And yet even when Mr. Gibson and Mr. Stephanopoulos engage in the sort of exploratory anchor-reporter chitchat that is a staple of network news nowadays, somehow the two manage not to crack up as they rake over the latest sinister developments in the fired-prosecutors "scandal" without acknowledging that one of the newsmen knows a good bit more than he lets on about how these things work.
Mr. Stephanopoulos remains just as sober when working solo on Sunday mornings as the host of "This Week" or helping out on "Good Morning America." There hasn't been this much stone-faced comedy in circulation since Buster Keaton's heyday.
It's a pity, because Mr. Stephanopoulos might be able to help viewers understand why the firing of eight U.S. attorneys in the Bush administration has been by far the biggest television-news story lately, and yet when dozens of federal prosecutors were fired during the Clinton administration, it was barely noticed by network newscasts. According to the Tyndall Report, which tracks this sort of thing, during the week of March 12-16, the three network evening newscasts spent a total of 45 minutes on the prosecutors story, with the war in Iraq placing second at 16 minutes. "World News with Charles Gibson" logged 13 of those 45 minutes on the prosecutors.
By contrast, in 1993, Attorney General Janet Reno's wholesale firing of U.S. attorneys appointed by George H.W. Bush was a non-story on the ABC evening news--literally a non-story, according to records kept by the Vanderbilt University Television News Archive, as in zero coverage. CBS also skipped it; NBC gave it 20 seconds.
At the risk of putting a damper on all the fun, here's a primer on the sort of White House experience that ABC's chief Washington correspondent could draw on to enlighten viewers.
First of all, misleading messages from a hapless attorney general can be corrected: Janet Reno had only been on the job for a matter of days when she announced the blanket dismissal of U.S. attorneys in March 1993, and she bungled the job, letting word get out that prosecutors involved in significant investigations would be allowed to complete them. As was noted at the time, this would have meant that an ongoing investigation of the powerful House Democrat and vital Clinton ally, Dan Rostenkowski, by the U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia, Jay Stephens, would continue uninterrupted.
The White House, or rather Mr. Stephanopoulos, quickly torpedoed that idea. In a press briefing, he announced that among the prosecutors whose resignations had been demanded, "there are at least some people who are in the middle of trials right now who will not be replaced." Trials, he specified, not investigations. "Interestingly," a Hartford Courant editorial noted back then, "Miss Reno didn't explain the impending dismissals. The president's personal spokesman, George Stephanopoulos, did the fast talking.""
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