PressEthic

Today in the late-breaking edition of the New York Post, an article entitled “Rice Boils Over at Bubba” portrays Clinton from what appears to me to be a very biased point of view. Take a look at the photographs that accompany the article (they cannot be seen in the online version, other than the Condoleezza Rice photo). Condoleezza looks quite normal (if one can call her normal-looking) next to a large quote from the article,

“The notion … that for eight months the Bush administration just sat there … is just flatly false.”

However, Clinton is portrayed as first sneering, then pointing a finger, and then looking incredulous. What the article fails to mention is that Clinton got so riled up because of his interviewer, Chris Wallace. The quotes next to Clinton's ridiculous expressions are his assertions about terrorism and the country pre-9/11, in response to Wallace’s questioning. The article reads,

“[Condoleezza’s] strong rebuttal was the Bush administration’s first response to Clinton’s headline-grabbing interview on Fox on Sunday in which he launched into an over-the-top defense of his handling of terrorism – wagging his finger in the air, leaning forwards in his chair and getting red-faced, and even attacking Wallace for improper questioning.”

However, in reading the actual transcript of the interview from FoxNews.com it is clear that Clinton didn’t get riled up just because Wallace simply asked him about bin Laden. Wallace said,

“When we announced that you were going to be on "Fox News Sunday," I got a lot of e-mail from viewers. And I've got to say, I was surprised. Most of them wanted me to ask you this question: Why didn't you do more to put bin Laden and Al Qaeda out of business when you were president?

Sidenote: Why would Wallace be surprised? FoxNews is known as a conservative news channel—most of the viewers who take the time to actually write in questions ahead of time for a future interview will most likely be submitting questions that aim to put a Democrat on the spot and make the Bush administration look good.

Clinton began to get upset when he accused Wallace of conservative bias, saying,

“OK, let's talk about it. Now, I will answer all those things on the merits, but first I want to talk about the context in which this arises. I'm being asked this on the FOX network.”

Clinton went on to assert,

“’So you did Fox's bidding on this show. You did your nice little conservative hit job on me. … It was a perfectly legitimate question, but I want to know how many people in the Bush administration you asked this question of. I want to know how many people in the Bush administration you asked, ‘Why didn't you do anything about the Cole? I want to know how many you asked, ‘Why did you fire Dick Clarke?’”

The New York Post failed to report the assertions that Clinton continually made throughout the interview, that Wallace was not “fair and balanced.” They reduced his paragraphs of insinuations or direct claim of biased reporting to:

“and even attacking Wallace for improper questioning.”

Instead, they published Rice’s refutations of everything that Clinton said. That isn’t my problem with the story—just that they overlooked to mention the actual reason that Clinton got so “red-faced.” As well, the article states,

“After Clinton got angry during questioning, Wallace said Clinton aide Jay Carson tried to get his producer to stop the interview. Carson said he was concerned that time was running out and that little of the philanthropy efforts of the former president had been addressed.”

However, there was no need for this reported insinuation by Carson. Clinton actually says in the interview,

“You set this meeting up because you were going to get a lot of criticism from your viewers because Rupert Murdoch's supporting my work on climate change. And you came here under false pretenses and said that you'd spend half the time talking about — you said you'd spend half the time talking about what we did out there to raise $7-billion-plus in three days from 215 different commitments. And you don't care.”

So in effect, Wallace should have been equally concerned that he hadn’t addressed Clinton’s important humanitarian initiatives when apparently he told Clinton that that was going to be the focus of the talk.

Wallace aside, the New York Post’s article has huge chunks missing, and doesn’t even attempt to portray Clinton in an unbiased, neutral light. Maybe the Post’s reputation isn’t as stellar as, say, the New York Times, but that doesn’t mean they are above journalistic ethics and integrity!