Carter's "Irresponsible" Press

By Thomas Griffith

The week in which President Carter has enjoyed his happiest headlines in months is a good time to discuss his feelings about the press, which might oth erwise seem to be merely sour grapes. The fact is that Carter thinks the press is ir responsible.

If this comes as news, it also says something about Jimmy Carter. At the close of a little-remarked-upon television interview last November, he told Public Broadcasting's Bill Moyers that his two most "unpleasant surprises" in office had been the inertia of Congress and the irresponsibility of the press.

When asked by Moyers for particulars, Carter said, "Well, quite often news reports have been inaccurate when I think a simple checking of the facts . . .

could have prevented a serious distortion of the news." He also found "a sense of doubt or. even cynicism about the Government . . . brought about I'm sure" by the press's having been deceived over Viet Nam, Watergate and the CIA. As for inaccuracy, "I think a lot of that was caused by my relative in accessibility ... I think that we've made some progress." Time was up; a strong accusation had been made but only softly documented. Was this -like Eisenhower's remark about the military-industrial complex -an unexpected, out-of-character presidential comment, to be made once and then dropped?

No. The sense of press irresponsibility persists. You can hear it authoritatively from Jerry Rafshoon, the Atlanta advertising man and old friend whom Carter brought in to refurbish the President's image. "We expected the press to give more attention to issues, to be bet ter informed," he complains. Back in 1976 Carter had said to Playboy: "The traveling press have zero interest in any issue unless it's a matter of making a mistake. What they're looking for is a 47-second argument between me and another candidate or something like that.

There's nobody in the back of this plane who would ask an issue question unless he thought he could trick me into some crazy statement."

Now Rafshoon complains about the "minute and 45 seconds" treatment of any issue on nightly TV newscasts, usually dramatized by some head-to-head conflict. Rafshoon scorn fully dismisses these as "process stories," not really what's going on.

"To Rafshoon" has become a Washington verb for image gilding; yet, it is hard to quarrel with an Administration attempt to get its act together and speak with one voice. Carter's problem has been more acute than most, since he for so long naively or generously let people like U.N. Ambassador Andrew Young and now deposed White House Aide Midge Costanza pop off at will.

That's changing. Last month Carter angrily told a closed-door State Department meeting to quit talking to the press about sensitive policy matters. The usu ally cool Press Secretary Jody Powell has denounced the New York Times for "arrogance" and for being "absurd" and "ridiculous" in suggesting policy dif- ferences between National Security Adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski and Secretary of State Cyrus Vance. Yet, in blessed contrast to the Nixon era's constant an imus toward the press and bugging of reportorial phones, Rafshoon regards leaks as "not the press's fault," but the Administration's own problem. He particularly resents leaks by middle-level bureaucrats who try to influence policy without being up on the latest developments, so that the later correct story never catches up with the first.

On the whole, the press corps seems to regard the Carter Administration with sympathy but disappointment, much as the country does, though with a more close-in awareness of Administration amateurishness, insensitivities and gaffes. In an abrasive job, Press Secretary Powell, folksy and disorganized, often has to stonewall, but he gets generally high marks for knowing the President's mind and playing square. Other Presidents before Carter have criticized the press for personifying and trivializing issues; that the charge is familiar makes it no less true. Still, the Middle East settlement emphasizes how much weight is deservedly given, by Sadat, Begin and Carter themselves, as well as by the press, not just to the substance of policy but also to the fact of conflict, the uses of drama and the impact of personality.

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