PRESS ISN'T ASKING SOME DIFFICULT QUESTIONS

By: Alicia Mundy The Pack Rat Says Papers Shouldn't Fixate On Past Issues





Every once in a while - like now - it seems the will to hold a presidential candidate's feet to the fire is in short supply.



For a full month, newspaper headlines and TV news programs have blared out alarms about fatalities in Ford Explorers and the related Firestone tire recall. Readers and viewers have learned that the companies knew of reports from foreign countries about exploding tires and the deadly accidents they caused, about intercompany finger pointing and suggestions that company officials knew more than they told federal safety regulators.



With almost 100 deaths laid at the tire maker's doorstep, there have been congressional hearings, and, two weeks ago, there was an attempt at a strong bill in the Senate to make company officials more accountable for their laxity in the face of a safety crisis. The Senate bill was killed, and its sponsor, John McCain, R-Ariz., was furious - largely because he had been euchred by the leadership of his own Republican party. He threatened to bring the matter back up in January.



This high-profile issue involves serious questions about corporate responsibility. And even more important questions about whether the government is prepared to make executives in "special interest" groups pay the consequences, even though those companies are major campaign contributors and fierce lobbyists.



But if you've found a reporter or debate moderator asking either candidate what they would do about this if elected, please tell me. It might have been interesting to see how George W. Bush or Al Gore would answer the question: Will you support McCain's bill for stiff penalties for corporate irresponsibility? Will you sound as tough on crime involving your financial contributors, as you do for crimes involving less well-heeled strangers?



This would be particularly interesting in Bush's case, as he supports legal rules that would keep tort lawyers and their clients from taking advantage of corporate disasters such as Firestone's. But if he also opposes criminal penalties, exactly what solutions does he propose for a major corporate mess that causes death and destruction? However, there seems to be a gentlemen's agreement not to confront the candidates on such a specific and very current issue - and Congress' lack of action.



Here's another one: the Middle East crisis. We know that Sen. Al Gore supported the Persian Gulf War. Now, since he's avoided talking about his eight years as Bill Clinton's vice president (see if you can find a reference to it in his "biography" TV ad), it might be nice to know exactly what role he's played in Middle East issues while serving as No. 2.



Was he involved in discussions about bringing Yasser Arafat and Ehud Barak to Maryland for talks in the summer? What has he said to Clinton about the current violence? What actions did he propose several years ago during the last Intifada? Was he out of town?



There are other issues where the problem seems to be lack of consistency. For instance, Newsweek's Michael Isikoff, who exposed myriad misdeeds in the Clinton White House, wrote in June that there weren't any military records proving that Bush actually reported for his National Guard duty in Alabama for several months while he was helping his dad's friend on a political campaign. Unlike stories about Clinton's avoidance of the Vietnam War, which got a lot of follow-up, this one was barely touched by The New York Times or The Washington Post - it disappeared.



In May, Michael Weisskopf of Time magazine uncovered information that a top Texas official reversed himself on a safety restriction involving deadly diet drugs, after the industry involved funneled $40,000 to Bush's 1998 gubernatorial campaign. The papers that drown us in Bush and Gore bio-babble ignored this story. It's not Whitewater - but at least in Whitewater, people didn't die from the results.



Lastly, as Peter Baker of The Washington Post wrote Oct. 17, neither political party is mentioning its role in that unfortunate incident that paralyzed the nation for two years: impeachment. Therefore, notes Baker, no one's asking the big follow-up question of either candidate: What exactly do you consider high crimes and misdemeanors?



That's a good question, in light of all the bitterness that is likely to continue no matter who gets elected. Will we see Democrats calling for investigations of Bush's National Guard record? For a federal review of the funeral-home-industry scandal in Texas that tarred his office? Will Republicans, if elected, demand that a new attorney general reinvestigate the Buddhist temple fund-raiser involving Gore?



It leads to another question: Will the press call a cease-fire on all previous issues and refuse to start another administration by fixating on the past? This would be a good time for editors at the major national papers to sit down and think hard about how they got sucked into stories fed them by political operatives on both sides. It's a good moment to ponder a clean slate time. Papers should declare: "We won't get used again by either party to fix their grievances. We just report the news."







Alicia Mundy's "Pack Rat" column appears monthly in E&P. Mundy is Washington bureau chief for Mediaweek, a sister magazine.







Copyright 2000, Editor & Publisher.