(This update courtesy of the Media Research Center.)
by Brent Baker
Rick Berke, the New York Times reporter whose gullibility
the Gore campaign exploited in September of 2000 to write a story
about the supposedly subliminal word “RATS” in an anti-Gore TV ad,
has been promoted to Washington editor, the number two slot in the
Washington bureau. He replaces John Broder who is taking over the
Los Angeles bureau.
Just after his story ran, Berke conceded on PBS to how a Gore
campaign operative had pointed out to him the “RATS” lettering in
the ad in which that letter sequence was visible on screen as the
word “bureaucrats” went by.
That wasn't the only time Berke has reported through a left-wing
prism in which he assumes conservatives are distasteful. Earlier
this year he eagerly highlighted how “Gray Davis is just
salivating at the opportunity to paint” the “very conservative”
California Republican gubernatorial candidate Bill Simon “as
anti-abortion, anti-environment, anti-gun control,
anti-everything, which just doesn't sit well with the California
electorate.” He also suggested U.S. troops in Afghanistan could
become another Vietnam. In January he waited until the fourth
paragraph of a story headlined, “Poll Finds Enron's Taint Clings
More to G.O.P. Than Democrats,” to get around to how it found 82
percent approval for President Bush.
Last year he described former Republican Senator Jack
Danforth, at best a moderate, as “a pretty respected conservative”
who told him “I'm worried that the party is becoming too narrow.”
Back in 1992 he assured CNN's Larry King that the media are
not biased in any way. On the October 16, 1992 Larry King Live he
maintained: “I don't think there is [a bias] at all. I think
anyone who accuses the press of bias is acting in desperation, I
think. I think the press has been much more aggressive and fair,
in being, in going after both sides, and looking, than ever
before.”
Berke's September 12, 2000 front page piece, headlined
“Democrats See, and Smell, Rats in G.O.P. Ad,” set off a firestorm
of network hyperventilation.
As reported earlier, the “RATS” complaint by Gore elevated
to news status by the New York Times
topped ABC, CNN and MSNBC that night and earned full pieces on CBS
and NBC. ABC seriously claimed that Gore was “taken aback” by it.
CNN declared it “an effort to deceive the voters.” For details click here.
At the same time, FNC's Brit Hume pointed out that FNC had
humorously freeze-framed the appearance of the word “rats” in the
ad more than two weeks earlier, but the New York Times only
decided to make it front page news when the Gore campaign called
them. For details click here.
FNC's Tony Snow suggested: “Berke had no idea he had been
fooled into touting a stale story about an ad scheduled to go off
the air the day his piece appeared. Gore operatives thus
transformed the Times into a purveyor of all the news that's fit
to reprint.”
Some other examples of liberal bias from Berke:
• Helms the “extremist.” In an August 2, 1997 New York Times
story, Berke asserted: “When Republicans gained control of the
Senate after the 1994 elections, sweeping him into the
chairmanship of the Foreign Relations Committee, Mr. Helms
appeared determined to live up to his reputation, developed by
years in the minority, as an extremist, an obstructionist, an
isolationist.”
• Though John Danforth averaged only a 61 percent
conservative rating and a 29 percent rating from a liberal group,
Berke maintained in 2001: “Former Senator Jack Danforth, who's a
pretty respected conservative, told me 'I'm worried that the party
is becoming too narrow.'”
• In January of this year the New York Times featured this
headline over a top of the front page story by Berke on a poll
which found 82 percent approval for the President: “Poll Finds
Enron's Taint Clings More to G.O.P. Than Democrats.” In fact, as James Taranto noted in his “Best of the Web”
column on OpinionJournal.com: “Only a 45% plurality think Enron
executives ‘had closer ties' with Republicans than with Democrats
(10% said Democrats, 10% said ‘both equal' and 34% had no
opinion).” As Mickey Kaus pointed out in a Slate.com piece cited
by Taranto: “It would also be significant if the poll showed that
this closeness substantially tainted Republicans — as in the
headline the Times' crusading editors gave to the piece…But
there's not much evidence to support the ‘taint' headline either
— since…the Republican ‘favorables' actually climbed more than
the Democrats' numbers.” Specifically, Kaus uncovered a finding
not cited in the New York Times story by Berke and Janet Elder: A
“large gain (46% to 58%) in the ‘favorable' rating of the GOP,
beating a smaller (53% to 58%) gain for the Democrats.”
• Earlier this year Berke raised the Vietnam analogy about
Afghanistan. On PBS's Washington Week he asserted: “Not long ago,
we were practically declaring victory. How did we suddenly end up
with troops on the ground, and are we stuck there? Is this, dare I
mention, Vietnam?”
• This past spring Berke eagerly highlighted how “Gray Davis
is just salivating at the opportunity to paint” the “very
conservative” California Republican gubernatorial candidate Bill
Simon “as anti-abortion, anti-environment, anti-gun control,
anti-everything, which just doesn't sit well with the California
electorate.”
