Asked at the Aspen Institute's “Ideas Festival” in early July -- but just broadcast Saturday night on C-SPAN -- about the charge of liberal bias, incoming CBS Evening News anchor Katie Couric was condescendingly dismissive. She blamed her viewers, calling it a “Rorschach test” which demonstrated how “oftentimes people put their, they see you from their own individual prisms. And if you're not reflecting their point of view or you're asking an antagonistic question of someone they might agree with in terms of policy, they see you as the enemy.” Later in the July 5 session, however, she presumed FNC does have a bias: “You have Fox which espouses a particular point of view."
Bob Schieffer appeared alongside Couric at the Colorado forum hosted by Aspen Institute President Walter Isaacson, the former CEO of CNN and Managing Editor of Time magazine. Schieffer contended that “the press is like a draft army. It generally reflects the society that it comes from” and insisted: “I know some reporters who have very hard-right views and some who have hard-left views.” I'd like to learn which journalists he considers “hard-right.” Schieffer also forwarded another common argument in rejection of liberal bias: “The greatest defense against charges of bias is accuracy.” In fact, a story can be accurate and yet still reflect a biased agenda. (Transcript follows)
Also noteworthy: The session took place just a few days after the New York Times broke the story about how the U.S. was monitoring the international financial transactions of terrorists and Isaacson, a veteran executive at CNN and Time magazine, said he wouldn't have run it: “I would not have printed it if I had been the editor."
The MRC's Brad Wilmouth, working Saturday night, took down the comments from Couric and Schieffer aired during the C-SPAN “American Perspectives” airing of the hour-long July 5 session in Aspen, Colorado:
Walter Isaacson: "CBS had a bad reputation for being far too liberal. I've known y'all for a long time. I don't know your politics at all, but what do you think of the liberal charge, that the mainstream media, or how it affects you all as journalists?"
Bob Schieffer: "Go ahead. [laughter] I learned a couple of things here, didn't I, along the way?"
Katie Couric: "You know, well, certainly that charge has existed about journalists for many, many years, and I think that, you know, I know that I've tried my best through my career to ask challenging questions to whomever I'm speaking, and whether it's a Republican or a Democrat, I try to raise important issues depending on their particular position. And I think I'll continue to do that. I think that oftentimes you're a Rorschach, is that how you say that? Is that wrong? Is that the right word? Rorschach test, or whatever. And oftentimes people put their, they see you from their own individual prisms. And if you're not reflecting their point of view or you're asking an antagonistic question of someone they might agree with in terms of policy, they see you as the enemy, and I think that's just a mistake. I think my job is to politely but persistently ask challenging questions, and, you know, it took me a few years on the Today show to get the self-confidence to say to a Senator or someone in a high-ranking position, 'I'm sorry, Senator, but you didn't answer my question.' And I really just see that as my job, and in certain cases it will be offensive to various viewers, but you just can't let it bother you. You just have to forge ahead."
Schieffer: "You know what I think, Walter? I think the press is like a draft army. It generally reflects the society that it comes from. And in a draft army, you have people from all walks of life, and you have all different kinds of points of view, and I think it's the same thing in the press. But I think that, I would say 95 percent of the reporters I know are really just hard-working people who are trying to get the story, and I think that's what motivates them, get the story and get it on the air or in their newspaper before their competitor does. And I, you know, I know some reporters who have very hard-right views and some who have hard-left views, but I think as trained journalists you can put that aside. It is much more difficult, I think, to be objective than it is to be fair, but I think there is a way to be fair, and I think if you let the other guy have his say when you're doing a story about a controversial issue, I think then you're fulfilling your obligation. But let me also say this: The greatest defense against charges of bias is accuracy. If you get the story right, there's not much that anybody can say or criticize you for getting."
Isaacson: "But I'll give a counterexample. Would you have reported the Swift story, the terrorism story, which was accurate, right? And I'm not sure, I would not have printed it if I had been the editor."
Schieffer: "I don't know. I don't know the answer to that, and I had Bill Keller of the New York Times as my guest on Face the Nation Sunday. It was fascinating. Bill says that he believes that the terrorists, you'd have to be a pretty dumb terrorist not to know that that's what we were doing."
Isaacson: "We've got dumb terrorists in this world."
Schieffer: "Well, there may be some, and that was basically his justification because I asked him, I said, you know, why did you decide to publish this story? Why did you think it was in the public interest to know? And his answer was we think the public needs to know what the government is doing, not always just because it's illegal. He did not allege in the story that the practice was illegal. I'm going to take a pass on that. I mean, I think it was right to publish the eavesdropping stories. I think that that, there was reason enough to publish that. On this one, I do not know enough about this to make a judgment on whether I would have not, but I certainly would have given a lot of thought before I did, and to the Times' credit, they did give it a lot of thought. They didn't just wake up in the middle of the night and say let's do this."
Couric: "And we should mention, you know, the L.A. Times and the Wall Street Journal also published it, so the New York Times gets the brunt of the blame, but certainly other publications followed suit."
At some point in the coming week, C-SPAN will post streaming Real video of this September 2 broadcast. Check the “American Perspectives” page linked above.
Check the MRC's Special Report by Rich Noyes, "Meet the Real Katie Couric: CBS's New Star Adores Liberals, Scolds Conservatives -- And Thinks America Should Be More Like France," for dozens of examples of Couric's liberal bias that she does not recognize -- with 15 video clips.
