Blackout: Broadcast news ignores Juanita Broaddrick rape story

By BRENT BAKER
Conservative News Service

(Editor's Note: The following analysis of media coverage of the Juanita Broaddrick story was compiled and written by Brent Baker, vice president of research and publications for the Media Research Center, the parent organization of the Conservative News Service. Broaddrick is the woman who has accused Bill Clinton of sexually assaulting her during a nursing home conference 21 years ago while Clinton was the attorney general of Arkansas.)

The Juanita Broaddrick story was still blacked out by ABC's World News Tonight and NBC Nightly News, though the CBS Evening News and CNN's The World Today, after ignoring Friday's Wall Street Journal editorial page piece, picked up on her story after the Washington Post put it on its Saturday, February 20, front page. Of the broadcast network Sunday shows only Fox News Sunday raised the subject. (Tony Snow asked Speaker Denny Hastert about it and the subject was the lead item for the roundtable.) Not a syllable on ABC's This Week, CBS's Face the Nation or NBC's Meet the Press nor on CNN's Capital Gang or the syndicated Inside Washington, though on McLaughlin Group Eleanor Clift denounced it.

MSNBC's Brian Williams gladly relayed, as if accurate, Joe Lockhart's charge "that in the past that page of the Wall Street Journal has branded the President a drug smuggler and a murderer."

For those of you relying on a broadcast network or the New York Times for your news, Juanita Broaddrick is the woman who accused Bill Clinton of sexually assaulting her in 1978. A few weeks ago the Drudge Report revealed that NBC's Lisa Myers landed an exclusive interview, but the network refused to air it. As noted in the February 3 CyberAlert, FNC ran a story about how NBC was holding back the interview.

In Saturday's Washington Post, Howard Kurtz reported on NBC's blown exclusive: "Several NBC sources said Myers and her Washington bureau chief, Tim Russert, were frustrated by their inability to get the story on the air. They and other advocates believe that each time they came up with further corroboration, NBC management raises the evidentiary bar a little higher. They also feel badly about winning Broaddrick's trust, combing through her records and disrupting her life, only to keep holding the story, these sources said. "Myers, who has pursued Broaddrick for a year, would say only that the story 'remains a work in progress. We learn something new every day.' An NBC executive said that 'there are some serious aspects of it that are still unable to be confirmed.'

"But Broaddrick eventually grew frustrated and agreed to talk to the Journal. I feel so betrayed by NBC,' Broaddrick said yesterday. Her son, Kevin Hickey, said Myers had assured them after the taping that there was no chance the interview would not run as scheduled on Jan. 29. NBC also interviewed a friend of Broaddrick's who saw Broaddrick after the alleged assault and confirmed her account."

A lot happened on this story on Friday and Saturday and I think CyberAlert can be of most value by reviewing what the networks did and did not pick up on day by day over the weekend, so here's a timeline:

-- Friday, February 19. The Wall Street Journal's editorial page featured a lengthy piece by Dorothy Rabinowitz, headlined "Juanita Broaddrick Meets the Press," recounting her interview with Broaddrick.

On the NBC front, Rabinowitz reported that when the interview did not air, for any journalist asking NBC what happened to the interview "the office of NBC News President Andrew Lack had a simple, uplifting message -- namely that NBC wanted to make sure the story was 'rock solid' journalism."

That's a strange standard to apply to a story NBC actually already aired: back on March 28, 1998 the NBC Nightly News carried a piece by Myers recounting Broaddrick's allegation.

Friday coverage generated by Rabinowitz: Zilch on CBS's This Morning or NBC's Today. Not a word in the evening on ABC, CBS, CNN or NBC, but both Good Morning America and MSNBC picked up on it.

MRC analyst Jessica Anderson noticed that while talking about the day's newspapers, GMA host Charles Gibson highlighted the story though both he and Diane Sawyer were baffled about why it appeared on the editorial page and not the regular news pages.

Charles Gibson: "I'm very interested, there is a story on the editorial page, it's a curious place for it, on the editorial page of the Wall Street Journal today, and it's a story that's been around for a while, or that's been alluded to in the press, but now the Wall Street Journal has put it right out front here. A woman, known until now only as 'Jane Doe #5,' is in the headline, and she has a name, they've given her a name, it's Juanita Broaddrick."

Diane Sawyer: "This is in the Starr Report and in the Paula Jones case."

Gibson: "Well, yeah, in the Starr Report, not the report that was published, but in the background evidence that actually House members didn't have access to for awhile, and only some members saw it, there were other women who had allegations against Bill Clinton that were specified, and she was called Jane Doe #5. She alleged a sexual assault by then-Attorney General in Arkansas Bill Clinton in 1978. And she had denied it for years and years, even denied it in a deposition in the Paula Jones case. Then has now changed her story, and now talks to the Wall Street Journal about this alleged sexual assault, and it's on the editorial page, which seems a strange place for it."

Sawyer: "It is an interesting decision."

Contrary to Sawyer's implication, a WSJ news editor did not deem the story unworthy and place it in the editorial section. The WSJ news and editorial sections are run separately.

Friday night MSNBC's The News with Brian Williams stressed the official Clinton denial and White House denigration of the Wall Street Journal.

Brian Williams: "Late news tonight concerning this morning's Wall Street Journal which published the first-ever in depth account of the woman known as Jane Doe No. 5 in the Clinton scandal, Juanita Broaddrick. The story, notably printed on the opinion page and not in the news section of the national newspaper, sites sources but no physical or photographic evidence as it details an alleged sexual assault on the woman 21 years ago by then Arkansas Attorney General Bill Clinton. Well, tonight the President's lawyer has responded. David Kendall, of the firm Williams and Connolly, says in a statement: 'Any allegation that the President assaulted Mrs. Broaddrick more than 20 years ago is absolutely false. Beyond that, we are not going to comment.'

White House Press Secretary Joe Lockhart went further earlier today noting that in the past that page of the Wall Street Journal has branded the President a drug smuggler and a murderer. There has been much talk about a NBC News investigation into Miss Broaddrick that so far has not aired. Today a network spokeswoman said NBC News does not comment on newsgathering."

Appearing on CNN's Reliable Sources on Saturday night, Wall Street Journal editorial writer John Fund took issue with Lockhart's charge which MSNBC passed along:

"It is disappointing and sad when Joe Lockhart says, 'We're going to dismiss this whole story because The Wall Street Journal is not important,' because we've called the President a drug smuggler and a murderer. He knows better than that. We have never done that. We have reported on corruption in Arkansas. We have never made those kind of inferences, and it's just kind of sad that the White House strategy of deny, delay, denigrate, and distract continues to this day, and you simply attack the messenger and not address the facts."

-- Saturday, February 20. "'Jane Doe No. 5' Goes Public with Allegation" announced the Washington Post's front page story over the subhead: "Clinton Controversy Lingers Over Nursing Home Owner's Disputed 1978 Story." Freed of its off the record obligation, the Post went with a story based largely on interviews reporter Lois Romano conducted with Broaddrick last spring

Coverage: NBC's Today allocated 18 seconds. Nothing Saturday night on ABC's World News Tonight or NBC Nightly News, but the CBS Evening News ran a piece and CNN's The World Today featured a three and a half minute story by Bob Franken.

During the 7am news update on Today Soledad O'Brien read his item: "President Clinton's lawyer David Kendall brands as absolutely false charges that the President sexually assaulted an Arkansas woman more than twenty years ago. Juanita Broaddrick's story has been circulating for several years but was not widely reported until an item appeared on the editorial page of Friday's Wall Street Journal."

In the evening, ABC found time for a full story on how the NAACP is organizing a project to end racial profiling by police -- though the story failed to note that at the same convention NAACP Chairman Julian Bond intolerantly claimed House Republicans have "become the running dogs of the wacky radical right" -- and a piece on women in Rome wearing jeans to protest a judge's ruling that a woman could not have been raped because tight jeans are too difficult to pull down. NBC squeezed in stories on survivalists preparing for the millennium bug, how Chicago Mayor Richard Daley has won black support and a 60-year old rookie cop in El Porto, Florida.

The CBS Evening News did manage to give 1:51 to Broaddrick, the first broadcast evening show mention since March. Anchor John Roberts, who narrated the story, began: "For more than a year she has been known as Jane Doe No. 5, a woman who Paula Jones lawyers believe had suffered a sexual assault at the hands of President Bill Clinton. Now, despite sworn testimony to the contrary, Jane Doe No. 5 has come forward to tell her story."

Roberts recited the basics of the Washington Post story on the assault, how her story has not always been consistent and that Starr dropped the matter when he found no White House influence. Roberts added: "Kevin Hickey, Broaddrick's son, says the memory is still painful to his mother."

Hickey: "She fully understands that this was 20 years ago and would just assume leave it there. But I think there comes a point where you have to decide 'well, I want my side of this told. And if it's going to be out there it's going to be accurate.'"

Roberts ended by relaying the Kendall denial.

Finally, on the McLaughlin Group Newsweek's Eleanor Clift naturally managed to attack Clinton haters and the right wing: "These allegations go back more than 20 years. This woman made no charges at the time. It's my understanding that she couldn't even recall initially the year. Investigative reporters for major publications have looked at it since 1991. Ken Starr passed on it. You know, where is this going to go except among all the Clinton haters and the right-wing conspiratorialists. It's great fodder. But you know, you proved they guy's a cad, you're not going to prove he's a violent criminal."

Pat Buchanan agreed to an extent with Clift, cautioning the alleged incident occurred more than 20 years ago and asking: "Why are other journalists not going forward with this story when they've gone forward with other allegations? So I think you've got to put a question mark over the story."