UAJC presents Duranty Award to Morley Safer in absentia (04/23/95)

UAJC presents Duranty Award to Morley Safer in absentia

CHICAGO - To no one's surprise, "60 Minutes" correspondent Morley Safer was not present to receive the "Walter Duranty Award for Journalistic Dissimulation" during the April 9 presentation ceremony at Ss. Volodymyr and Olha Ukrainian Catholic Church in Chicago.

The Ukrainian American Justice Committee (UAJC) decided to present Mr. Safer with the award, as the inscription noted, for "going beyond accepted American norms of journalistic ethics and entering the realm of conscious deception, distortion and disinformation during his October 23, 1994, '60 Minutes' report on Ukraine."

The UAJC plans to permit Mr. Safer an opportunity to personally accept the award the as the plaque makes its way to other cities. The first stop after Chicago is Minneapolis.

Speaking at the Chicago ceremony, which attracted some 150 people, was Joseph C. Goulden, director of media analysis, for Accuracy in Media (AIM). "What has astounded me during my six years at AIM," began Mr. Goulden, "is the unwillingness of the media to acknowledge that they have done something wrong - and the Ukraine episode is a good case in point."

"The media is having a heckuva credibility problem," continued Mr. Goulden. "A Times Mirror Poll - this is a media company, mind you - found that 69 percent of the public don't trust media to report fairly and accurately on political and social issues... Why don't TV networks keep a closer rein on the accuracy of their news programs, and especially those on the newsmagazine shows such as '60 Minutes'? The answer lies in three words: money, money, money."

Even when they are caught lying, Mr. Goulden emphasized, media moguls never receive just punishment They are not treated as "professional pariahs." The people behind "Dateline NBC" who rigged the fake crash tests of General Motors trucks and were forced to publicly recant their story are still with us. NBC News President Mike Gartner was fired as a result of the rigged crash test, but today he writes a column for USA Today, often on journalistic ethics. "He will be the honored speaker at this year's convention of the Society of Professional journalists," Mr. Goulden told his audience.

The American press is unique, declared Mr. Goulden, because "it is the only profession protected by the Constitution..." As Ben Bradlee, the former executive editor of The Washington Post, once said, it "protects our irresponsibilities as it protects innocuous speech."

Mr. Goulden mentioned that he and AIM founder Reed Irvine have had long private talks with people like Lawrence Tisch, the chairman and major owner of CBS. Mr. Tisch told them, in effect, that he had no intention of interfering in news operations as long as they are profitable. And "60 Minutes" remains very, very profitable.

Mr. Goulden urged Ukrainian Americans to do three things in fighting CBS:

continue to write advertisers advising them of Ukrainian displeasure with the CBS deception;
plan to attend the May 10 CBS shareholders' meeting in New York City (proxies are available from AIM);
join forces with other constituencies that have been maligned by "60 Minutes" and continue to demand restitution.

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