Blogs

Keeping Up With K Street

By Hillary Profita

January 19, 2006 / 3:57 PM EST / CBS News

The Jack Abramoff lobbying scandal has ushered in all of what usually accompanies the advent of a government scandal: lawmakers are unleashing plans for "massive" reform – or at least repeating the word "reform" over and over on public affairs programs -- and the nation's newspapers have begun to unleash a flurry of editorials lambasting lawmakers for the lack of such reform until now. But, as a New York Times editorial seethes today that "it should not take scandal to drive home the need for reform," some are criticizing the Times and its brethren for similar transgressions -- that it should not take scandal to drive home the need for more aggressive reporting about what may eventually become a scandal.

In his story today about the "great rush among lawmakers who have been living high on the special-interest hog to carry the banner of 'reform,'" Howard Kurtz unloads on the media's handling of the lobbying industry:

"I think the press, with a few exceptions, had been snoozing about this issue until the Abramoff tale heated up. Only recently do we read that the number of lobbyists in Washington has doubled in the past few years, to 35,000. Only recently do we read that half the former members of Congress are lobbyists."

And Eric Boehlert at Huffington Post is far more fired up about the press "playing dumb" when it comes to a more specific lobbying issue, the K Street Project – "the [Rep. Tom] DeLay/Abramoff/[Sen. Rick]Santorum/[Grover] Norquist pay-to-play money machine that's playing a pivotal role in the GOP's deepening ethical morass," as Boehlert describes it. The New York Times described the K Street Project in a June 10, 2002 article about its creation as such:

"Mr. Norquist acknowledged that he and other prominent Republican lobbyists were researching the party affiliations of thousands of lobbyists 'with the object of letting people know how many R's and D's are being hired by trade associations or companies.' He said the aim was to have these organizations hire more Republicans to represent them."

But beyond that article and a similar one in the Washington Post at the time, before the Abramoff scandal hit a fever pitch following his guilty plea on Jan. 3, there was a "cone of silence" surrounding stories that examined the details of the K Street Project, argues Boehlert. He documents a review of media coverage of the K Street Project:

"Between June 10, 2002, and Jan. 3, 2006, here's how many news articles produced by the Times' D.C. bureau mentioned the K Street Project: 4. Here's how many mentioned it three or more times: 0. Between June 2002 and Jan. 3, 2006, here's how many Los Angeles Times articles mentioned the K Street Project three or more times: 0. USA Today: 0. Associated Press: 0. Miami Herald: 0. Chicago Tribune: 0. Boston Globe: 0. Newsweek: 0. Even the Washington Post, which is supposed to meticulously detail the legislative culture of D.C., published just three news articles that contained three or more references to the K Street Project.
As for television news? Here's how many references ABC News made to the K Street Project between June 2002 and Jan. 3, 2006: 1. CBS: 0. NBC: 1. MSNBC: 1. Fox News: 0. CNN: 5. CNN never aired a reported piece explaining what the K Street Project was, although CNN International did. If you do the math for that 2002-to-2006 timeframe, we're talking about thousands and thousands of hours of network and cable news programming aired with a grand total of 8 mentions of the K Street Project."

Boehlert doesn't take into account that New York Times columnist Paul Krugman discussed the K Street Project in two columns during the time frame referenced, as did Michael Crowley in a lengthy story about Abramoff for the New York Times Magazine. The Weekly Standard's Matthew Continetti also published an op-ed in the Times in October, shortly after Tom DeLay was indicted on conspiracy charges, that discussed the K Street Project.

And while the Washington Post published "just three news articles that contained three or more references to the K Street Project," between June 2002 and Jan. 3, 2006, the Times coverage of the issue pales in comparison. Those three Post articles – including a lengthy (1500 word) front-page look at the project by Jim Vandehei and Juliet Eilperin in June 2003 – were among 35 articles during that time frame that mentioned the K Street Project at least once, a Nexis search reveals.

I would hardly say that the issue was one overlooked by the Post. Yet, it is the hometown newspaper of Washington, where politics and lobbying are the preeminent industries. It's not that hard to imagine why stories about the annals of lobbying would be of considerable interest to Post readers and perhaps not so much to those who live elsewhere. So for television, where the coverage fell particularly short, the argument that the story is simply too "inside the beltway" for the average viewer -- who won't really care until some congressmen look to be heading toward a perp walk – isn't that far-fetched. On the other hand, isn't it part of the media's job description to serve up some spinach from time to time and try to make it taste good?