Letter from Washington

Much of the news in Washington recently has been made by the news business. Daniel Schorr refused to tell the House Ethics Committee who had slipped him a copy of the final report of the House Select Committee on Intelligence, thereby risking a contempt citation and a jail sentence. No one here took it seriously, however. “Fat chance,” said one Hill staffer. “These guys would just as soon get a sex change operation as vote to send a national newsman to jail during an election year.” Nevertheless, the Schorr flap provided representatives of the news industry an opportunity to deliver some ringing statements on the people’s right to know, a right that went totally unmentioned a few days later when the networks threatened to boycott the presidential debates if they were not allowed to dwell on faces in the audience. Such closeups have become a conventional means of less than subtle editorializing, and the candidates are leery of them—imagine, for instance, the potential effect of a close-up of a starry-eyed black gazing in rapture at Jimmy Carter as he talks about loving minorities, or the same face, its expression cynical or contemptuous as Ford talks about what he has done for blacks. That, of course, is precisely the way in which television has come to be used, and the concern of the candidates is understandable. “They’ve been talking for half the week about the ‘people’s right to know,’ ” says one Ford campaign worker. “But they’re ready to abridge that right immediately if they can’t have it all their way. Jerry Ford believes the people have a right to know too. But he thinks they have a right to know what he and Carter are saying on the issues. I don’t think the Constitution will stretch to cover trick camera work.”

The consensus among newsmen here prior to the first debate was that this presidential campaign is the dullest they’ve covered. And if that’s the way they report it, that’s the way the rest of us see it. Each of the candidates contributes to this media ennui. Ford’s approach—staying in the White House and providing the press with those “photo opportunities” at which he signs some trivial piece of legislation with great ceremonial flourishes—causes increasing grumbling among national reporters. The strategy has begun to backfire, and a number of disgruntled reporters are talking about boycotting these “opportunities.”

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Much of the news in Washington recently has been made by the news business. Daniel Schorr refused to tell the House Ethics Committee who had slipped him a copy of the final report of the House Select Committee on Intelligence, thereby risking a contempt citation and a jail sentence. No one here took it seriously, however. “Fat chance,” said one Hill staffer. “These guys would just as soon get a sex change operation as vote to send a national newsman to jail during an election year.” Nevertheless, the Schorr flap provided representatives of the news industry an opportunity to deliver some ringing statements on the people’s right to know, a right that went totally unmentioned a few days later when the networks threatened to boycott the presidential debates if they were not allowed to dwell on faces in the audience. Such closeups have become a conventional means of less than subtle editorializing, and the candidates are leery of them—imagine, for instance, the potential effect of a close-up of a starry-eyed black gazing in rapture at Jimmy Carter as he talks about loving minorities, or the same face, its expression cynical or contemptuous as Ford talks about what he has done for blacks. That, of course, is precisely the way in which television has come to be used, and the concern of the candidates is understandable. “They’ve been talking for half the week about the ‘people’s right to know,’ ” says one Ford campaign worker. “But they’re ready to abridge that right immediately if they can’t have it all their way. Jerry Ford believes the people have a right to know too. But he thinks they have a right to know what he and Carter are saying on the issues. I don’t think the Constitution will stretch to cover trick camera work.”

The consensus among newsmen here prior to the first debate was that this presidential campaign is the dullest they’ve covered. And if that’s the way they report it, that’s the way the rest of us see it. Each of the candidates contributes to this media ennui. Ford’s approach—staying in the White House and providing the press with those “photo opportunities” at which he signs some trivial piece of legislation with great ceremonial flourishes—causes increasing grumbling among national reporters. The strategy has begun to backfire, and a number of disgruntled reporters are talking about boycotting these “opportunities.”