Posted on 05/12/2003 2:47:27 AM PDT by kattracks
(CNSNews.com) - Another former ABC News correspondent has stepped forward to accuse long-time World News Tonight anchor Peter Jennings of inserting a liberal editorial bias in the news copy of reporters in the field.
The charges leveled by Bob Zelnick, who spent 21 years at ABC News, follow revelations from former network correspondent Peter Collins, that Jennings manipulated news scripts during the 1980s in order to praise the Marxist-backed Sandinista government in Nicaragua.
Zelnick, now the chairman of the journalism department at Boston University, left ABC News in 1998 after executives refused to renew his contract because they feared Zelnick's work on a political biography critical of then-Vice President Al Gore might compromise his objectivity.
Zelnick could not corroborate Collins' assertions, the focus of an earlier CNSNews.com article, but did recount his own experiences with Jennings' editorial influence at ABC News.
"It was very common for correspondents, both domestic and foreign to run into a World News Tonight [staff] that was influenced by Peter [Jennings] who had a different interpretation of a story," Zelnick told CNSNews.com.
"The correspondent who knows that he is going to be doing a piece on World News Tonight girds himself for battle when the phone rings and the editors or sometimes Peter [Jennings] gets on the phone," Zelnick explained.
And there was usually no doubt about which ideological direction Jennings would attempt to lead correspondents.
"In terms of the direction that Peter Collins recalls Peter Jennings pushing in -- and that was to the left of where the correspondent is -- that's consistent with my experiences and I think most [ABC News correspondents'] experience," Zelnick explained.
Zelnick referred to what he called the "Peter [Jennings] Factor."
"I have never condemned Peter Jennings for trying to bring others around to his point of view ... but there was the Peter Factor," Zelnick said.
World News Tonight, unlike some organizations, has a tradition of changing the scripts of correspondents, often for stylistic reasons, often for editorial reasons," Zelnick added.
'Comical'
In an earlier, exclusive interview with CNSNews.com , Collins alleged that Jennings personally dictated changes in a Collins television script in order to praise the Sandinista government for its "new, unselfish society," for successfully reducing illiteracy and "launch[ing] the biggest land reform in Central America."
Collins covered Central America for ABC's World News Tonight and Nightline from 1982 until 1991. Collins is now retired from journalism.
ABC News publicist Cathie Levine refused to comment on Collins' disclosures when contacted by CNSNews.com April 30. However, ABC News did issue a statement May 6 to MSNBC anchor Bill Press prior to the airing of his program, Buchanan & Press .
According to a transcript of the Buchanan & Press program, which was partly devoted to Collins' allegations against Jennings, ABC implied that Collins was not a "trustworthy" journalist.
Bill Press to Peter Collins: "You know, I have to interrupt you only because, in fairness, I forgot to mention that just as you sat down, we received word that ABC has issued a little response to your charge."
Collins: "Okay."
Press: "And they, here it is. 'When people think of trustworthy journalists named Peter, I don't think the name Collins comes to mind.'
Collins dismissed the ABC News statement as "comical."
"It's lame and if that is the best [ABC] can do, it's pretty sad," Collins told CNSNews.com.
Despite ABC's slap at Collins' credibility, Zelnick defended his former colleague.
"If (Collins' revelations) are not true, then Peter Collins is lying and I have never seen anything in his work to suggest that he is a liar," Zelnick said.
"I saw [Collins'] work from Latin America and I thought it was pretty good," he added.
However, in Zelnick's experience, the editorial pressure applied by Jennings and his producers could be resisted.
"I found when you defended your point of view and drew the line, and said 'I can't go beyond that,' they respected that and that is when Peter [Jennings] or whoever else was in the [anchor] chair would say 'okay,'" Zelnick said.
"In my personal experience, no correspondent was ever forced to report something that ran contrary to his judgment of what was accurate," he added.
Zelnick believes Collins could even have resisted the changes personally dictated by Jennings to his story about the 10th anniversary of the Sandinista takeover of Nicaragua.
"It's possible not being in the Washington mix, not having quite as important a beat as someone covering the State Department or White House or Capitol Hill that [Collins] might have yielded on occasions when a Brit Hume or a Sam Donaldson or Jack McWethy or Bob Zelnick would not have yielded," Zelnick said.
'Politically Motivated'
Zelnick ended his career at ABC News in 1998, "because of a dispute over the Gore book," he said.
"[ABC] first gave me permission to write it and then seven or eight months later when my contract was up, and after I had paid a full time researcher for three-and-a-half months and did a lot of work myself, they said if you want to stay with ABC you have to drop the book, cancel all work on the project and return the advance," Zelnick explained.
In a Feb. 24, 1998 Wall Street Journal op-ed, Zelnick claimed ABC News President David Westin had told him, "We cannot have a Washington correspondent writing a book about one of our national leaders whom that correspondent will undoubtedly have to cover."
Zelnick refused to cancel the book deal and as a result, ABC News did not renew his contract. The book, Gore: A Political Life , was published in 1999.
"I think [my dismissal from ABC] was at least in part politically motivated and I said so at the time," Zelnick told CNSNews.com .
In his Wall Street Journal op-ed, Zelnick asked the rhetorical question: "Would I have faced the same problem if I were an avowedly liberal journalist undertaking a book that made conservatives mildly uncomfortable rather than a moderately conservative one writing about a liberal icon? Had the proposed title been Gingrich: A Critical Look at the Man and His Climb to Power , would I have been forced to choose between my book and my career? I rather doubt it."
When asked Friday whether he still believes ABC was wrong to let him go, Zelnick responded with another question.
"Has Stephanopoulos been barred from reporting?" Zelnick asked, referring to George Stephanopoulos, the former aide to President Bill Clinton and current anchor of ABC's This Week.
Referring to his own experience with the network, Zelnick said, "It's the only time I have ever heard of a reporter being prevented from writing a book. Usually they are encouraged to write books."
See Related Article:
Pro-Marxist Slant Pushed at ABC, Retired Correspondent Claims
E-mail a news tip to Marc Morano.
Send a Letter to the Editor about this article.\b
Interesting that ABC will sack a reporter for writing a book on Al Gore which they deem critical, but continue to pay seven figures to an idealogical driven news anchor who isn't even a citizen of the country where he works and fell into the profession with no apparent academic qualifications . . . I believe Jennings didn't even finish college . . . can anyone verify or post a link?
And Disney is going to do a campaign hit piece, on Bush, for the democratic party. Figures!!!!!
BBC tilts further left than ABC. Maybe not further left then Jennings, but further left than ABC.
Sounds like ABC News is run by a bunch of d*cks...
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