National Public Radio aired an apology and retraction more than one year after insinuating that a Christian political lobby group could be the culprit behind deadly anthrax-laced letters sent to Sens. Tom Daschle and Patrick Leahy.
Andrea Lafferty, executive director of the Traditional Values Coalition, told WorldNetDaily that the issue has been resolved “amicably,” and her group had no further comment.
 Anthrax-laced letter sent to Sen. Tom Daschle’s office in October 2001 |
As WorldNetDaily reported, NPR’s David Kestenbaum said in a Jan. 22, 2002, broadcast on the FBI’s probe of the anthrax attacks that “one group who had a gripe” with the Democratic leaders is the Washington, D.C.-based Traditional Values Coalition. However, Kestenbaum offered no evidence that the Christian group was a target of the investigation, citing only an August 2001 press release by TVC that criticized the senators for a policy decision.
Eight days later, after angry responses from the public, NPR aired a statement on its “letters” segment calling the report “inappropriate.” But Lafferty rejected the “pathetic statement” as a “non-apology and non-retraction,” according to her testimony July 11 before a House committee that oversees funding for the Corporate for Public Broadcasting, which helps support NPR affiliates. Congress members also criticized NPR on the House floor.
In an effort to resolve the matter, TVC sought legal counsel and, finally, last Thursday, NPR aired the following statement:
“In a story broadcast on Morning Edition on Jan. 22, 2002, National Public Radio said it had called the Traditional Values Coalition to ask if that group had been contacted by the FBI, investigating the mailing of anthrax to Senate offices on Capitol Hill. This report violated NPR editorial principles. No one had told our reporter that the Traditional Values Coalition was a suspect in the anthrax mailing. No facts were available then or since then to suggest that the group had any role in the anthrax mailing. NPR deeply regrets this mistake and apologizes for any false impression that the coalition was in any way involved in this investigation.”
An NPR communications department contact confirmed to WND that the network viewed the statement as an “amicable” resolution to the dispute, but said she was not prepared to answer why the apology came more than one year after the offending broadcast. A network spokeswoman who has followed the situation more closely did not respond.
Attack ‘at all levels’
In her testimony before the House last year, Lafferty maintained that what happened to her group was not “an isolated, one-time slip by some low-level National Public Radio reporter.”
She charged that the attack on TVC “has involved all levels of National Public Radio from the so-called ombudsman to the highest levels of NPR’s management. All of them acted in concert and closed ranks to defend the shoddy reporting of one of their own.”
Lafferty said that if “some banana republic dictator was accusing leftists of a crime, NPR commentators would be foaming at the mouth as they denounced the injustice.”
“But when conservative Christians are the accused – we are guilty until proven innocent,” she said. “And even when we prove our innocence, NPR cannot seem to make a reasonable apology or explanation of its egregious breach of journalistic ethics and conduct.”
According to an NPR transcript, Kestenbaum said on the Jan. 22, 2002, broadcast of Morning Edition:
“Two of the anthrax letters were sent to Senators Tom Daschle and Patrick Leahy, both Democrats. One group who had a gripe with Daschle and Leahy is the Traditional Values Coalition, which, before the attacks, had issued a press release criticizing the senators for trying to remove the phrase ‘so help me God’ from the oath. The Traditional Values Coalition, however, told me the FBI had not contacted them and then issued a press release saying NPR was in the pocket of the Democrats and trying to frame them.
“But investigators are thinking along these lines. FBI agents won’t discuss the case, but the people they have spoken with will. The FBI, for instance, has met with Planned Parenthood. Years before all this happened, Planned Parenthood and abortion clinics regularly received threatening anthrax letters containing white powder. The organization kept photocopies of the letters, and after this investigation began, FBI agents came by to check them out.”
Federal funding
NPR’s correction one week later, which also was posted on its website, said that Kestenbaum called TVC “to ask if it had been contacted by the FBI. The TVC said it had not, since there is no evidence that it was or should be investigated. The TVC said it was inappropriate for it to be named on the air. The NPR editors agree.”
Lafferty said in her House testimony, however, that “no retraction of the false statement was included in the ‘letter’; no apology to Traditional Values Coalition for impugning our organization was included in the statement, and nowhere in the statement does NPR explain why the report was aired without a single supporting fact or source.”
She told the panel that NPR has abused the public trust and urged Congress to end federal subsidy for the network.
At a Corporate for Public Broadcasting budget hearing before a House Appropriations subcommittee Feb. 28, several Republican lawmakers chastised NPR. House Labor and Health and Human Services Appropriations Subcommittee Chairman Rep. Ralph Regula, R-Ohio, said the story was “disrespectful of public support” and “erodes NPR’s credibility.”
The committee was considering CPB’s taxpayer subsidy for fiscal year 2005, which amounts to 8 to 9 percent of its total budget. Public Broadcasting asked for a raise of $15 million, to $395 million, and also a $2.3 million hike for “radio stations, to $61.5 million, and an increase of $1 million for “radio programs,” to $26.4 million.
On the House floor one day later, then-House Majority Whip Tom DeLay, R-Texas, said “NPR’s conduct is outrageous and ignores their basic responsibilities as journalists: presenting the facts to the public accurately and without bias.”
Rep. Roy Blunt, R-Mo., said, “NPR broke their contract with the American people by reporting hearsay as fact. They did their fellow journalists and their listeners a grave disservice.”
Blunt said NPR should issue “an equally public apology” to Traditional Values Coalition, and “Congress should look long and hard at the recipients of taxpayer dollars.”
NPR President and CEO Kevin Klose responded to the lawmakers in a March 6 letter, which said, “NPR holds itself to the highest standards of journalism, but unfortunately, from time to time, we make mistakes, and did so in this case.”
Klose insisted that he tried to contact TVC several times to solve the matter and got no response, but Lafferty maintained that she was away on a business trip and by that time had a lawyer involved with the case.
In July, Klose also testified before Regula’s panel and admitted “We have made mistakes at NPR. One mistake was … our report about TVC.”
“You have my personal apology for that mistake and I hope to go on from there,” Klose said.
Lafferty, however, said Klose’s “forced apology” was “theater” and insisted that his simple confession could not rectify the enormous damage done by the story.
“NPR continues to employ the ‘blame the rape victim’ tactic,” she told the committee. “Traditional Values Coalition is the victim here, but they are doing whatever they can to make it seem like we are the perpetrators, not NPR. I personally have suffered, as has Traditional Values Coalition.”
Lafferty also complained that “very person who is supposed to look out for the interests of the public, the NPR Ombudsman Jeffrey Dvorkin, joined the NPR smear bandwagon against me, Traditional Values Coalition and our 43,000 churches.”
She noted an interview with CNSNews.com in which Dvorkin said, “My sense is that Ms. Lafferty overstated the case. I think that Kestenbaum was just doing a normal story. He was not accusing anyone of anything.”
The TVC leader noted in July that her group’s lawyers were fighting for a full retraction.
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