> forwarded by Michael Hoover
> 
> 
> > FAIR  Fairness & Accuracy In Reporting     130 W. 25th Street   New
> > York, NY 10001 Slanted Sources in NewsHour and Nightline Kosovo Coverage
> > 
> > May 5, 1999
> > 
> > A FAIR analysis of sources on ABC's Nightline and PBS's NewsHour during
> > the first two weeks of the bombing of Yugoslavia found an abundance of
> > representatives of the U.S. government and NATO, along with many other
> > supporters of the NATO bombing. Opponents of the airstrikes received
> > scant attention, however; in almost all stories, debate focused on
> > whether or not NATO should supplement bombing with ground troops, while
> > questions about the basic ethics and rationales of the bombing went
> > largely unasked.
> > 
> > FAIR's survey was based on a search of the Nexis database for stories on
> > the war between March 25 and April 8, identifying both guests who were
> > interviewed live and sources who spoke on taped segments. Sources were
> > classified according to the institutions or groups they represented, and
> > by the opinions they voiced on NATO's military involvement in
> > Yugoslavia.
> > 
> > Of 291 sources that appeared on the two shows during the study period,
> > only 24--or 8 percent--were critics of the NATO airstrikes. Critics were
> > 10 percent of sources on the NewsHour, and only 5 percent on Nightline.
> > Only four critics appeared live as interview guests on the shows, 6
> > percent of all discussion guests. Just one critic appeared as a guest on
> > Nightline during
> > the entire two-week time period.
> > 
> > The largest single source group, 45 percent, was composed of current or
> > former U.S. government and military officials, NATO representatives and
> > NATO troops.
> > 
> > On Nightline, this group accounted for a majority of sources (55
> > percent), while providing a substantial 39 percent on the NewsHour. It
> > also provided the largest percentage of live interviewees: 50 percent on
> > Nightline (six of 12) and 42 percent on the NewsHour (24 of 57).
> > (Numerous U.S. aviators who appeared on Nightline's 3/29/99 edition were
> > left out of the study, because their identities could not be
> > distinguished.)
> > 
> > Overall, the most commonly cited individuals from this group were
> > President Bill Clinton (14 cites), State Department spokesperson James
> > Rubin (11) and NATO spokesperson David Wilby (10). Of course, these
> > sources were uniformly supportive of NATO's actions. A quote from the
> > NewsHour's Margaret Warner (3/31/99) reveals the homogeneity of a
> > typical source pool: "We get four perspectives now on NATO's mission and
> > options from four retired military leaders."
> > 
> > Former government officials were seldom more critical of NATO's
> > involvement in Yugoslavia. Cited less than one-third as often as current
> > politicians, former government officials mainly confined their
> > skepticism to NATO's reluctance to use ground troops. Bob Dole
> > (Nightline, 3/31/99) voiced the prevailing attitude when he said, "I
> > just want President Clinton=85not to get wobbly."
> > 
> > Albanian refugees and KLA spokespeople made up 18 percent of sources (17
> > percent on the NewsHour, 19 percent on Nightline), while relief workers
> > and members of the U.N. Commission for Refugees accounted for another 4
> > percent on NewsHour and 2 percent on Nightline. Sources from these
> > groups also provided 4 percent of live interviewees on the NewsHour and
> > 25 percent on Nightline.
> > 
> > These sources stressed the Kosovar refugees' desperation, and expressed
> > gratitude for NATO's airstrikes. Said one KLA member (Nightline,
> > 4/1/99), "The NATO bombing has [helped and] has been accepted by the
> > Albanian people." Although one refugee (Nightline, 4/1/99) suggested
> > otherwise--"We run away because of NATO bombing, not because of Serbs"
> > --all other sources in this group either defended or did not comment on
> > NATO's military
> > involvement in the conflict.
> > 
> > Those most likely to criticize NATO--Yugoslavian government officials,
> > Serbians and
> > Serbian-Americans--accounted for only 6 percent of sources on the
> > NewsHour and 9 percent on Nightline. Overall, only two of these sources
> > appeared as live interviewees: Yugoslav Foreign Ministry spokesperson
> > Nebojsa Vujovic (Nightline, 4/6/99) and Yugoslav Ambassador to the
> > United Nations Vladislav Jovanovic (NewsHour, 4/1/99). This group's
> > comments contrasted radically with statements made by members of other
> > source groups, e.g., calling NATO's bombing "unjustified aggression"
> > (Nightline, 4/6/99), and charging that NATO is "killing Serbian kids."
> > (NewsHour, 4/2/99)
> > 
> > On Nightline, no American sources other than Serbian-Americans
> > criticized NATO's airstrikes. On the NewsHour, there were seven
> > non-Serbian American critics (4 percent of all sources); these included
> > schoolchildren, teachers and college newspaper editors, in addition to a
> > few journalists. Three out of the seven American sources who criticized
> > the NATO bombing appeared as live interviewees, while the rest spoke on
> > taped segments.
> > Officials from non-NATO national governments other than Yugoslavia, such
> > as Russia's and Macedonia's, accounted for only 2 percent of total
> > sources (3 percent on the NewsHour, 0 percent on Nightline) and added
> > only four more critical voices overall. Only twice did a government
> > official from these countries appear as a live interviewee (NewsHour,
> > 3/30/99, 4/7/99).
> > 
> > Eleven percent of sources came from American and European journalists: 7
> > percent on Nightline, 13 percent on the NewsHour. This group also
> > claimed 17 percent of all live interviews on Nightline and 40 percent on
> > the NewsHour. In discussions with these sources, which tended to focus
> > on the U.S. government's success in justifying its mission to the
> > public, independent political analysis was often replaced by suggestions
> > for how the U.S. government could cultivate more public support for the
> > bombing.
> > 
> > Three independent Serbian journalists also appeared--two on the NewsHour
> > and one on Nightline--but they did not add any voices to the
> > anti-bombing camp. Instead, they spoke about the Serbian government's
> > censorship of the independent media. Of a total of 34 journalists used
> > as sources on both shows, only four opposed the NATO airstrikes. Three
> > of these four appeared as live interviewees, and all four appeared on
> > the NewsHour.
> > 
> > Academic experts--mainly think tank scholars and professors--made up
> > only 2 percent of sources on the NewsHour and 5 percent on Nightline.
> > (Experts who are former government or military officials were counted in
> > the former government or military categories; these accounted for five
> > sources.) On the NewsHour, the only think tank spokesperson who appeared
> > was from the military-oriented Rand Corporation, while Nightline's two
> > were both from the centrist Brookings Institution. Just two experts
> > appeared in live interviews on the NewsHour, and no expert source was
> > interviewed live on Nightline. While these percentages reflect a dearth
> > of scholarly opinion in
> > both shows, even the experts who were consulted didn't add much
> > diversity to the discussion; none spoke critically of NATO's actions.
> > 
> > On a Nightline episode in early April that criticized Serbian media
> > (4/1/99), Ted Koppel declared: "The truth is more easily suppressed in
> > an authoritarian country and more likely to emerge in a free country
> > like ours." But given the obvious under-representation of NATO critics
> > on elite American news shows, independent reporting seems to also be a
> > foreign concept to U.S. media.
> > 
> > This report was researched and written by Margaret Farrand, a history
> > student at Columbia University.
> 



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