Posted on 02/20/2003 8:41:27 AM PST by fight_truth_decay
Rick Kaplan, the Friend of Bill of who ran CNN from 1997 to 2000 as President of CNN/USA, is returning to ABC News, where he was a top producer for many years, for at least a three month stint overseeing special events coverage.
While serving as President of CNN, Kaplan played golf with President Clinton, stayed overnight in the Lincoln Bedroom and participated in a mock debate session with Al Gore.
When he was Executive Producer of Nightline in 1992 he advised presidential candidate Bill Clinton on how to handle the Gennifer Flowers revelation and later as Executive Producer of World News Tonight he blocked anti-Clinton stories from getting onto that newscast.
Below are summaries about all of that and links to fuller accounts, but first an excerpt from the AP story highlighted Wednesday afternoon by DrudgeReport.com:
With a potential war with Iraq looming, former CNN chief Rick Kaplan is rejoining ABC News for three months to oversee special events coverage, the network said Wednesday....
Kaplan has "proven his ability at producing and overseeing live television news coverage," said ABC News President David Westin. Westin's top deputy, Paul Friedman, announced last week that he was leaving management for a part-time role...
It's no fun to watch big stories breaking on television "and not have responsibility for any of them," Kaplan said....
END of Excerpt
Drudge linked to a Boston Globe-posted version: Story
I think the inside story here is that ABC News and Westin were embarrassed by their poor showing on the Saturday morning of the Columbia disaster, the one morning of the week when, because they have no newscast, they have had inadequate personnel in place to handle a breaking news event.
Now, as lifted from the November 19, 2002 CyberAlert, the rundown of Kaplan's liberal political activities over the years while serving as a network news executive:
> Rick Kaplan's close ties to President Bill Clinton:
# From the April 11, 2000 CyberAlert:
CNN President Rick Kaplan, who stayed overnight in Clinton's White House while at ABC News, spent another night there with his daughter last Thursday night after the Radio and Television Correspondents' Association dinner, USA Today disclosed. But Kaplan doesn't see anything wrong with it.
In his "Inside TV" column for April 10, USA Today's Peter Johnson revealed:
CNN president Rick Kaplan, who took some heat when he worked at ABC News for staying overnight at the White House during President Clinton's first term, spent another night there Thursday -- after Clinton roasted ABC News over "Leogate."
"No, I do not feel embarrassed, ashamed or compromised in any way, shape or form," Kaplan said Friday, after sleeping in the Queen's Room while daughter Alexis, 21, slept in the Lincoln Bedroom.
Generally speaking, it's an ethical no-no for journalists to get too cozy with people they cover. But Kaplan, a former Nightline, PrimeTime Live and World News Tonight producer, said Clinton's gesture won't affect CNN's coverage of him.
"Everyone has relationships," Kaplan said. "We met each other before either of us knew we'd amount to anything. He doesn't expect anything from me, and I don't expect anything from him."
Kaplan, a Clinton friend for 30 years, said the president gave Alexis an "amazing" 2 ½-hour White House tour. "It was extremely nice of him to do it. In the waning months of his presidency, I felt, 'What the heck?'"
END of Excerpt and of April 11, 2001 CyberAlert item
(Back in 1994 Knight-Ridder's Marc Gunther noted in a profile story that ran in the February 8, 1994 Detroit News: "Kaplan and Clinton have known each other since the late 1970s, and last year the ABC producer played golf with the President and spent a night in the Lincoln Bedroom....")
# From the December 5, 2000 CyberAlert, a couple of months after Kaplan left CNN:
Was former CNN President Rick Kaplan involved in advising the Gore campaign while he was still running the cable news network? Did he have special behind-the-scenes access because of his close personal connection to Bill Clinton? Those questions are raised by an intriguing sentence in the November 20 Newsweek.
In early September Kaplan was let go by CNN, but back in March he was still President of CNN/USA. Keep that in mind as you read this paragraph from Newsweek's massive "The Inside Story" treatise on the campaign. This appeared about 30 pages into the series of articles which listed Eleanor Clift as the reporter with Gore, on page 65 in "Spring Fever" section:
"Yet even after Gore had sewn up the nomination, he kept on robotically attacking Bradley in primaries that were, for all intents and purposes, meaningless. At a rehearsal for a California debate on March 1, former CNN President Rick Kaplan joked, 'Let's do the debate now.' Gore's sparring partner, Tom Downey, intoned, 'I'm going to kick you're a--.' Without missing a beat or cracking a smile, Gore mechanically launched into his standard rap, attacking Bradley's health care plan."
END of December 5, 2000 CyberAlert item
Were Kaplan and Clift advising or observing? We'll probably never know because journalists didn't and don't care about a journalist advising a liberal candidate or President.
# See the June 14, 1999 CyberAlert for how, during a commencement address Kaplan delivered while President of CNN, he complained that Ken Starr is "putting obsession ahead of the best interests of the nation" while Bill Clinton has had "extraordinary" achievements. For a lengthy excerpt of his speech: cyber alert
For a RealPLayer clip of it: audio
# From the October 9, 1997 CyberAlert, how Kaplan's personal views directly impacted CNN content:
A two-hour CNN special on campaign finance was produced by CNN President Rick Kaplan, who U.S. News reported had demanded that CNN staffers "limit the use of the word 'scandal' in reporting on Clinton's campaign fundraising woes."
I wondered: "Can you do a two-hour show on Clinton's 1996 fundraising and not use the word 'scandal'?" A rhetoric question, or so I thought. But incredibly enough the answer is -- yes!
The October 7 show titled "Democracy for Sale" wandered well beyond Clinton to examine Republicans and to argue for campaign finance reform, but summarizing charges against Clinton took up a significant portion of the show. Nonetheless, the phrase "Clinton scandal" was never uttered.... Details: cyber alert
> Kaplan's activities on behalf of Clinton while at ABC News:
# For details on how in February 1992, while at ABC News, he advised Clinton on how to respond to the Gennifer Flowers story: cyber link
# For extensive and illuminating excerpts from a January 1998 Vanity Fair profile which detailed how Kaplan once hired Hillary Clinton; how he not only advised Clinton about how to counter Gennifer Flowers, but had earlier counseled Clinton on how to recover from his too-long 1988 convention speech; how he had been a political operative for a liberal presidential candidate before jumping to journalism; how he made calls to console Hillary Clinton after Vince Foster's death and to Web Hubbell after he resigned; how he killed a Whitewater piece from ABC's World News Tonight, discouraged reporters and producers from pursuing the topic and only ran an in-depth look one night in 1994 because Nightline was about to grab it; and how he slurred conservative media critics who see liberal bias, specifically Reed Irvine and MRC President Brent Bozell, as "liars." Go to: Link
That's quite a piece about a political activist in the guise of a news man.
-- Brent Baker
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