Transcript from Fox and Friends, 5-3-2002

E.D. DONAHEY, Fox News Channel: Has American journalism suffered in the media’s crusade for diversity?

BRIAN KILMEADE, Fox News Channel: Are you asking me?

DONAHEY: Yeah, why not?

KILMEADE: All right, I’m going to ask somebody who’s a lot smarter than me: William McGowan, the author of Coloring the News. Hey, Bill.

BILL MCGOWAN, Author/Journalist: How are you doing?

KILMEADE: Are we really in a crusade for diversity? What makes you think that?

MCGOWAN: Well, in the last ten years the goal of increasing diversity in newsrooms, both on news staffs and in the news product in terms of reporting, has been the preeminent goal of the newspaper and broadcast industry. So I think we can safely say that there is a crusade for diversity and in some ways that’s been good.

DONAHEY: Yeah, that’s not necessarily a bad thing; having people from diverse backgrounds, diverse opinions, you’d think would bring you more fair, balanced news.

MCGOWAN: It’s opened up the door for a lot of talented, minority journalists who haven’t been able to get in in years before. It’s also widened the radar screens that news organizations use to report on their changing communities. However the bad news about diversity is that it’s also opened up the door to political correctness, to racial and ethnic hyper-sensitivity, and to group favoritism that really undercuts candor and completeness in news reporting.

KILMEADE: How does it affect what we see, for example, on issues? For example, the problem the Catholic Church is having? Is it affecting how the news is covered?

MCGOWAN: Well, I think there’s a great deference to the cause of gay rights imbedded in most of the coverage. Most of these organizations are reporting the scandal as one of pedophilia. It is not pedophilia. Over 90% of those who have been accused of abuse are gay priests, either openly gay or closeted. And most of their victims, again more than 90%, have been teenage boys. So it’s not really pedophilia. What it is is homosexual sex harassment.

KILMEADE: And we seem to be ducking that?

MCGOWAN: I think we’re ducking that. I do think.

DONAHEY: Why isn’t the media not covering that?

MCGOWAN: Well, look, one of the things-- one of the good news about diversity is that we’re more sensitive, okay. We want to avoid the implication that all gay men abuse teenage boys. But in fact, we need to ask the question why do so many gay priests abuse teenage boys? This is a legitimate question and it’s part of diagnosing--

KILMEADE: Fear of being gay-bashing and fear of being overly sexist. Let’s talk about immigration, a very odd issue for a lot of reasons. So there’s a right wing approach to immigration, but then the war on terror happens. How does it affect how we handle that?

MCGOWAN: Prior to 9/11, there was a lot of bad reporting done about immigration. There was a great deal of reluctance to look at the chaos and disarray in the immigration system and, as we saw on 9/11, the chaos and disarray really did set the stage for the hijackers to be able to slip in here and operate beneath the radar. Since then, we’ve been a lot better on reporting on holes and weaknesses in the immigration system, but I do think that there’s been a great deal of solicitude and over-sensitivity shown to Muslim and Arab, and the Middle East people.

KILMEADE: Over-sensitivity.

MCGOWAN: I think over-sensitivity. There’s a great deal of exaggerated claims of victimization. We supposedly went through this wave of anti-Muslim fervor post 9/11 where for months we’re reading these stories of hate crimes supposedly committed against Arabs and Muslims, and Middle Easterners. And seven months later, a lot of those stories turned out not to be true.

DONAHEY: So who do you think, from your research, who do you think is coloring the news? Is it having issues overlooked because they’re not politically correct to focus on them?

MCGOWAN: Well, most of it comes from managerial levels. I think that it’s very—

DONAHEY: Do you see much diversity at that level?

MCGOWAN: No, it’s basically guilty white men, I think, who are largely responsible for that. And there are those minority journalists who have not maintained the professional detachment and neutrality that they should. A lot do, most do, but there are those that get into the newsroom and operate as activists.

KILMEADE: How do you explain the floodgates beating up on Jesse Jackson’s career and his foundation?

MCGOWAN: Well, it’s finally-- There’s been a lot of evidence there for years that Jesse Jackson had some fishy stuff going on with a lot of misconduct both on a professional and on a personal level. And I think there’s been a great deal of kid glove treatment of Jesse Jackson now that there’s been this expose written by Kenneth Tamerman. Finally, Jesse Jackson’s career and modus operandi is getting more scrutiny, but there’s still a great deal of reluctance on the part of major news organizations to look at him with the candor, and completeness, and skepticism that there should have been for many, many years.

DONAHEY: But altogether, it seems that when you watch all the news coverage, when people want to get black perspective, they go to Jesse Jackson or they go to Al Sharpton. That’s our African American guy; that’s the go-to guy for this. And a lot of African Americans say, he doesn’t speak for me at all, but you guys keep putting him on.

MCGOWAN: Yes, it’s a real problem of who do we, as media people, designate the leaders of various communities? Black conservatives have a very, very hard time getting airspace and getting quoted in mainstream news publications.

DONAHEY: They also get a tough time in the coverage of them and we’ve talked to a number of—

MCGOWAN: Well, they’re vilified, very often.

DONAHEY: Yeah. Well, how can you be on, especially if they’re Republican. How can you, you know, be Republican? You’re abandoning your people and—

MCGOWAN: Well, a prime example of that is Ward Connerlly who led the California Civil Rights Initiative Proposition 209 in California in 1996. I mean, Connerlly was vilified horribly in the L.A. Times, in the San Francisco Chronicle. The New York Times weighed in with a truly loathsome ad hominem attack on his family roots and how he wasn’t black enough.

KILMEADE: Why do you think the New York Times has not reviewed your book?

MCGOWAN: I think the New York Times has not reviewed my book because they’re scared of it. In print, the Editor of the Times Book Review said that he didn’t think it was appropriate for them to review it because it was too critical of the Times. This, to me, is the journalistic equivalent to the “blue wall of silence” that haunts police departments. I mean, the Times never misses an opportunity to tell other institutions in America, like clergy, police, corporations, that they need to open up to criticism. Yet when it comes to them, they completely shut down a book – or try to shut down a book – that was critical of them.

DONAHEY: All right, the book is called Coloring the News: How Crusading for Diversity has Corrupted American Journalism. That’s it right there. Bill McGowan, thank you very much for joining us, it sound like an incredibly interesting book.

MCGOWAN: Well, thank you very much.

DONAHEY: And one that all the news media outlets are having to deal with as well.

MCGOWAN: Thank you.

Home | About the Author | Preface | Media Contact
Encounter Books | Order the Book