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Contributors
Cliff Kincaid- Contributor
Cliff Kincaid, serves as editor of the Accuracy
in Media (AIM)
Report. A veteran journalist and media critic, Cliff has
appeared on the Fox News programs Hannity & Colmes and
The O'Reilly Factor, where he debated O'Reilly on global
warming, the death penalty,
and the homosexual agenda. He was a guest co-host on CNN's Crossfire
(filling in for Pat Buchanan) in the 1980s, where he confronted
the then-Libyan Ambassador to the U.N. with evidence of Libyan
involvement in international terrorism. Through his America's
Survival, Inc., organization (www.usasurvival.org), he has been
an advocate on behalf of the families of victims of terrorism
and has published reports and held conferences critical of the
United Nations. His articles have appeared in the Washington
Post, Washington Times, Chronicles, Human Events, Insight, and
other publications. He served on the staff of Human Events for
several years and was an editorial writer and newsletter editor
for former National Security Council staffer Oliver North at
his Freedom Alliance educational foundation. He has written or
co-authored nine books on media and cultural affairs and foreign
policy issues. Cliff is married and has three sons.[go to
Kincaid index]
 Bolton:
Partisan-Pack
Journalism
The media campagin against the nominee…
[Cliff Kincaid] 5/13/05
The New
York Times is being somewhat more forthcoming about acting as a
house
organ for Senate Democrats against John Bolton’s
nomination as U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. With a vote on the
nomination scheduled for May 12 in the Senate Foreign Relations
Committee, Times reporter Douglas Jehl’s story acknowledged
that some anti-Bolton information for his May 10 story was “provided
by a Congressional Democrat opposed to Mr. Bolton's nomination.” It
must be nice to know that you can leak information to the New
York Times and that the paper will rush to print it.
Even if
it had not been specified that a Democrat was the source of
the information,
many would have suspected it. However, we
still don’t know the name of this particular leaker. That
would be disclosing too much.
Another
fascinating example of this journalistic trend of using openly
partisan
sources occurred in stories about accusations
made by Lynne D. Finney against Bolton. For example, Barbara
Slavin of USA Today reported on April 24 that Finney, “a
former legal adviser to the U.S. Agency for International Development
(USAID),” had sent a letter to Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-Calif,
a member of the committee, saying that Bolton had “screamed” at
her more than 20 years ago. Slavin added that a copy of the letter
had been “e-mailed to USA Today.” Slavin added that, “Boxer’s
office verified that Finney sent the letter.”
Slavin, the
paper’s senior diplomatic correspondent, reported, “Finney,
who is now a motivational speaker, said in the letter that she
cared about world peace and wanted to help defeat Bolton’s
nomination. She did not return phone messages left at her home.”
The story
ran under the headline, “U.N. nominee faces
new allegations of verbal abuse.”
Consider
how USA Today determined this story of allegations more than
20 years
old to be newsworthy. It receives a copy of
a letter from Finney to Barbara Boxer, who opposes Bolton. The
paper reports that Boxer’s office had verified that Finney
sent the letter but that USA Today itself was not able to reach
her. In the letter, Finney declares that she cares about world
peace and wants to defeat Bolton.
Something struck me as suspicious. A person comes up with old
allegations to defeat Bolton and provides them in the context
of declaring her commitment to world peace? I decided to do some
research and AIM released my findings in a press release on April
25.
We easily
discovered that Finney is much more than a “motivational
speaker.” She is a specialist on the subject of “recovered
memories” and charges $90 an hour for “conversations” on
how to find “inner peace.” Finney proclaims on her
website that “We are becoming One” and that “Like
popcorn, we are all popping faster and are reaching enlightenment
at a rapid rate.” She also claims to have been taught by “Tibetan
monks and Master Nome in Santa Cruz, California.” Master
Nome is a Hindu religious teacher.
“In
this new millennium, we entered an era of human evolution where
we can reinvent ourselves and create new realities,” the
Finney website declares. “We all have the ability to clear
out our limiting beliefs and behaviors and tap into the infinite
power of Consciousness.” The website described her “many
realities,” including as “diplomat” and “United
Nations policy advisor to the Agency for International Development.” The
latter is apparently a reference to the position in which Finney
claims to have been yelled at by Bolton, then the top lawyer
at USAID.
I reached
Ms. Finney by telephone but she refused to comment because
she was scheduled to be interviewed by the Senate
Foreign Relations committee about
Bolton. I therefore couldn't ask about that part of her biography, also advertised
on her website, disclosing that she was a political appointee in the Democratic
Jimmy Carter administration.
Since there
have been no orchestrated leaks to the press about Finney’s additional “revelations,” we can only
assume she is not being taken seriously as an anti-Bolton “witness.” But
that doesn’t get the press off the hook for running her
letter to Boxer as a hot news “story.”
In an April
26 message to USA Today editor Ken Paulson, I noted that “It appears that your story on the new Bolton accuser
left out some important facts. Slavin failed to do some elementary
research into Lynne D. Finney. Can we count on a correction or
a clarification?” He replied, “I’ll share your
note with our news department. We’ll get back to you.”
Here we are
two weeks later and USA Today editors have not gotten back
to me. How
can they defend the sympathetic coverage of Finney’s
allegations against Bolton and the failure to do elementary research
into her controversial background?
A basic Google
search would have disclosed a fascinating February 25 story
by Edward
Wyatt of the New York Times which identified
Finney as “a leading practitioner of recovered-memory therapy,
including the use of self-hypnosis, a practice that some studies
have shown can result in the creation of false memories.” The
identification was made in the context of reviewing questionable
sexual abuse allegations made against a Mormon scholar.
In fairness,
USA Today editor Paulson may have had other things on his mind.
On May
5, the paper announced that Pentagon correspondent
Tom Squitieri resigned after being confronted with evidence that
he had “violated USA Today’s standards on sources
and attribution.” In short, Squitieri was accused of plagiarism.
The Finney
case shows that even when sources are identified, the journalism
can be
seriously deficient. It’s lazy partisan-pack
journalism. Paulson should do something about that, too. tRO
copyright
2005 Accuracy in Media
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