Return to Transcripts main page

CNN Crossfire

Have the Media Gone Overboard in Their Coverage of Gary Condit and Chandra Levy?

Aired July 10, 2001 - 19:30   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ABBE LOWELL, ATTORNEY FOR GARY CONDIT: Go take your cameras and your pads and your pencils, and try to see if there is somebody else out there who might have some information that could actually find this woman as opposed to prying into the private lives of the Condits once and for all.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ROBERT NOVAK, CO-HOST: Tonight: Have the media gone overboard in their coverage of Gary Condit and Chandra Levy?

ANNOUNCER: Live from Washington, CROSSFIRE. On the left, Bill Press; on the right, Robert Novak. In the CROSSFIRE, Mort Zuckerman, publisher of "The New York Daily News" and editor in chief of "U.S. News & World Report," and in Los Angeles, Jerry Nachman, former editor of "The New York Post" and former news director for WCBS and WNBC TV.

Good evening. Welcome to CROSSFIRE.

If you were watching CROSSFIRE last night, you heard Congressman Gary Condit's lawyer break into our program with a remarkable offer. Yes, he will submit to a lie detector test, allow police to search his apartment and even offer up a DNA sample. Well, less than three hours ago, the D.C. police took the California Democrat up on that offer, indicating that the police had been turned down earlier.

Will Condit's lawyers now welsh on the offer? It's all grist for the news media's mill.

Congressman Condit at long last turned up on Capitol Hill today at a closed-door meeting of the moderate Blue Dog Democrats -- but he quickly fled when spotted -- and earlier in the day was a no-show for a Blue Dog press conference. Some of those Blue Dogs snarled and then ran away themselves when reporters asked questions about the Chandra Levy case.

Have the news media gone over the top? Is CBS News and "The New York Times," are they correct in largely ignoring the story? Or do the American people insist on hearing the case of the missing intern yesterday, today, and yes, tomorrow? Bill Press.

BILL PRESS, CO-HOST: Tomorrow, too. Jerry Nachman, good evening. Welcome to CROSSFIRE. Welcome back to CROSSFIRE.

JERRY NACHMAN, FORMER EDITOR, "NEW YORK POST": Nice to be back, Bill, Bob.

PRESS: Jerry, let me ask you this, first of all. The police repeated today, the police chief repeated today that Gary Condit is not a suspect in this case. He repeated today that Gary Condit is cooperating fully. The reporters have no evidence to the contrary, and yet they insist on going after it. Isn't the media's aim just to hang Gary Condit?

NACHMAN: Well, I need to correct you a little bit. What we sort of know is that he and his people lied twice to the D.C. Metro Police about the relationship. It was one of these weird press police events on Saturday when you guys were airing live the news conference from the deputy chief, Terry Gainer, who would not discuss the relationship, and while on the same screen it said, "Police: Condit Admits Affair."

So if everything the D.C. Police asked him could be reduced to two questions, "Congressman, do you know where the young woman's whereabouts might be?" and "Congressman, were you having a relationship with her?" we know that the congressman said no to both questions for most of the last nine weeks, and only last Friday answered yes to the second question.

And the fact that a U.S. congressman -- and let's take the sex out of this -- that a U.S. congressman has told a big city police department you can have my DNA, I'll go on the polygraph for you and you can search my apartment, I think makes it a news story ipso facto.

PRESS: It is indeed a news story, and I'm not here to defend either the D.C. Police or Gary Condit. But you know, you danced around my question. My question -- look, Gary Condit's got an obligation to tell everything to the D.C. Police, and shame on him because he lied to them the first time around. He's got an obligation to do everything they asked him to do, including turning over cell- phone records, if they ask for that, let alone search his apartment. But what obligation does he have to talk to the media? Zip, right?

NACHMAN: Well, only if he doesn't live in the real world. I shouldn't have to tell you that in the political real world that we all operate in it becomes more and more necessary that people reveal these things. And I'm quoting no better source than Gary Condit, who we all know three years ago urged Bill Clinton to come clean on the Monica thing.

So a lot has changed, as I don't have to tell you, Bill, since Wilbur Mills drove into the title basin with an Argentinian stripper sitting in the car next to him.

(LAUGHTER)

And while that may have been a surprise to most of the country, to every reporter in Washington it was not a surprise, because there weren't many reporters -- and Bob Novak was around then -- who had ever seen that congressman sober.

(LAUGHTER)

So yes, the rules have changed. But experienced pols know that the rules have changed.

What was so big about the Bill Clinton-Monica Lewinsky story was this great student of the American presidency didn't learn from what had happened to his predecessors that the rules had changed.

So obviously, if Gary Condit is going to position himself as a moderate to conservative Democrat from an agricultural, sedate community, urge Bill Clinton to behave himself, and now we has this alleged relationship with this young woman, Ms. Levy, and now we have a stewardess -- I'm sorry, you're not allowed to call them that anymore -- a flight attendant coming forward...

PRESS: Flight attendant, thank you.

NACHMAN: ... saying that (a) they had a relationship and that (b) representatives of the congressman asked her to mislead investigators and sign an affidavit that there was no relationship, well, yeah, this is becoming a bigger and bigger story even if you leave the sex out.

NOVAK: Jerry, you now talked twice about leaving the sex out. That's a funny remark, I thought, because, you know, I -- we all feel sorry for the Levy family. I'm sure they love their daughter and they're devastated by this. But when the story first came out that a 24-year-old intern at the Bureau of Prisons was missing, it was not a very big story in this town. It wasn't even a big story when they said that she -- they found pictures of her with Gary Condit. Only until it became clear, or at least intimated, that they had a sexual relationship did this really become interesting -- did people really become interested in it.

This --- you can't separate the sex from this story, can you?

NACHMAN: Well, no, and I'd be the last guy in the world to separate them. But yeah, it became certainly more compelling. It's a real film noir story for those of us in Southern California, because we've got a missing woman, you've got all these prophecies of doom, you've got the straight-laced congressman. But you've got something else that's different, Bob, and I think it's fair to point this out.

To the very end, Monica's parents went on television, Dr. Lewinsky, and said, there's no way that my daughter had a relationship with that man, Bill Clinton. What we have here that makes it very different is the purported victim's parents are propelling this coverage to some extent. And when it's coming from the purported victim's family, it's tough to step over those stories if you're a producer or an assignment editor.

You've got her mother, her family's lawyer saying that the congressman is a liar and that the congressman has misled people. Well, that gives the story even more bulk and makes it tougher to step over.

NOVAK: Jerry, let me raise another point, that we know now, or appear to know now or at least there's an allegation, that Congressman Condit was carrying on simultaneous affairs with Chandra Levy and Anne Marie Smith, the flight attendant. Now...

NACHMAN: Excuse me, Bob, and maybe others.

NOVAK: Well, I was just going to say I don't think he's ever come -- and sometimes they come in bunches of one, but very seldom in bunches of two. If there's two, there's likely more. That in itself, if he had nothing to do with the disappearance of the young lady -- and I hope that he didn't -- this is still a big story. When you have -- even post-Clinton, when you have out on the record a congressman from a conservative area with two affairs going on at the same time. Isn't that true?

NACHMAN: Serial adultery is always a good story, and if it's a public person, it's an even bigger. And if it's a guy who positions himself as a family man, then even more of the press gets to get on the bandwagon because then you have the hypocrisy angle, and that has always been a fair pinata for the press to swing at.

Gay activists wanting to out people not because they're gay necessarily, but because of some of their public statements that seem offensive to the homosexual community. Hypocrisy has always been a fair lever of the press when covering people.

PRESS: Yeah, but here, I think there's a little hypocrisy on the part of the media, too. Look, there are two stories here as you pointed out. There is the case of a missing woman, a tragic case. There's also the case here of the politician having an affair, which is hardly news in Washington, D.C.

Now the media, right, are staking out Gary Condit's apartment here in Washington. We've had live shots just of the exterior of his apartment building on CNN all day. They're staking out his home in California. They're staking out the home of his kids in Sacramento.

Would you tell me what possible leads does that have to Chandra Levy's disappearance?

NACHMAN: Well, they're not looking for leads. They're looking for a target of opportunity.

PRESS: They're looking for sex. For sex, right?

NACHMAN: Well, they're not looking -- they're not looking for sex standing outside his condo. But remember, the same thing could be said about Oliver North's home and Robert Bork's home and Clarence Thomas' home when they were page 1 stories.

PRESS: Sure, sure.

NACHMAN: And what you're looking for is maybe the photo opportunity, maybe the shot of the special prosecutor taking out his garbage and standing there with a cup of coffee in his hand, giving you something to freshen up the nightly news.

I mean, it's crappy. I don't disagree with that, but remember, we are dealing with a man here, whose behavior -- I'm not talking about his moral behavior, I'm talking his public behavior -- his behavior has led a lot of people to infer that he had -- more a murderer than an adulterer, and that's what really dopey and that's his fault.

PRESS: Well, speaking of that: in fact, there's always one person who stands out as not joining the heard. In this case, that person has to be Jim Murphy, the executive producer of the "CBS Evening News." They have not covered this story, unlike NBC News who have done 10 stories, I think, in a row on it.

And here's what Mr. Murphy told "The Washington Post" this morning: "It looks to me like this feeding frenzy of people who are excited that maybe he was involved in her murder. It feels like people are hoping, dreaming that it'll be a sensational story that will see them through the summer. I just find it beyond tasteless. It's nauseating."

That's what they're looking for, isn't it? Get through the summer doldrums, let's have a big sex scandal, and maybe even a murder involved?

NACHMAN: On the other hand, while I think Jimmy Murphy is a great guy, I think this is also a strategic position that CBS news has taken, and I don't necessarily condemn them for it. They're trying to differentiate themselves.

One of the big stories that we in the business have done in 10 years, Bill and Bob, is that blurring of the line between the traditional, conventional, so-called old media, and the hipper, or more contemporary, or loser, or more licentious new media, including cable news, and I used to say on these programs: "If you don't like the coverage of Susan Smith or the Bobbit case, then don't cover it." Cover Bosnia. Step over these stories. And I think that part of what CBS news is doing here is saying, "we want to differentiate ourselves, we want to be different."

Now, here's the problem. If it blows up to be the story of the century, it's a tough one to explain to your viewers why you've known about these smoking guns for two months, just like "The New York Times" fellows, which didn't really cover the Jennifer Flowers news conference. And if the proverbial Martian came down to earth and his only record source was "The New York Times" archives, he would be saying now, who is this Jennifer Flowers woman?

NOVAK: Let me raise another thing. I -- everybody I've talked to, Jerry, in the last two weeks at the beach for 4th of July with some non-political people, getting a haircut this morning -- I just got a nice haircut this morning -- my barber, that's all she wanted to talk about.

It's the only thing people want to talk about. They don't want to talk about the patients' bill of rights, they don't want to talk about campaign finance reform. They don't want to talk about stem cell research. And so, even if you're a high and mighty broadcast television network, is there some obligation -- not just for ratings -- but to report something that people are really interested in?

NACHMAN: No. I mean, it's why there's a back of the book. It's why we have editors. You select stories.

Now, I watch a lot of TV news and I read every newspaper there is to read, and I'm following the HMO stuff, I'm following the campaign finance stuff, I'm following Bush trying to sell his education bill and stem cell research, and I can tell you every angulation in those stories, but I'm also following this story with fascination, because it's a great yarn.

And you, Bob, you know, as an old-style Chicago newspaperman must see all these things the way I do. How do you step over this story? Because as you pointed out, one of my rules in every news room I ever ran is to pay attention to what people are talking about in elevators and saloons -- and in your case, it's a beach and a barber shop -- and if that's what people are talking about, it's part of our responsibility to keep them informed on this.

NOVAK: I think that's right.

PRESS: Indeed. And they were talking about it on the golf course up in Rhode Island too, Bob Novak, I want you to know.

(CROSSTALK)

PRESS: All right. We are going take a break. When we come back, we will talk about how well Gary Condit is being treated in the daily news. More CROSSFIRE coming up.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

PRESS: Welcome back to CROSSFIRE.

In the past 10 weeks, an unknown congressman from California's Central Valley has become the nation's top political story: Gary Condit on page one, Gary Condit leading the network news, and he hasn't said word one. Should he, or the media doing their job?

Jerry Nachman, our guest tonight, former editor of "The New York Post" in Los Angeles thinks the media is doing its job. We still hope to be joined by Mort Zuckerman, who is publisher of "The New York Daily News" -- Bob.

NOVAK: Jerry, I don't think you were ever in the business of being a political adviser, but at this point, with your knowledge of the media, both electronic and print media, what would you advise the honorable Gary Condit to do?

NACHMAN: I would advise -- I would have advised him to follow his own advice. I mean, that quote just won't go away from three years ago when he urged fellow Democrat Bill Clinton to come clean and let the chips fall where they may. I think he knows that -- what perception means in our businesses, meaning his business as well as our business, and he must know, unless he's got dopey advisers around him, that that he is managing in some crazy way to have adultery turn up looking like homicide, at least to some people.

Now, there was another column in "The Washington Post," in which I believe it was Marc Fisher pointed out that what he's also done is trot out his employees to lie on his behalf. I mean, his press guy, his lawyer spent the last two months denying that there was any relationship, writing angry letters to "The Washington Post," saying, how dare you impugn this guy's -- what -- integrity, and where do they go from here?

I mean, that's the part I don't get, and this is also, I think -- I think, gentlemen, this is also what's fueling the story. I think part of what's fueling the story is, when they will ever learn? When will these powerful men who think they're omnipotent learn that they're not, and when will these young women who come to Washington, you know, with stars in their eyes, learn that, you know, being an intern means to some guys being their personal perk.

I mean, if you go back to the Monica story and the recorded conversations between her and Linda Tripp, Monica had deluded herself into thinking that the president of the United States was going to leave Hillary Clinton for her.

NOVAK: She was a constituent, Jerry, she was an intern of Congressman Condit, she was working at the Bureau of Prisons.

NACHMAN: Well, but we believe it was through his good offices that she had gotten that internship.

NOVAK: Yeah. Let me -- let me -- let's take a listen to Billy Martin, who is a well-known Washington lawyer, who was representing the Levy family, and let's listen to something he had to say just today.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BILLY MARTIN, LEVY FAMILY ATTORNEY: We'd like to thank the press. We know that without the coverage that the press has given this both here in Washington and in the Modesto area, that this story would just be another story with no effort to really find a missing person.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

NOVAK: I'm sorry, that was last night on "LARRY KING," but isn't Mr. Martin correct that if it wasn't for the media, that certainly the great D.C. Police Department wasn't going to use a megaphone on this story and the congressman stay with their own. Republican congressmen who usually love get on this program Republican Congressmen, let me repeat -- don't want to come close to talking about this issue. So if it wasn't for the media, you wouldn't even know about this stuff, isn't that right?

NACHMAN: Well I agree with you, but I don't want to go too far in the self congratulations to think that the media is giving it this coverage because they're so terribly committed to find out what happened to Chandra, because we don't do a lot of missing person stories unless there are some other hooks to the story and obviously, as we said today, powerful older man, apparent sexual relationship, intern-mentor, all of that added up to the critical mass that's triggered this coverage.

Although I still think the single greatest impetus to the coverage this story is getting is the congressman's behavior since the young woman disappeared. It's very provocative behavior in a town that is used to people running to microphones and televisions to give their side of the story.

We have a lawyer like Billy Martin going on network television on Larry King, saying (a) a United States congressman is a liar, and (b) that he's hindering an ongoing investigation. Once again, the press doesn't have to justify the coverage at that point. It's a real story.

PRESS: Jerry, but you know, again if Gary Condit misled the police about the nature of his relationship, no excuse for that. I want to focus on his relationship with the media, and take you up on what you just said. Is it your advice to him to come clean, to have a news conference and answer questions?

Wouldn't you have to admit that if he does so, there's no way to satisfy the media beats? They're going want to know every titillating detail about his sex life with Chandra Levy, I mean, in gross, gross detail, right?

NACHMAN: Bill, one of your predecessors, Geraldine Ferraro, was running for the vice presidency in 1984 and there were a lot about her, her husband, her father. She decided to take the bull by the horns and she ran a news conference in New York City that never ended. She said, I'm going to sit here until you all drop.

PRESS: She want talking about her sex life, Jerry.

NACHMAN: Well but she was talking about her father, and she was talking about her husband.

PRESS: Finances.

NACHMAN: But it was more than finances. I mean, the lay motif of this news conference, am I married to, am I the daughter of guys in the Mafia? This was very painful stuff to her and by the time this news conference ended people were asking her what her favorite color was and what she thought of the Mets that year.

It's the only way to solve it and you know what? As a lot of reporters know, they have to ask the question, the guy doesn't have to answer it. He can say, I'm going to go this far, but I'm not going to go into x, y and z. But at least he's not going to look like some guy who has just been indicted. Because every day I see him on television, he looks likes a guy who's leaving a U.S. court of house after just been handed a true bill by a grand jury. NOVAK: Jerry, that's a good description. Thank you very much for being with us. Mr. Zuckerman has arrived from New York and we will have a three person closing comments: Bill Press, Mr. Zuckerman and me.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

NOVAK: We are joined now by Mort Zuckerman, publisher of "The Daily News" in New York, editor in chief of "U.S. News and World Report."

Thanks for coming in, Morton.

MORT ZUCKERMAN, PUBLISHER, "NEW YORK DAILY NEWS": Good to be here.

NOVAK: Mort, one paper that has really done this story to a fair-thee-well is the great "Daily News," 40 articles on the Chandra Levy story since May 17th. Let's look at some of the headlines that we have had, "Too Busy," and there's another one coming up, "He told me to lie."

Do you disapprove of your own newspaper, the way they've been handling this?

ZUCKERMAN: Absolutely not. I think it's being done very well by "The Daily News" which has really been breaking this story and been on the cutting edge of this story. If there's any problem with story, frankly, it's on the cable shows which just sort of have to play it over and over and over again. And I think that's what makes people feel that we are getting too much of this story.

NOVAK: You mean it's OK in the New York tabloids, but it's not any good on the news cable shows? I don't understand that.

ZUCKERMAN: I don't understand why you don't understand my logic, Bob. It's perfectly clear -- no, I think what it is, when you have a newspaper you sort of read it once. But when you have to turn on and watch it over and over again, I think that's when it gets the feeling that it's just too much.

And I think that's really -- you have 24 hour cable news programs, they have to fill the time. You get the story over and over and over again every hour, that's when public feels, God, it's over the top.

PRESS: I'm saying that if Gary Condit doesn't wanted to the media he doesn't have to, just to make that clear. But let me just ask you this devil's advocate question: Here's a guy, three years ago, who was telling Bill Clinton, come on, come clean, you're a public official, you've got an obligation to tell all the facts about your relationship with Monica Lewinsky.

How can you let Gary Condit off?

ZUCKERMAN: Well, I mean I'm surprised that you don't understand his reasoning. You know what happens. He's now caught in -- you should pardon the expression -- the cross fire and he's going to stay as quiet as he possibly can for as long as he possible can. Unfortunately for him there were too many elements of the story that put a lot of focus and light on it and he ultimately was forced to reveal what he didn't want to reveal, and that he had an affair with her, that he had different kinds of relationships with her.

He lied about it again and withdrew, lied and withdrew. We've seen that before even at higher levels of national politics. So the fact that politicians are inconsistent is no mystery to me.

PRESS: We'll have to leave it there. Mr. Zuckerman, I'm glad you could join us for these last couple minutes. From the left, I'm Bill Press.

NOVAK: From the right, I'm Robert Novak. Join us next time for another edition of CROSSFIRE.

TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com