Campaign Coverage: The Republicans & the Reporters

"I'll be very interested to read the newspaper accounts," Barry Goldwater told 1,500 county government officials in Washington last week in his first major speech since he was nominated. "I won't say that the papers misquote me," he added, "but I sometimes, wonder where Christianity would be today if some of these reporters were Matthew, Mark, Luke and John."*

Goldwater's running mate, Bill Miller, echoed the theme. He complained that the press and television had over played the backing given to the Republican candidate by far-right groups and made it look as if "it is the kooks who support Goldwater." The press and television had not given such treatment to the Democrats, he charged. "Why don't they put the question to that Communist, Gus Hall, on whether he is for President Johnson?" asked Miller. "The Ku Klux Klan always supports the Democratic Party," he said, with a rather outdated perspective, "but it is never asked about it."

A Fact of Life. Both Goldwater and Miller were reflecting a long-simmering feeling in professional Republican ranks that the working press is biased against the G.O.P. — a kind of inversion of the old "one-party press" complaint that Franklin Roosevelt and Harry Truman used to make against Republican publishers. It is a feeling that surfaced during Richard Nixon's presidential campaign and exploded after his run for the California governorship. It was dramatically reflected in the uproar in the San Francisco Cow Palace last month when Dwight Eisenhower jabbed at "sensation-seeking columnists and commentators."

The root of this Republican resentment is one of the basic facts of U.S. journalistic life: most members of the working press are inclined to the Democratic side of politics. The working Republicans know it, and therefore see signs of slant in the coverage that they get. Thus Donald Lukens, the chairman of the Young Republican National Federation, has called for more young Republicans to become journalists "to promote honest and accurate reporting of the Republican cause."

The Imprecise Statements. Whatever the personal politics of the working press, Barry Goldwater creates many of his own problems. His statements are often so imprecise that they lead to a wide variety of interpretations and misinterpretations. Seldom has a major political candidate in the U.S. found it so necessary to clarify or revise what he has said. One important example is his acceptance-speech statement on extremism, which he was still explaining and amending last week (see THE NATION).

Both the Goldwater camp and the press are now aware of the problem their differences present in coverage of the campaign. Some editors agree with the Chicago Daily News' Larry Fanning, who believes that the result will be "more pressure on newsmen to be sure of their facts." Press chiefs across the country, including Associated Press General Manager Wes Gallagher and New York Times Managing Editor Turner Catledge, have reminded their staffs to be fair, informative and impartial.