ABC execs’ desire to delay interview shows misunderstanding of their job

By David McElroy · January 19, 2012

It appears that Matt Drudge might be responsible for forcing executives at ABC News to let their reporters do their jobs. If the facts are what they appear to be, the empty suits at the network don’t understand the news media’s role.

Late Wednesday afternoon, the Drudge Report flashed a report that ABC News had an explosive interview with Newt Gingrich’s second wife, but that network executives were debating the “ethics” of running the story before the South Carolina primary:

“NEWT EX UNLOADS ON CAMERA; NET DEBATES ‘ETHICS’ OF AIRING BEFORE PRIMARY: Marianne Gingrich has said she could end her ex-husband’s career with a single interview. Earlier this week, she sat before ABC NEWS cameras, the DRUDGE REPORT has learned… MORE… Developing…”

Drudge reported that Marianne Gingrich had sat for a two-hour interview with ABC reporter Brian Ross and that her revelations about her ex-husband were explosive. But Drudge also reported that network executives didn’t want to air the interview until after the South Carolina primary:

“ABC NEWS suits determined it would be ‘unethical’ to run the Marianne Gingrich interview so close to the South Carolina Primary, a curious decision, one insider argued, since the network has aggressively been reporting on other candidates.”

What I’d like to know is when it became “unethical” for a news organization to do its job of disseminating relevant information to the public as quickly as possible.

Lost in the debate is any real discussion of why anyone might consider it unethical to air the interview this week. The only conceivable reason is that someone could claim the network is “out to get Gingrich,” but if a network executive is so wimpy as to worry about that claim, he’s in the wrong business. He needs to get some thicker skin and learn that it’s his organization’s job to get the news to people and let them decide what to do with it.

I haven’t made any secret of the fact that I have a lot of disdain for Gingrich, but that has nothing to do with this issue. This is purely about a news organization doing its mission. The job is to supply relevant information — as fairly as possible — not to withhold information out of fear that the subject of an investigation won’t like the information and complain about it.

The Gingrich campaign has responded to the charges with a statement in the name of the candidate’s daughters. It vaguely tries to lay the groundwork for a later denial of whatever Marianne Gingrich actually said in that interview. In part, the campaign’s statement said:

“The failure of a marriage is a terrible and emotional experience for everyone involved. Anyone who has had that experience understands it is a personal tragedy filled with regrets, and sometimes differing memories of events. We will not say anything negative about our father’s ex-wife. He has said before, privately and publicly, that he regrets any pain he may have caused in the past to people he loves.”

If Marianne Gingrich has relevant things to say about her ex-husband, the time for ABC News to air those charges is now — as soon as possible — before anybody else has voted. It’s not up to the company to play games with information, treating the public like children. The time to air the information is now, not after the next primary.

One of my favorite news mottos is one that the Scripps-Howard newspaper chain has used since 1922: “Give light and the people will find their own way.” I’m old fashioned enough to believe that’s the job of the news media — to give light and hope the public can make use of it. I’m cynical enough about the voting public to believe it won’t always work that way, but if a news organization isn’t providing the light — as quickly and as honestly as possible — there’s no chance that anyone will be able to make use of that light.

I feel pretty confident that the journalists at ABC feel the same way about this that I do. I could be wrong, of course, but I figure it was the business executives, not the journalists, who fumbled this decision. I also suspect it was one of the ABC journalists who leaked the story to Drudge, knowing that it would create pressure on his bosses to run the story.

The pressure worked. ABC now plans to air the story Thursday night and to release parts of the interview earlier in the day — before a Thursday night debate. Airing the story then — instead of waiting until next Monday after voting — is the responsible decision. It’s just sad that it took a leak to an muckraker to get the empty suits at ABC News to do the right thing.

Update: ABC News has released portions of the interview with Marianne Gingrich.

Share on Social Networks

I’ve never been attracted to skinny women. There’s nothing wrong with someone who’s naturally thin, but it’s never been my preference. What has shocked me, though, is the judgment I’ve heard from women all through my life — about themselves and others — about who’s “fat.” I concluded long ago that most women in our culture have been brainwashed to believe that skinny is attractive — and that anything other than skinny is ugly. I first assumed that I was the oddball — for preferring women with bigger and heavier bodies — but I’m coming to the conclusion that most men naturally feel this way to one extent or another. I just ran across new research by a couple of Northwestern University psychology professors that shows that women seriously overestimate how much a straight man will be attracted to a skinny woman. In a perfect world, we would all be at a healthy weight, but when it comes to attractiveness, too heavy is more attractive than skinny. At least to me — and to a lot of men, too.

Years ago, I heard a question that seemed very insightful at the time. You’ve probably heard it, too. What would you do if you knew you couldn’t fail? The question is intended to help you uncover things you really want to do, but which you’re afraid to try — for fear of failure. In an interview today, I heard the great marketing guru Seth Godin give a different point of view. He said the better question is to ask what you would do even if you knew it would fail. That struck me as far more insightful than the original version. We ought to be doing what we know is right, not what will maximize our success or praise from others. There are some battles that are worth fighting even if you believe you’re doomed to failure. Those battles are often for love or important ideas or our children. Some things are simply worth fighting for — and the truth is that you might win anyway. Do the right thing. Take the chance.

The more I understand about myself, about human nature and about the nature of reality, the more I realize I’m a radical by the standards of both Modernism and Postmodernism. Seeing the things which I’m stumbling toward makes me an enemy of many of the core ideas upon which contemporary culture is built. It exposes the culture as a monstrous lie — like a dangerous infection that’s slowly destroying what human were created to be. My “inner observer” has always known that truth was found in the ideas of the Enlightenment, but I’m slowly finding words to explain what has merely been instinct until now. The Enlightenment was humanity’s great leap forward, but shallow and arrogant thinkers for the next two centuries threw away the fruits of that achievement. We can’t go forward as a species until we go back to correct this intellectual and spiritual error — and part of that is acknowledging that our collective attempts to do away with our Creator will always fail.

I’ve come to believe that some of us — including me — aren’t very good at knowing how to be happy. I don’t mean that in the sense that happy talk and positive thinking should be able to make us happy regardless of the circumstances. I mean that some of us had so much experience with being unhappy when we were young that we were trained to be unhappy — and that being happy is an unconsciously uncomfortable thing. When I look at times in my past when I should have been happy, it rarely lasted. I believe now that I found reasons to be unhappy — and caused real problems for myself — because being comfortable and happy felt so foreign to my programming. If I’m right, this means that some of us have to do more than just change our circumstances. It means we have to learn how to accept the happiness that we unconsciously fear we don’t deserve.

After I wrote last night about being happy, I thought of an old song that mirrored what I was feeling. After listening to the entire album, I found it remarkable how well the emotions of that music match my own heart at this point in my life. Bob Bennett’s “Matters of the Heart” came out while I was in college. Even after all these years, it holds up really well, and you can listen to the entire album on YouTube. The specific song which matched my feelings last night was “Madness Dancing,” but I still find every song on the album to be strong with the exception of the eighth and ninth. (The song about his parents, called “1951,” is especially poignant.) In fact, the opening and closing songs paint a picture of my heart at its best now in these lines: “A light shining in this heart of darkness, A new beginning and a miracle, Day by day the integration of the concrete and the spiritual.” It’s old music that you’ve probably never heard, but it means a lot to me.

Related Posts