The right captures the tube

Conservative G.E. head Jack Welch tilted TV right with "The McLaughlin Group." Then a Nixon operative named Roger Ailes signed up with a new channel called Fox.

By David Brock

May 12, 2004 | Unlike CNN's "Crossfire," "The Mclaughlin Group" -- highly rated and closely watched during the 1980s -- did not try to create the appearance of balance. The media spectrum was expanded to include the Far Right in the 1970s; yet now, a combination of the conservative biases of media executives, commercial market forces, and a ready stock of warm bodies from the subsidized right-wing message machinery was conspiring to narrow the spectrum of opinion again, only this time in reverse. Suddenly, conservatives had not only won an even berth, as on "Crossfire"; with the advent of "The McLaughlin Group," they ruled.

At its high point, the syndicated "McLaughlin Group," which airs on NBC and PBS affiliates nationally, had 3.5 million viewers, far more than the top-rated FOX News Channel opinion shows today. Host John McLaughlin, a former Jesuit priest, aide to Richard Nixon, and National Review alum, chose the topics, the sequencing, and his four fellow panelists. The show always pitted three or four conservatives against two or even only one liberal. Over the years, one of the liberal slots typically went to a nonideological reporter, such as the Baltimore Sun's dyspeptic Jack Germond. Often, the "liberal" guest, usually the bumbling Morton Kondracke, then of The New Republic and now with the FOX News Channel, was booked to endorse and bestow legitimacy on conservative views.

This arrangement left Newsweek's Eleanor Clift, the sole woman panelist, who was typecast as a screechy feminist, to fend off two or even three angry, white, conservative men. Among the regular panelists, only the liberals -- not the conservatives -- were trained reporters. Putting Clift and Germond -- rather than liberal opinion writers -- up against conservative ideologues bolstered the conservative caricature of all reporters as closet liberals; at the same time, it ensured that liberals would be more restrained and nuanced in their advocacy than their opponents.

This imbalanced and exaggerated TV picture was projected, to Washington and the nation, as if it were somehow a representative microcosm of political dialogue in the country during Ronald Reagan's presidency, leaving the indelible misimpression that conservatism was the dominant view in the country. Meanwhile, McLaughlin's buffoonery -- his exaggerated manner, his nicknames for panelists, his reduction of politics into a game show -- made conservatism seem unthreatening, and even funny. From the composition and tone of "The McLaughlin Group" panels sprang the stereotype that conservatives are entertaining, while liberals are whiny and boring -- another seeming advantage engineered by the Right as the values of entertainment, rather than those of journalism, were prevailing on television.

"The McLaughlin Group" also was instrumental in establishing the now-widespread practice of "buckraking," whereby TV pundits take their show on the paid lecture circuit and for substantial fees reenact their TV roles, playing themselves before industry and trade associations looking for the Washington "inside scoop" or after-dinner levity. Buckraking added a powerful financial incentive for pundits to "stay in character" on television and for aspiring pundits to adopt a marketable style. Belligerent, cocksure conservatives, with liberals as their compliant whipping boys, seemed the meal ticket for both sides. Often, entire panels from shows like "McLaughlin" and CNN's "Capital Gang" go on the road, raking in tens of thousands of dollars apiece. Conservative TV pundits like George Will have taken huge fees speaking before industry groups about which they opine; the corporate market for left-wing pundits is not lucrative.

"The McLaughlin Group" plucked John McLaughlin from his relatively obscure post as National Review "Washington editor" -- where, according to The New Republic, he employed ghostwriters to write under his byline -- and made him one of the most influential media voices in the 1980s. When it began, the show was underwritten by the Edison Electric Institute, a front for the electric power industry with close ties to the GOP. The institute has been a client of Grover Norquist, who, in addition to his leadership of the conservative movement, has dabbled in lobbying on the side. McLaughlin had hoped to launch a conservative-slanted talk show since the mid-1970s, after raising his profile in TV appearances defending the Nixon administration and hosting a local Washington talk show with Robert Novak. He took money from a former Nixon aide to explore the idea.

In 1986, when General Electric bought NBC's parent company, RCA, GE announced that it would become the show's exclusive sponsor and pumped cash into promoting it nationally. The deal was struck following a meeting between McLaughlin and GE chairman Jack Welch, convened at McLaughlin's request by President Ronald Reagan. McLaughlin already had been promoted by NBC with appearances on "Meet the Press" in the early 1980s; McLaughlin's then-wife, Ann, was a high-level Reagan official; and Reagan himself was a fan of "The McLaughlin Group." Reagan also had a relationship with GE, dating back to his stint as host of television's "General Electric Theatre" in the 1950s. According to media critic Ben Bagdikian, GE had "launched Ronald Reagan as a national political spokesman by paying him to make nationwide public speeches against Communism, labor unions, Social Security, public housing, the income tax, and to augment the corporation's support of right-wing political movements."

Thirty years later, GE's agenda hadn't much changed. Known as "Neutron Jack" for his hard-charging management style, Welch, who headed GE until his retirement in 2002, was a conservative Republican; like Ted Turner's early influence at CNN, Welch's role in promoting McLaughlin was an example of how the Right was able to steer the political debate with the approval of top-ranked media executives. McLaughlin expanded his visibility with the GE-sponsored "One on One" syndicated interview show, and he was given a third show on CNBC when that cable network was established by GE in the 1990s. Welch used his influence over "The McLaughlin Group" to promote commentators whom he saw as up-and-coming talent, such as Reagan economics adviser Lawrence Kudlow, "economics editor" of National Review, member of the right-wing Club for Growth, and "fellow" of Newt Gingrich's Progress and Freedom Foundation. Kudlow now has his own CNBC show, on which he was forced to apologize on air for insulting a government witness in the Martha Stewart case as "limp-wristed."

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