The MacNeil/Lehrer NewsHour

MS. WOODRUFF: Good evening. I'm Judy Woodruff in New York.

MR. LEHRER: And I'm Jim Lehrer in Washington. After our summary of the news this Thursday, six political and journalism pros discuss the latest thing in running for President, hitting the talk show circuit, and Charlayne Hunter-Gault talks race with Wall Street Journal editor Joseph Boyce. NEWS SUMMARY

MR. LEHRER: A visit by President Bush to Panama was marred today by anti U.S. demonstrations. The President was hustled away from a plaza in Panama City after explosions were heard and tear gas began to reach a podium where he was about to speak. Police had fired the tear gas at a small group of protesters about 100 yards from the President. Demonstrations began shortly after the President's arrival this morning. The demonstrators denounced Mr. Bush for ordering the 1989 invasion of Panama that ousted Gen. Manuel Noriega. The protest came one day after gunmen killed one U.S. soldier and injured another. The President was taken to a nearby U.S. air base after today's incident. He called it "a tiny left wing demonstration." Mr. Bush left Panama tonight for the Earth Summit in Rio De Janeiro. Security was heavy there as more than 110 world leaders began arriving. As he left Washington this morning, Mr. Bush said he remained firmly against the so-called biodiversity treaty, which is aimed at protecting animals and plants.

PRES. BUSH: I cannot speak for actions other nations may take, but this I promise. I will stand up for American interests and the interests of a cleaner environment. And if the United States has to be the only nation to stand against the biodiversity treaty as now drawn, so be it. I believe deeply in protecting our common environment and I will proudly present in Rio the U.S. record that is second to none anywhere in the world.

MR. LEHRER: Yesterday the White House announced the U.S. would support the Rio declaration, a non-binding statement on environmental rights and responsibilities. The United States will also sign a global warming treaty. Judy.

MS. WOODRUFF: The House of Representatives this evening defeated the constitutional amendment to balance the federal budget. A majority favored the measure, but they narrowly failed to achieve the 2/3 required for constitutional amendments. The amendment required the President to submit a balanced budget and Congress to keep it balanced unless 3/5 of all members of the House and Senate voted to raise taxes or borrow money. Here's a sample of today's floor debate.

REP. ROD CHANDLER, [R] Washington: Well, let me tell you something. If you think the American people are mad now, just defeat this one ray of hope we have for finally reaching a federal -- reducing the federal deficit, and you will really see a revolt.

REP. THOMAS FOLEY, Speaker of the House: The Constitution will not balance the budget. It will not present courage automatically upon its gratification if it should be ratified to see to it that budgets would be balanced. Only with the political will that so many say is missing will that occur.

MS. WOODRUFF: The vote was 280 to 153, nine votes short of the 2/3 majority. It effectively kills the measure for this session of Congress.

MR. LEHRER: Fighting subsided in the Bosnian capital of Sarajevo today. That allowed a United Nations convoy to reach the city's center. It is carrying a team of officials trying to reopen the Sarajevo airport for flights of desperately needed humanitarian supplies. We have a report narrated by Louise Bates of Worldwide Television News.

MS. BATES: The U.N. convoy brought a 50-man team that will try to restore a cease-fire.

BRIG. GEN. LEWIS MacKENZIE, U.N. Commander: Artillery, air defense weapons, and missile systems and mortars are to be placed in central locations in each side and UN Prefor personnel will live at those positions to make sure that both sides are not using their artillery and mortars. And if that happens successfully, and only if that happens, then the Security Council will meet for a second time and they will authorize the dispatch of one of UN Prefor's battalions to come to the airport and assume the responsibility for the security of the airport. And I want to emphasize that we're not taking the airport away from anybody. We are not in a position to take, we don't want to take, and we will not take the airport away.

MS. BATES: UN relief flights cannot arrive soon enough. Sarajevo's defenses are short of just about everything.

MR. LEHRER: President Bush today discounted reports U.S. troops would be sent to Bosnia, but he did not rule it out. The Washington Post reported today the administration was considering the use of U.S. forces as security for humanitarian efforts. The President said this at the White House during an early morning meeting with members of Congress.

PRES. BUSH: When the United States sees people that are hungry we help. And, again, that's bipartisan or non-partisan. That's just been the hallmark of our country. So we will do what we should do. But I'm not going to go into the fact of using U.S. troops. We're not the world's policemen. It's a very complicated situation. But it's one that we're following very closely.

MR. LEHRER: Sec. of State Baker will meet tomorrow in London with the Russian foreign minister. The two failed to agree on deep new cuts in nuclear arsenals during talks in Washington earlier this week. Yesterday, Russian President Boris Yeltsin accused the United States of seeking an advantage. He said he would resist U.S. efforts to eliminate all land-based multiple warhead missiles. Yeltsin arrives in Washington Monday for his summit with President Bush.

MS. WOODRUFF: Ross Perot returned to the television talk show circuit today to bash President Bush. He spent two hours on the Today Show fielding questions from viewers. He said the President was to blame for the savings & loan crisis because he was in charge of deregulation as vice president during the Reagan administration. He also blamed Bush policies for building up Saddam Hussein before Iraq invaded Kuwait. Vice President Quayle again scorned what he called "the nation's cultural elite" today, saying they were out of touch with the values of mainstream America. Speaking to the National Right to Life Convention in Washington, he said those values include limitations on abortion.

VICE PRES. QUAYLE: In Hollywood and elsewhere our opponents have a lot of money, a lot of glamour and a lot of influence, but we have the power of ideas, the power of our convictions, and the power of our beliefs. [applause] We shall carry the day perhaps with a setback now and again, but with a long range trend running surely to victory. We shall carry the day in defense of mothers and children, because the American people are far ahead of the country's self-appointed cultural elites.

MS. WOODRUFF: Gov. Bill Clinton had no public presidential campaign events today.

MR. LEHRER: On the U.S. economy today, the Labor Department reported wholesale prices rose .4 percent in May. Higher prices for gasoline, tobacco, and clothing were the main factors. The Commerce Department reported retail sales rose .2 percent last month. The report said gains in auto sales were offset by fewer purchases at clothing and hardware stores. Major League baseball owners gave final approval today for the sale of the Seattle Mariners baseball team. The vote in New York City will allow a Japanese-led group to buy the team for $125 million. The president of the video game maker, Nintendo, is the chief investor. As a condition of the sale, he will have only limited control over the team.

MS. WOODRUFF: In Phoenix, Arizona, a gunman wearing a bullet proof vest killed one woman and wounded two others in a city government office building today. Police shot and killed the man in an ensuing gun battle. A police spokesman said there was no information on the gunman's identity or motive. In New Haven, Connecticut, two teenage boys were arrested today in the shooting of a six-year-old boy. The child was riding in a school bus yesterday when it was caught in the middle of a gun fight between rival gangs. One bullet hit the child in the head. He remains in critical condition, following three hours of surgery. Doctors said it was too early for a prognosis. The two suspects are 15 and 17 years old.

MR. LEHRER: And that's it for the News Summary tonight. Now, it's on to running for President on the talk shows and a conversation about race. FOCUS - DIRECT APPEAL

MR. LEHRER: There is, indeed, a new and forceful way to run for President of the United States. It's going on the talk shows and call-ins. Already, there are experts around saying it will surely go down as something important left behind by the 1992 campaign no matter who finally wins it. Its use was dramatically seen this morning when Ross Perot spent two hours taking calls on NBC's Today Show. We'll get six views of this new way of campaigning after this backgrounder.

PHIL DONAHUE: I'll introduce you and that'll be -- you guys will talk.

MS. WOODRUFF: Just before the New York primary in April, Bill Clinton and Jerry Brown squared off on Phil Donahue's program, where the normally talkative host turned over his microphone to the two candidates.

PHIL DONAHUE: Here we go. I'm pleased to present Gov. Brown, Gov. Clinton.

LARRY KING: You don't -- you're not six foot two. You don't look like John Kennedy.

MS. WOODRUFF: The following week, Ross Perot declared his undeclared candidacy on Larry King Live, a popular hour long evening call-in show on CNN.

ROSS PEROT: [April 16] The whole thing is driven by the desire of the American people to have a government that comes from them. They are tired of a government in gridlock in Washington, and they are very tired of a government that sends them messages and tries to program them.

MS. WOODRUFF: And in case that appearance was too conventional, the week after he took a call from a television host even further out of the political mainstream.

DAVID LETTERMAN: ["Late Night with David Letterman" April 21] Is Mr. Perot there?

SPOKESPERSON: Yes, just a moment.

DAVID LETTERMAN: Kind of scared now. Hello. Hello. Hello. Mr. Big Shot can't answer his own phone.

ROSS PEROT: Ross Perot.

DAVID LETTERMAN: Hello.

ROSS PEROT: Hello.

DAVID LETTERMAN: Yes, yes, Mr. Perot.

ROSS PEROT: How are you, David?

DAVID LETTERMAN: Good, good. Thank you very much for chatting with us here this evening. Now when you go to work in the morning, what exactly do you do?

ROSS PEROT: I have to come in early and work hard. I've got a wife and four daughters. So I have to work hard to stay even, David.

DAVID LETTERMAN: Do you find that a dollar just doesn't go as far as it used to?

MS. WOODRUFF: As Perot's non-candidacy grabbed headlines, Bill Clinton's clinching of the Democratic nomination was barely noticed. He resurfaced on Arsenio, the syndicated late night talk show hosted by Arsenio Hall. This week, both Clinton and Perot accepted The Today Show's offer of a full hour of live, call-in exposure.

MALE CALLER: Anyway, let me ask you briefly two questions: First of all, your -- not your stand but your opinion of the future of pro-choice/pro-life.

BILL CLINTON: I'm strongly pro-choice. I oppose the Bush administration's efforts to repeal Roe V. Wade, their efforts to support illegal behavior on the part of Operation Rescue. I oppose the gag rule. I'm against the way they've handled this issue. I think it's possible in this country to be pro-family and pro- choice. And I think it would be a big mistake to repeal Roe V. Wade.

MALE CALLER: My question is: What are your plans as President to reduce the national deficit?

BILL CLINTON: Good question. It's $400 billion now. Here are my plans. No. 1, ask Congress for a line item veto so the President can exercise more restraint over the budget. And No. 2, present a budget that keeps current revenues and current expenditures in line. We have too many programs that increase it two and three times the rate of inflation. That's especially true in health care costs. No. 3, get our costs from the savings & loan debacle down as quickly as possible. And No. 4, increase our investment in the future, the kinds of government investments that actually create jobs and increase economic growth in roads and bridges and water and sewer systems and in high speed rail systems, and those kinds of things that would actually generate a very high rate of growth, which means more people paying taxes and fewer people drawing tax money.

ROSS PEROT: [June 11] Well, what do you want me to answer?

FEMALE CALLER: [Vero Beach, Florida] I wondered if you really are going to not give people over 60,000 any Social Security benefits.

ROSS PEROT: I have never said that. We, in terms of what I did try to answer you, let's assume we have people who just don't need it. I would first ask them to voluntarily give it up. Do you have any problem with that?

FEMALE CALLER: Mr. Perot --

ROSS PEROT: You don't think we should even ask them to voluntarily give it up?

FEMALE CALLER: Well, if they want to, but --

ROSS PEROT: That's what voluntarily means, I will give it up. I think there are many, many people who will say if that will help, I will give it up. Now, I bet -- we've never met, but I bet if I had time to visit with you, you have done a thousand good things for other people and reached out to help them, because that's the way people your age are. Now, that's all we're talking about here.

FEMALE CALLER: Well, you can afford to give it up.

ROSS PEROT: That's the criteria, people who can afford to give it up.

MODERATOR: Who are those people, Mr. Perot?

ROSS PEROT: Let's go make the computer runs and define it. This is a rational analysis. Then if you want to, you can send them a letter or a postcard and say, gee, would you consider this? Then I think you'll find it very heart warming. Now, if everybody in our country who could help other people won't help other people and just sits here saying I've got mine and to heck with you, we're dead as a country. Now that's not what --

MS. WOODRUFF: Perot proved so popular the Today Show cancelled its other segments and extended his appearance this morning for a second hour. So far, President Bush has not agreed to appear on the Today Show. He did hold a prime time news conference last week which the three broadcast networks refused to carry, claiming it was politics, not news. Yesterday, the President made a speech supporting the balanced budget amendment which the White House transmitted via satellite to "anybody who wants to use it."

PRES. BUSH: Tomorrow, the House of Representatives faces a critical vote on the balanced budget amendment. And right now is the time for some straight talk about our national deficit.

MS. WOODRUFF: As for the coming weeks, Ross Perot plans to hold more so-called "electronic town meetings," two-way satellite conferences that he says would be a regular feature of a Perot Presidency. Bill Clinton has bought a half hour of prime time on NBC this Friday and again next Sunday during which he will answer more viewer calls. And President Bush is pondering an offer that Bill Clinton has already accepted, an hour long call-in show for the viewers of MTV.

MS. WOODRUFF: Here to discuss the campaign by talk show phenomenon are two media critics and four veterans of previous Presidential campaigns. The critics are Jonathan Alter of Newsweek Magazine and Howard Kurtz of the Washington Post. The former managers are John Sears, who ran part of Ronald Reagan's campaign in 1980, Bill Carrick, who ran Richard Gephardt's 1988 campaign, Brian Lunde, who ran Paul Simon's campaign that same year; he joins us from Providence, Rhode Island; and Marc Nuttle, who managed the Pat Robertson campaign four years ago and worked on the 1984 Reagan-Bush reelection team. He's in Norman, Oklahoma, tonight. I want to begin with the two journalists here, the media critics. And Jonathan, you're here. I'm going to start with you. Who watches these talk shows? I realize there's a difference, of course, in who the MTV audience is from the Today Show. But how is the audience that say of the Donahue Show and of the Today Show and whatever different from say the people who read the newspaper and the people who watch the so-called "traditional news show?" Is there a difference?

MR. ALTER: Yeah, there is a difference. The people who watch these shows are much closer to the average American than the people who say watch Sunday shows or read the New York Times. I think you have a situation where there's almost two rebellions at once going on. There's a rebellion against politics as usual and a rebellion against the media as usual, and a sense that media is too mediated, if you will, there are too many people getting in the way between the politicians and the voters. And these kinds of shows, there's some dangers which we could talk about, but they create a sense of participation that's mostly very positive. They give people a sense of connection to these candidates.

MS. WOODRUFF: I want to get into that, but I first want to try to nail down are they younger, are they -- you said they're more close to the average American.

MR. ALTER: Most people do not get their news from newspapers, unfortunately. They get their news exclusively from television and if you look at the combined ratings even of the tabloid shows, this is kind of a disturbing statistic, they exceed the combined ratings of the network news programs. So you have large numbers of people, really huge ratings for shows like Donahue. The Today Show does very well. Something like Arsenio is actually -- the ratings are significantly lower than one might imagine. But if you make the circuit, if you go to all of these, both on cable and in broadcast television, you're going to reach a tremendous number of people.

MS. WOODRUFF: Howard Kurtz, are these -- do these people tend to be younger than traditional news readers and watchers? Is it an audience that's mostly voters? Are they non-voters? Do we know enough about that?

MR. KURTZ: Many of them are certainly younger and I think, you know, a common thread would be a lot of them are just sort of tuned out to politics or not tuned in in the way that people who watch MacNeil-Lehrer might be. And so, you know, it was no accident that Ross Perot, who started this sort of talkathon, launched his candidacy on Larry King Live, which might on another night have on a movie star or a soap opera person. And so you want to reach people on the air when people are tuned out and as Jonathan says tuned out to the way that we cover things, which, as you know from during the primaries, we tend to have this -- we get distracted. We have this focus on horse race and polls and strategy and a lot of people wonder what that has to do with their lives. And so the talk shows -- these talk shows we're discussing -- are an opportunity for the candidates to be unfiltered, to sort of have a longer period of time to sell their message.

MS. WOODRUFF: Right. Bill Carrick, what can the candidates accomplish? What can they accomplish by going this route, rather than just letting themselves be interviewed the traditional way?

MR. CARRICK: There are two things they get accomplished. One is they have the appearance that they're talking directly to the American people. It's a conversation directly to people with no filters, and the filters are usually the press, who, as Howie points out, are basically asking process questions and horse race questions, what the public really is not interested in. They're more interested in what somebody's going to do about the economy or health care or the issues that confront them in their daily lives. I think the second thing is it just gives them an enormous exposure to a lot of people who aren't in the sort of hard news universe. These are people who are very difficult to reach through the newspapers or through broadcast news. So you get to expand your base of opportunity to speak to people way beyond anything imaginable with so-called "free media exposure."

MS. WOODRUFF: John Sears, would you agree with that, that you just reach a different crowd of people out there this way?

MR. SEARS: Well, I think you do but I would want to add here that this is not really a new phenomenon. Richard Nixon appeared on the Jack Parr Show many years ago. Both Bobby and Jack Kennedy did the same. Ronald Reagan appeared on Donahue's show in the '70s before it was nationally syndicated. For a time, many of these shows did not invite political candidates because they felt then constrained to invite all of them. And in years when we had many people running in Presidential primaries, that just wasn't possible and they didn't want to do that. So for some reason we stopped doing it for a while. Now I think, you know, the fact that there are many more of these kinds of shows around who are in competition with each other has led them back into more of this. Now, for both the voter and for the candidate, this is a chance for people to get to know who this man is. I don't think they do feel through the normal news waves that they get that opportunity and I think that's why both the candidates are doing it and the people like it.

MS. WOODRUFF: Brian Lunde, is this something that you would have thought of trying for Paul Simon in 1988?

MR. LUNDE: Well, it was tried in certain formats, satellite interviews and that kind of interchange with voters largely through the media as a filter, doing a satellite interview, but we weren't offered that many opportunities in the campaign to have these unfiltered situations where we could talk directly with the voters, have them talk back, basically removing a moderator, removing the media from the middle. We didn't have that many opportunities, so we were largely left in 1988 with debates and satellite interviews as the primary way to use free media to communicate with the voters.

MS. WOODRUFF: I mean, is this something that would have appealed, I mean, if you'd had the opportunity?

MR. LUNDE: Initially it does to get your message out to the voters, kind of a national message to a national audience in as many ways as you can, but then I think you've got to watch your step with this, because you may run -- in a sense, you run out of things to say and it becomes politics as entertainment then after awhile. You have to be very entertaining if you're going to continue in a David Letterman/Phil Donahue type situation. And that leads us down to a politics as entertainment, which I think can be harmful to a candidate later on. Initially to get your initial message out, it's very helpful. Then I think it can be very risky as you get into the campaign season.

MS. WOODRUFF: Marc Nuttle, do you agree with that that there are some dangers in this, or not?

MR. NUTTLE: No, I don't. Since 1974, people have been telling us at the national level that they want personal contact in campaigns. Talk show format solves part of that problem. Further, we've known since 1985 that the mass communications in this country today is becoming very fractured. You cannot buy the evening news anymore and reach all of your market, therefore, there's a shift in what to buy. There's also a shift in format. A lot of the people now that are in the decision making process are tuning into talk shows rather than the evening news.

MS. WOODRUFF: When you say there's a splitting of the audience, what do you mean? What are you saying -- you can't reach everybody the same way?

MR. NUTTLE: Let me give you a couple of numbers. In 1972, 86 percent of the American society received most of their information from the evening news. In other words, if you were a national buyer of a product, you could buy the evening news for a week, the three major networks, and get 86 percent saturation. In 1990, that was 26 percent. That is a shift as great as the shift when TV was invented in the 1930s to where it got to be 86 percent. Where all of those viewers are going is into a -- what Toffer calls "a mosaic market," everything from cable to video to radio to some print press. And you have to be more sophisticated in how you buy. That's one thing. And also, the other phenomenon that's happening, and has been going on since the early '70s, is the increase of the registration of independents in this country versus Republicans and Democrats. In 1972, there were only two states that had more independents registered than Republicans and Democrats. By 1990, it was in excess of 23 states. The parties have failed to provide a communication vehicle. Now those independents and as they are trying to make up their mind in national elections, are breaking apart across-the-board in how they receive their information. And this fundamental shift in how society receives its information is also part and parcel of the shift to the talk shows because that's what they tune into now, because it's the only access that they have.

MS. WOODRUFF: Let me come back to you, Jon Alter, picking up on that point, and you all touched on this, are voters -- is the electorate better off because of this? I mean, you all have talked about -- some of you have talked about, you know, this, the filter is gone now. Do the voters really know more? Do they learn more just by watching the candidate go on and on with cute questions?

MR. ALTER: The voters are better off as long as they see this as a supplement for more conventional journalism, not as a replacement for that journalism. If you just get all of your "news" from talk shows, you're in real trouble if you want to be an informed citizen.

MS. WOODRUFF: Why?

MR. ALTER: Because as good as many of the questions can be from regular viewers, oftentimes they are more on point than the questions from journalists, it's very hard to follow up when you're sitting in your kitchen, trying to challenge a candidate. And sometimes you really need to follow up. The candidate will say something that just isn't so. I mean, just to give you a quick example with Ross Perot this morning, he said he came from a very modest family. Well, in fact, his family belonged to a country club when he was a child. He said he was just paying his bills at the time he founded EDS. In fact, he was quite a wealthy man from working at IBM. He said that he had no policy against wearing beards at work. In fact, there was a policy at EDS against wearing beards. Now, your average voter can't be expected to know all that. That's not their job. They're busy. That is the job of a journalist to develop some of this information and then confront the candidate with that information. If you want to -- it's great to have this, but if you want to leave the journalist out of the process altogether, you're going to be in real trouble.

MS. WOODRUFF: Bill --

MR. KURTZ: Judy, if I could just add to that.

MS. WOODRUFF: Sure.

MR. KURTZ: That's, of course, what makes -- our adversarial role is what makes us unpopular, you know, why people love to beat up on the press, because we're the ones sitting there, saying, now wait a minute, Gov. Clinton, you said you were going to cut defense by 40 percent, which is what he said on the Today Show the other day, what bases are you going to close down, what weapons systems would you scrap? And the call-in format doesn't really allow for the follow-up, because they're sort of hopscotching around the country. And that is good in the sense that it gives people a sense of participation, but as John says, doesn't allow for pointing out inconsistencies.

MS. WOODRUFF: But Bill Carrick, do the voters really care about that? Is that something -- something they ought to care about, but do they care about that?

MR. CARRICK: I feel that voters find that most of the media coverage trivializes the campaigns and that they resent it very deeply. And I think that to say that the print journalist or this show does a great job is not to suggest that the American people judge the standards of mass journalism by either this show or the standards of the New York Times and the Washington Post. It's just they resent the media coverage. They find it trivial, and the idea that they can, you know, surgically remove this medium between them and the candidate --

MS. WOODRUFF: The reporter.

MR. CARRICK: The reporter -- and they can have a direct dialogue is extremely attractive to them.

MS. WOODRUFF: John Sears, where do you come down on whether the voters, the electorate is better off or not by this new --

MR. SEARS: Well, I think as John said, as long as it is a supplement, or at least as long as people are both looking at television news and reading newspapers, which we would hope they would do, and doing this, it's all fine. You know, what this kind of stuff really satisfies the need of the voter about is his need to try to find some way personally -- and television isn't that personal, but it's better than having a filter in-between -- to know what kind of people these are. And so in these kinds of soft news or panel show settings, they have a much better chance to sort of look and see, well, do I trust that man, do I think he's telling me the truth? Now, it is --

MS. WOODRUFF: So are you saying it doesn't matter so much, you know, John Alter's point that, well, he said, you know, when he founded EDS, he wasn't --

MR. SEARS: I think that matters and I think the voters look to the press really to balance this, as John was saying, and to point out the things where perhaps technically a candidate's giving himself a little of the better of it. But then they can take that amount of information and see whether it really is essentially important in making their decision as to whom to vote for. But I think what they've been lacking or feeling they've been lacking out of the normal press coverage is that they don't feel that they really get to know who these people are. And in a day where we don't have as many rallies, where we don't have as many situations where people have a chance to really get to see the candidates up close, you know, these news shows do provide a function, or these soft news shows provide a function.

MS. WOODRUFF: Brian Lunde, are people better off overall because, as John Sears says, they get a sense of whether they can trust this person or not, even if they don't get all the fine print accurately?

MR. LUNDE: You do get a better sense of the man, the person running for President, but at the same time it's misleading. All you really get is a longer sound bite. You don't really get into substantive policy discussions. Whether you've been given a half an hour on Larry King or whether you were given 16 seconds on the nightly news, it's still a series of sound bites. You may get a better sense of that person, but you get the feeling of being more involved, but you really aren't, and that's why you have to use other mediums, like newspapers and radios and all kinds of different ways to receive information and not rely on these talk shows. I think they can be very misleading.

MS. WOODRUFF: Marc Nuttle, is that -- do you worry about that?

MR. NUTTLE: I agree both with Bill and John on this matter for this reason. The American people have suspicions about the national press that they continue to state their opinion as fact rather than just the facts. And they want their input. Then the national press will interview a party leader for either party and they put some spin on it, which is really almost becoming to the point that it's irrelevant. I could tell you it's ineffective and it's sometimes inoffensive. Both Newsweek and the Washington Post have cartoons on this now that's being circulated around the country and people want input. So these talk shows become more personal. It humanizes it. It gives them their access, their ability to talk directly to the candidate away from anyone they have suspicions with, and anyone that's going to put a spin on it that they instinctively know is not true.

MR. KURTZ: Well, you know, the word "spin" was invented really by the modern political campaign and these candidates are, have legions of people working for them to get their message out. I mean, Perot, for example, has an interesting rhetorical device where he was asked this morning about health care, he says, well, I'm going to change the health care system, but it's too complicated to sound bite it. Well, of course, he had two hours if he wanted to give a much longer sound bite. One thing that Perot is doing that the others are not and that perhaps is cause for concern among we beltway reporters is, you know, he's not traveling around the country, trailed by journalists. He's not holding press conferences. Television really is his campaign and that's one of the things that makes this phenomenon a little bit different.

MS. WOODRUFF: But I want to come back -- you know, let me ask again, Bill Carrick, John Sears, any of you, is that a problem? I mean, is that a problem for the electorate, that the candidate is now able to say, okay, I'm going to go on Arsenio and I'm going to do the Today Show and that's how I'm going to get my message out this year?

MR. CARRICK: Is it a problem for the electorate? The electorate is basically getting a chance to see these candidates in a wide range of different formats. Now, if we look at '88, the problem for the electorate was the candidates basically were spending their entire day positioning themselves for an eight second sound bite on the nightly news and whoever had the best capacity to read off a teleprompter the words written by a speechwriter was the best candidate of the day. And I think in this situation we're seeing candidates in a spontaneous environment where they're being challenged for the first time.

MR. ALTER: This is a very positive development. It's hard to go on and use a script, so I think we're going to see a separation if this catches on and has a permanent place in American politics between those people who over two hours come across as intelligent and can think on their feet and those who can't. So, I mean, I would argue this is not a good development for Dan Quayle. You just simply can't script him enough to be able to sit out there for two hours and at the end of that two hours have people be extremely impressed with him. So we see a division between those candidates who succeed as they can adapt to this format and those who are less able to do so. One thing that scares me about it is the next step from talk shows is using your phone to vote. This is what Perot wants to do with his electronic town hall if he's elected. And while the talk shows --

MS. WOODRUFF: What's wrong with that?

MR. ALTER: Well, it's -- to me, it's just terribly dangerous. I mean, not only does it circumvent representative government and is contrary to what the Constitution is about, but it's also totally unscientific and easy to manipulate and just a bad idea for -- it allows the President to say he speaks with the backing of the people when it's been a phony, rigged poll on what the people think, completely unscientific. And the problem is we want --

MS. WOODRUFF: You mean, it's whoever calls in --

MR. ALTER: Yeah, whoever called in, whoever's calls got through, whoever happened to be watching, completely unrepresentative. The problem is that half of this idea, the talk shows, is fine as a supplement. It's the second half, letting them vote that way, that's a problem. So we really need to draw a distinction between the two of those.

MS. WOODRUFF: Does that bother you, John Sears?

MR. SEARS: I think you can go too far with this. I don't know that the American people want to have, you know, these kinds of affairs if Mr. Perot were President. The American people want someone to be President. They don't necessarily want someone to be trying to convince them and get their support all the time. They want to see people do things and they'll be the judges as to whether they're the right things to do. Now, you know, in Mr. Perot's case, I think, actually people will judge him, I think, just as much or more on what he does from now on out, rather than what he says. And I think he tends to know that. So he's not been quick to, you know, come out on a lot of the hard news shows and so forth. He's got to pick a Vice President, which is a much bigger thing for him to do than perhaps is for the other two, because it will tell more about him. It'll be the first time anybody really - - and the people he surrounds himself with.

MS. WOODRUFF: Of course, he hasn't even technically announced yet. I mean, we're still dealing with somebody who --

MR. SEARS: Yes, that's true. And politically I think he's been wise about that. He's had the interest without having to announce, so I think that's been wise. But, you know, he has real decisions coming up that will tell more about him, whether he wishes to or not. And, you know, I think he's been wise. I don't think he would feel in this day and age that you can go through a political campaign without exposing yourself pretty well as much as you want, as much as they want to, to the writing press and to television news.

MS. WOODRUFF: Brian Lunde, do you agree with the point I think that Jonathan Alter made a moment ago that there are some candidates that -- who are going to be knocked out of the ball park, I mean, some are just not going to be able to compete in this arena, and some will automatically excel. I mean, we've all be talking about Ross Perot more than anyone else here this evening, but --

MR. LUNDE: Definitely. I think you have to have an entertaining personality to fit these entertainment-like shows. And that's why whether you're Jerry Brown or Ross Perot, those that can sometimes have the clever turn of the phrase, they fit these type of shows much better, because they are entertainment-oriented and that is the medium and it's a certain kind of personality that has to fit into that medium. So definitely. I think if you're Ross Perot, you've got the right personality. If you're President Bush, I don't think he fits into a talk show type situation.

MS. WOODRUFF: But is that good or bad for the, you know, for democracy, for, you know, the future of the republic

MR. LUNDE: Well, it's probably no different than candidates who are good at one on one, who are good in small groups, or who are good giving their speech to a large audience. It's just another version of the old style campaigning when it was person to person. Some candidates are very good one on one with voters. Some are not. And some are very good at giving a speech and some are not. Same situation, different medium.

MS. WOODRUFF: Marc Nuttle, pretty much the same question. I mean, does it bother you that some -- do you agree that some candidates are going to be better at this than others? It puts a premium on a talent, and is that a talent that there ought to be a premium on?

MR. NUTTLE: Well, but it's no different than a talent that was required to go into the age of media. We ran campaigns in this country for over a hundred years without TV, and then TV came in really after the war and it changed things. And Ronald Reagan may have been a creature of media. So what? It's coming. It's reality and I don't see what's wrong with it. It will take a certain personality to be able to do this type of talk show or this type of electronic media that's coming in the next 10 years, which will be more sophisticated than it has been even in the last 10 years. But still, I don't see what the down side of that is. We complain and have complained each cycle since really 1980 that sound bites were too, used too much, that there wasn't enough substantive discourse in campaigns, media has been criticized for its coverage. How can this be any worse? At least, it's longer discussions. It's direct access. It takes the public into the arena -- at least got to think about it before they ask a question. I don't see what it hurts.

MS. WOODRUFF: All right. We've got less than a minute. John Alter, I realize the media doesn't have much of a constituency out there, but how does this affect the media? Who's helped? Who's hurt in the media by that?

MR. ALTER: Well, what you essentially have, this kind of new media is making old media less relevant. It's not going to go away, but the establishment press is getting a kick in the pants from this and it's probably pretty healthy. It will make us rethink, all of us rethink how we can connect more with voters. And that's not all bad.

MS. WOODRUFF: Howard Kurtz, just quickly, would you agree or not?

MR. KURTZ: I agree that we need to rethink to the extent that we are not touching the buttons and the issues that people care about. I also think that candidates are very good at giving canned responses to issues, whether it's in a sixteen second format or two hours. And I still think it's our job to try to get them off that and to answer questions about the budget and so on.

MS. WOODRUFF: Well, thank you all. Howard Kurtz, Jonathan Alter, John Sears, Bill Carrick, Marc Nuttle, and Brian Lunde, thank you all for being with us. UPDATE - DROUGHT & FAMINE

MR. LEHRER: Now a report on the drought in the Southern part of Africa. It has been described as the worst in memory in that region. It has put thousands of people in at least 10 countries at risk. Judy Aslett of Independent Television News has more.

MS. ASLETT: A dust storm sweeps through an abandoned village, the dry heat causing the worst drought in living memory. It's already one of the driest parts of the world, but this year the rains simply haven't come. This used to be the Sobi River, one of the largest in Zimbabwe. Now just a few puddles are left and the animals that rely on it for drinking water are dying.

JOHN BOLAND, Zimbabwe Farmer: We're used to droughts. We live in an area that's prone to droughts. But this, quite honestly, is not a drought; it's a disaster. And as you can see -- I mean, right now our pastures and so on should be absolutely beautiful, but there's nothing. You can see a rabbit at a kilometer away.

MS. ASLETT: For the farmers, the drought has been devastating. 80 percent of Zimbabwe's crops have failed and now the region is entering the dry season, there's little seed for next year's planting. Those with cattle are just watching them die. The meat market was flooded months ago. Now it's a struggle to keep the rest alive. Those that aren't going to make it have to be shot.

CYRIL DU TOIT, Zimbabwe Farmer: You've got to look at reality. But this is a harsh reality. This is not a reality that is normal. No way, never ever. And lesser people will never make it. They'll just go one way, down.

MS. ASLETT: The Zimbabwe government has declared the drought a national disaster. In some cities, including the capital Hararay, food stocks of the staple diet maize meal are pitifully low. The queues for breads and other basic commodities are getting longer and the prices are going up. In the rural areas, food has already run out and villagers relying on aid agencies to stop them from starving. As a result, the government is having to import at least 2 million tons of maize meal in the next year, this from a country that traditionally exports. As recently as 12 months ago, the government continued to sell grain to other African states in return for hard currency. As the drought spreads throughout the region, another country that's been badly hit is South Africa. Four months ago, this squatter camp in the free state didn't even exist. Now, 150,000 people live here, most of them farm workers who've been laid off by their white employers who can no longer afford to feed them and their families. Twice a day the children are fed by the charity Operation Hunger. They're already the poorest people in the country. Farm workers have no minimum wage and even without the drought, the death rate amongst children is high.

JUDITH MOKETELE, Operation Hunger: At best, in the whole free state, we had about 30 percent infant mortality, but since the drought set in, that's gone up to 50, the cause mainly being malnourished children getting a secondary infection.

MS. ASLETT: There's not only a problem over lack of food, but also a lack of clean water. This is the only tap within a five-mile radius, and for many, collecting enough for the family is a full- time job. For those who can't make the trip here every day, water is taken home where it's left to stand and go stagnant. It's another cause of disease brought on by the drought. In order to avert an even greater crisis, representatives from five frontline states, as well as donor nations, met in Pretoria to discuss how the aid should be distributed. It was the first time the countries had come together for more than three decades. And after four hours of talks, they seemed optimistic a solution could be found.

DOCTOR S MARUME, Zimbabwe Department of Transport: The will does exist and the cooperation is there for that. And of course, we are talking of the humanitarian need.

MS. ASLETT: The governments have now just a matter of weeks, if not days, to put their plans into action. The people are already grinding up the last of their maize meal and an organized relief program for the whole of South Africa is essential if they are to survive. The concern for the region now is that it does rain in time to plant next year's crop or the area that should be the bread basket of the continent will spend at least another 18 months unable even to feed itself.

MS. WOODRUFF: Last week, the United States and other countries pledged more than a billion tons of food and several hundred million dollars in other aid to the countries hit by the drought. CONVERSATION - CAN WE ALL GET ALONG?

MR. LEHRER: Finally tonight the second conversation in our series built around the question: Can we all get along? It was the one posed by Rodney King after the Los Angeles riots. Charlayne Hunter- Gault introduces the guest tonight and does the conversing.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: Joseph Boyce has been a journalist for the past 25 years. He's a senior editor at the Wall Street Journal, a former policeman and Chicago native. He lives in the New York area. Joseph Boyce, how wide do you think the racial divide in America is?

JOSEPH BOYCE, Journalist: I think it's pretty wide now and it's unfortunate because it's at a time when it should be at its narrowest in our history simply because of the changing population, the changing demographics here. I don't think people are as interested in learning about others in our society as they used to be, that there are more things to distract us now. There was a time when we didn't have a lot of things to distract us and we had to live together and learn how to do that. Resources have shrunk in some areas and people are more jealous of what they have materialistically and they think that other groups that did not threaten them before they were discriminated against now in an absence of discrimination have become threats.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: But you say in recent years it's gotten worse. Can you give me an example of that?

MR. BOYCE: Yeah. Today we have what is called, what I call, you know, "in your face racism," in that at one time the last thing anyone wanted to be called was a racist, whether they were or not. It was a mark to be avoided. And today I don't think people really care that much, some of them, you know. They'll say, yeah, I'm a racist, so what, so what are you going to do about it?

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: How much of it is a problem of perception?

MR. BOYCE: Oh, I think it guides how blacks feel about whites and Koreans and to a large degree and vice versa that it's perceptions and stereotypes and generalizations which we're all guilty of, including myself, and it's a very dangerous, dangerous area to tread on, and that it's -- perceptions guide our behavior more than the realities, and if we take a little bit more time and find out what white people are really like, in a sense, if you want to generalize that way, or black people, if you want to generalize that way, are really like, then I think a lot of difficulty would be erased.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: You've written about the black tax. What is that?

MR. BOYCE: The black tax can be defined in actual dollars as an actual cost someone has to pay because of being discriminated against. In my case, I call it the black tax because I'm black and it is a sort of surcharge because of that fact. One example I remember, on a business trip to Chicago, I bought a sweater at Marshall Fields which has a, it's famous for its policy about not arguing about returns. I went to the hotel, tried the sweater on, it was too large, and I immediately went back to return it. The clerk that I bought the sweater from was not there. There was another clerk and she refused to accept it back unless I had a cleaner's receipt showing that it had been cleaned. Now I had never heard of that policy and it was interesting that the other clerks kind of looked in opposite directions when this came up. Anyway, I went and found a cleaner that could do this in an hour, had them do it at an extra cost, came back and presented the sweater with the ticket to the woman who was somewhat distressed that I had done this and grudgingly wrote me out a receipt.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: You also wrote about a problem you had with a housing appraisal.

MR. BOYCE: Yes. I was being transferred from Atlanta by my company and they had a policy of making you whole, in other words making sure that you didn't lose money when you sold your house. My house was listed in the middle eighty thousand dollar range, which was pretty good for Atlanta at the time. Three appraisers came in and issued their estimates to my company which averaged them out and then called me because they thought they were very, very low. The appraisals were in the low seventies. The reason the appraisers gave was in the den the carpets and drapes were worn, but both my company and myself thought something else may be afoot. My family had been in the house the first time it was appraised. This time we left, took down all pictures and art objects that indicated a black family lived in the home. My secretary, who was white, and her young son, came to my house when the second appraisal was made and put up their pictures and their family mementos and it looked like a white household. She was in the kitchen when they came cooking dinner. He was watching television in the den. The result was $12,000 -- $12,500 more in the appraisal of my house the second time when a white family was there than when my family was there. Incidentally, the carpet and the drapes had not been changed. Everything else was left as it was.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: Do you think that white people understand these kinds of things, know that these kinds of things go on?

MR. BOYCE: Well, a lot of them were amazed, but then there are some people that said, gee, it's just a figment of my imagination, you know, appraising houses is an inexact science, and so they might have been 15 percent of the sales price apart, that happens. Well, I wonder how they'd feel if it had happened to them.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: How did you feel?

MR. BOYCE: I was surprised. I was angry, but I was not just angry for myself. I was angry at all the people who had probably gone through that process at one time or another around the United States not with my company but with companies and other situations just trying to sell their own home themselves who had been cheated and didn't know it.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: Do people want to hear about it?

MR. BOYCE: No, they don't want to hear about it, because of a number of reasons. I think they feel guilty and I don't really think they should if they haven't done it themselves. But it makes them feel comfortable to think that the black person is exaggerating.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: What kind of reaction did you get to telling that story?

MR. BOYCE: I had one guy write me that he knew what discrimination was because -- and he was white -- because when he had applied for a job at a gentleman's club in Virginia, they made him wear a special jacket so that he knew what discrimination was. And so he had been through it too, so why was I complaining. I had another guy write, you know, don't give me this argument about years and years, centuries in slavery and all that, blacks have had 30 years to get their act together and if they haven't been able to do it now, it's just too bad, to which I responded, yeah, you know, you're right, 30 years was long enough, but I also don't believe in any time for a recovery from surgery either, so --

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: Do blacks bear any responsibility for any of this, you think? I mean, some people say that blacks are too sensitive. Others say they want to use race as an excuse for everything.

MR. BOYCE: Unfortunately, I think sometimes that's true in some cases. You know, it's been my feeling that blacks need to develop two strategies: one strategy to deal with the external factors that oppress us, but there are some internal things that we as a people need to do as well, meaning, you know, it ain't the man, you know, that is crawling in somebody's bedroom window and impregnating those 14-year-old girls. You know, it ain't the man who is calling me brother and trying to rip me off. It's not the man who is shooting my sun because he's got the wrong kind of handkerchief hanging out of his back pocket. Then they say Crips instead of Bloods. The man ain't doing that. We're doing that. I'm talking about accountability and responsibility. You know, but racism, you know, is out there too, and that just complicates and exacerbates the situation.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: In the 20 years that I've reported on race relations, I don't think I've ever heard so many people be so pessimistic about the future prospects of race relations in this country. Let me ask you the Rodney King question. Can we all get along?

MR. BOYCE: I think we can. I don't think it's a matter of knowing how or not knowing how. I think it's a matter of having the will to do it, having the will to do it.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: But what do you think the prospects are, given all the dynamics at work in this country now?

MR. BOYCE: Given the political dynamics and given the demographic dynamics, meaning that this country is rapidly growing in terms of its minority populations, namely Asian and Hispanic, if we don't find a way, if we do not find a way to live and work together, 50 years from now they're going to be talking about a third world country and it will be us.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: Are you optimistic?

MR. BOYCE: Yeah. I have to be. I have to be.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: How do you bridge the gap, sensitize people?

MR. BOYCE: Well, they're basically -- this is a very intelligent nation. We have accomplished a lot but we ought to stop and think a bit and let our memories grow a little long. And we need to ask ourselves this. We know what we have accomplished as a country in the somewhat 200 plus years of our existence and it's been a lot. It's been phenomenal. What we will never ever know, what we will never know is how much more we could have accomplished if we had not systematically excluded the talents and abilities of people on the basis of race and gender, race and sex. So we'll never know how great we could have been. Now, it's a different ball game and the competition is global and it is much, much more ferocious. We'd better use every scintilla of ability and talent that we have from all people and all sexes and all persuasions in terms of survival. And we need to get somebody with some moral leadership somewhere to sort of help guide the way and encourage and to persuade.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: Well, Joseph Boyce, thank you.

MR. BOYCE: Thanks. It's nice being asked. RECAP

MR. LEHRER: Again, the major stories of this Thursday, President Bush's visit to Panama was marred when police fired tear gas at anti-U.S. protesters. Mr. and Mrs. Bush were hustled from the Speaker's platform when the gas hit the area. And the House of Representatives killed the proposed balanced budget amendment to the Constitution. A majority voted in favor, but they failed to muster the necessary two-thirds vote. Good night, Judy.

MS. WOODRUFF: Good night, Jim. That's our NewsHour for tonight. We'll be back tomorrow night with our regular political commentators, Gergen & Shields. I'm Judy Woodruff. Thank you and good night.