Fox News Channel. A University of Maryland study found most Americans who get their news from commercial TV harbored at least one of three “misperceptions” about the Iraq war: that weapons of mass destruction had been discovered in Iraq, that evidence closely linking Iraq to al-Qaeda had been found, or that world opinion approved of the U.S. invasion. Fox viewers were the most confused, with 80 percent embracing at least one of those misperceptions. The study found a correlation between being misinformed and being supportive of the war.
• “Clear it with the Pentagon” Award: CNN. A month after the invasion of Iraq began, CNN executive Eason Jordan admitted on his network’s “Reliable Sources” show (April 20) that CNN had allowed U.S. military officials to help screen its on-air analysts: “I went to the Pentagon myself several times before the war started and met with important people there and said, for instance – ‘At CNN, here are the generals we’re thinking of retaining to advise us on the air and off about the war’ — and we got a big thumbs-up on all of them. That was important.”
• “Conservative Times for the ‘Liberal’ Media” Award: ABC News. ABC correspondent John Stossel’s known for his pro-business coverage; in fact, he’s boasted that his on-air job is to “explain the beauties of the free market,” received lecture fees from corporate pressure groups, and even spoke on Capitol Hill against consumer-protection regulation. In May, when Stossel was promoted to co-anchor of ABC’s “20/20,” a network insider told TV Guide: “These are conservative times. … The network wants somebody to match the times.”
• “Coddling Donald” Prize: CBS’s Lesley Stahl, ABC’s Peter Jennings and
others. On the day news broke about Saddam Hussein’s capture, Stahl and
Jennings each interviewed Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld. Neither asked about
Rumsfeld’s cordial 1983 meeting with Hussein in Baghdad on behalf of the Reagan
administration — a meeting that opened up strong diplomatic and military ties
between the U.S. government and the dictator that lasted through seven years
of his worst brutality.
This article appears in Dec 25-31, 2003.
