MEDIA ALERT!

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MEDIA ALERT!
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In a May 24th syndicated column for Tribune Media Services, Andy Rooney angrily berated Greek-Americans and other immigrant groups for a letter-writing campaign that asked Rooney to correct a historical gaffe he made during an Easter Sunday broadcast of "60 Minutes", CBS' top investigative news program.

Rooney initially declined to correct the error, but after receiving more than 650 letters issued a dour retraction and apology during a May 20th broadcast. In his May 24th column, however, he lambasted Greeks as a people who derive a "perverse pleasure" from their "enduring hatred" and berated Greek-American and other immigrant groups for "not choos[ing] to be thoroughly American".

Rooney feigns concern for ethnic hatreds between Greeks and Turks as a pretext to justify his own derogatory stereotyping of both groups. Worse yet, Rooney metamorphoses a question of journalistic integrity into an exercise in ethnic-bating to retaliate against Greek-Americans for speaking up about his embarrassing historical gaffe.

Rooney's message is clear: unless you conform to some obsolete mythology of what a 'real' American is, relinquish your heritage, and stay silent when narrow-minded bigots with bully pulpits misstate and insult your religion and history, you should go back to where you came from.

The American Hellenic Media Project has asked for Rooney's dismissal from both "60 Minutes" and Tribune Media Services. Rooney's violation of journalistic ethics and past bigoted remarks against African-Americans, gays and other groups, which resulted in his suspension from "60 Minutes", are additional reasons for seeking Rooney's dismissal.

Rooney's bigoted May 24th column can be viewed here.

For more information on Rooney's invective, please read the below article.

Please help us send a loud and clear message that there is no place for ethnic-bating, negative stereotyping and intolerance in our media:

60 Minutes contact information:
audsvcs@cbs.com; 60M@cbsnews.com; sjb@cbsnews.com
Tel.: 212-975-4321
Fax: 212-975-2019

Tribune Media Services contact information:
ddwilliams@tribune.com; wmahoney@tribune.com; bneedleman@tribune.com; dkraska@tribune.com; fschecker@tribune.com; ebecker@tribune.com; tclark@tribune.com; burycki@tribune.com
Tel.: 1-800-245-6536 800-346-8798

** Important: Please maintain a courteous and professional tone.

*** Please forward this web page to five or more friends or colleagues who you believe will act on it -- after five cycles, your e-mail can generate 3,125 letters.
(To avoid ">>>" please copy and paste the entire text onto a new e-mail when forwarding)

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Media Accuracy Group Asks for Andy Rooney's Dismissal for Racist Remarks

By P. D. Spyropoulos

In the past, Andy Rooney has run into trouble for making offensive remarks against gays, Native Americans and African-Americans, including a 1990 assertion that "blacks have watered down genes because the less intelligent ones are the ones that have the most children".

Now Rooney, a commentator for CBS' investigative news program "60 Minutes", has set his sights on Greek-Americans and other immigrant groups.

Rooney censured Greeks as a people who derive a "perverse pleasure" from their "enduring hatred" of Turks in a May 24th syndicated column, berating Greek-American and other immigrant groups for "not choos[ing] to be thoroughly American" ("Greek-Turk Feud", Tribune Media Services).

Rooney's comments came at the heals of a successful letter-writing campaign initiated by the American Hellenic Media Project (AHMP, www.ahmp.org), a Web-based volunteer media accuracy group. Participants asked Rooney to correct a glaring historical error he made during an Easter Sunday broadcast of "60 Minutes" where he mistakenly attributed Byzantine Christian depictions of Jesus to Muslim Turkish artists.

While Rooney acknowledged the error during an April 27th phone conversation with AHMP, he stated that it was unlikely he would issue a correction because few people cared and the issue only mattered to Greeks. Rooney rejected the argument made to him that he had a professional responsibility as a journalist to issue a correction regardless of how many people cared about the issue.

Rooney stated that he had received only a few letters and invited e-mails to be forwarded to him regarding the issue. AHMP subsequently issued a media alert asking the public to write to Rooney to ask for a correction.

As a result of pressure generated by the letter-writing effort, Rooney issued a dour on-air correction on May 20th, complaining that "Greeks were furious and demanded an apology" and closing with the comment "Come on, you Greeks, be divine. Forgive me."

In contrast to Rooney's on-air retraction, his May 24th column bristled with resentment against Greek-Americans. Rooney derided "some full-time Greeks in America" for their "orchestrated demand for a retraction", complaining that "[t]hey sent me 600 e-mails, countless letters and kept my phone busy accusing me of blasphemy". Yet Rooney himself had invited the letters, and his staff even provided an e-mail address for this purpose. Rooney went so far as to argue that Greek-Americans should go back to Greece if they "wish to continue hating the Turks for eternity".

Even more troubling were Rooney's numerous misrepresentations regarding the letter-writing effort itself in an apparent attempt to reinforce negative ethnic stereotypes and cast Greek-Americans in a negative light.

For example, Rooney misleadingly characterized the historical background included in AHMP's letter as "a long diatribe on what happened to Byzantium". This "diatribe" was comprised exclusively of quotes from Byzantine scholar Steven Runciman and other authorities, and were included to address Rooney's own unfamiliarity with the relevant history at issue.

Moreover, Rooney's portrayal of the letters he received as angry and hateful was patently dishonest and unfair. AHMP was carbon copied on the lion's share of the e-mails "60 Minutes" received, and what was most impressive was the sober, cordial and usually complimentary tone of the vast majority of these letters. This was fully in line with the tenor of AHMP's media alert, which asked participants to "maintain a courteous and professional tone".

Selectively focusing on a few bad apples and then generalizing to an entire group lies at the heart of Rooney's negative stereotyping. Worse yet, Rooney feigns concern for ethnic hatreds between Greeks and Turks as a pretext to justify his own derogatory stereotyping of both groups -- wagging his finger at the hate-filled Greek and Turkish straw men he has created as cover for his own intolerance.

To be sure, Greek attitudes towards Turkey are informed by a memory of profound repression stretching across centuries and encompassing slavery, multiple genocides, and widespread human rights violations that are still being perpetrated today in places like Cyprus and Istanbul. "Not Even My Name", Thea Halo's wrenching memoir of her family's death march during the Pontian Greek Genocide, is one example of the enduring scars many survivors still carry with them -- a far cry from Rooney's trivialization of "hatred" born out of "some centuries-old event".

Rooney is unaware that the modern-day controversy between Greece and Turkey is not one between two peoples, but between a now progressive European democracy forced into chronic conflict with a highly militarized and expansionist-minded state burdened with one of the worst human rights records on earth.

Rooney compounds his original on-air blunder with his ignorance of the unprecedented détente in Greco-Turkish affairs that has captured much of the world's attention. The 'earthquake diplomacy' that launched a warming of relations between both countries was triggered by the spontaneous outpouring of popular emotional, financial and political support by ordinary Greeks for the victims of Turkey's devastating 1999 earthquake. In a historic gesture of goodwill, the Greek government removed its long-standing veto to Turkey's European Union candidacy at Helsinki in order to encourage Turkey's democratization and stabilize its volatile region. Most recently, Greece became an ardent advocate for Ankara's $12 billion bid for international funding to ameliorate Turkey's current financial crisis.

These realities hardly conform with the aspersions of "perverse [and] enduring hatred" that Rooney tries to cast upon all Greeks and Turks. Rooney's simplistic paradigms not only offend but hold little resemblance to contemporary truths.

Moreover, Rooney's metamorphosing a question of journalistic integrity into an exercise in ethnic-bating to retaliate against Greek-Americans for speaking up about his embarrassing historical gaffe is what is perverse and thoroughly un-American.

Not long ago, interviewer Arthur Unger asked Rooney whether he "uses his curmudgeon persona to mask his white-sheet ideas". Rooney's latest attack against Americans of Greek descent offers a revealing answer.

Rooney once declared that "a great many people don't have the right to their own opinion because they don't know what they are talking about." Although Rooney fails to heed his own advice, he nevertheless has an absolute right to voice his beliefs however uninformed and intolerant they may be. His targeting of ethnic and immigrant groups however has no place in Tribune Media Services syndication, and ought to be anathema to a highly-respected investigative news program such as "60 Minutes".

Rooney's racist assertions against African-Americans resulted in his suspension from "60 Minutes" even though his remark was not made on the program. His disparaging statements against gay people also resulted in his suspension. "60 Minutes" now has an opportunity to demonstrate that racist invectives against Greek-Americans and other immigrant groups merit the same concern.

One wonders how many peoples he must disparage, or ethical tenets of journalism he must violate, before "60 Minutes" and Tribune Media Services finally pull the plug on Andy Rooney.

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American Hellenic Media Project
PO Box 1150
New York, NY 10028-0008
ahmp@hri.org
www.ahmp.org
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The American Hellenic Media Project (AHMP) is a non-profit organization created to address inaccuracy and bias in the media and encourage independent, ethical and responsible journalism.

To be added to AHMP's e-mail distribution list, or to introduce AHMP to a friend or colleague, please forward the pertinent name and e-mail address, with the subject heading "Add e-mail to AHMP distribution list", to ahmp@hri.org

You are encouraged to forward this e-mail to five or more individuals who may have an interest in our e-distributions or in AHMP's mission.

(posted June 4, 2001)

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