June 3–10, 1999

cover story

Murder Ink

Was the Weinberg campaign rubbed out by a hostile media? And will press bias become an issue in Katz vs. Street?

by Frank Lewis

No one within the inner circle of Marty Weinberg’s mayoral campaign spent much time wondering whether the Philadelphia Inquirer or Daily News would endorse the first-time candidate. Some, like State Sen. Vincent Fumo, had come to the campaign with long and deeply held suspicions about the working press. And those without preconceived notions saw early on that Weinberg would be dealt with at least as roughly as the other candidates, perhaps more so.

So when the Daily News endorsed John Street on May 7, no one in the campaign was especially surprised or concerned. But the Inquirer’s endorsement of Street four days later hit Weinberg’s Unity '99 team like a severe blow to the head.

Even before lauding Street’s accomplishments as City Council president and his grace under fire during the current campaign, the Inquirer’s editorial board slammed Weinberg: "He’s a nice man with many friends, but he doesn’t belong on this stage. His candidacy is a concoction of big money, veiled power brokers, glitzy sound bites and divisive tactics. That it has worked well enough to place him second in many polls is troubling."

The endorsement went on to beg readers – literally beg them – not to vote for Marty Weinberg.

"But suppose, for whatever reason, you can’t bring yourself to vote for the best candidate, Mr. Street," the editorial board wrote. "Then please, please, do not vote for the worst.

"Mr. Weinberg’s campaign calls itself Unity '99, but its operating premise is to exploit this city’s history of racial divide. He styles himself the ‘rowhouse’ candidate, but (believe it) he was calling a suburban mansion home when a covey of political players asked him to be their front man.

"His chief campaign promises are poll-tested crowd pleasers, but they crumble at the analytical touch. His wage-tax target is a round number pulled out of thin air. His ‘11-point plan’ for reducing the tax is mostly an exercise in wishful thinking."

The other candidates – Dwight Evans, Happy Fernandez and John White – also were criticized, but in much milder terms. The common thread was that in the editorial board’s estimation, none had the experience necessary to make good on his or her promises.

"I have never seen an editorial in this town worded that harshly against a candidate," says a Weinberg campaign staffer who wished to remain anonymous. "We knew they were going to take a shot or two at us. But the harshness of it was a surprise. We were taken aback by the harshness of it.

"[The editorial board] did that, in my opinion, to do what they could to stop Marty. That’s personal. If they want to consider themselves reasoned and fair, they blew it."

Of course, editorials are subjective by definition. An endorsement is supposed to persuade. But some Weinberg supporters argue that the day-to-day news coverage was ever so slightly slanted, that reporters’ preconceived notions about Weinberg, his late boss and friend Frank Rizzo and his key mayoral campaign backer Sen. Fumo were reflected in what they wrote about the campaign, and how.

Is this true? Or was it simply, as others contend, that Weinberg’s efforts were undone by several missteps and miscalculations related to media relations – including an assumption that the campaign could deal with the media entirely on its own terms?

Whatever the case, Weinberg’s failed candidacy provides an opportunity to examine the complex, symbiotic but often contentious relationships between high-powered campaigns and veteran journalists, as well as a hint about what to expect between now and November.

 

The Inquirer’s strongly worded editorials weren’t the only obstacles Weinberg faced. Mayor Ed Rendell, the popular incumbent, worked hard on Street’s behalf, taping a commercial for his chosen successor and calling a press conference to condemn one of Weinberg’s spots. Near the end of the primary, unopposed Republican candidate Sam Katz aired attack ads aimed at Weinberg and another Democrat, John White Jr., apparently in an effort to help throw the race to John Street. And on election day, voter turnout in the Northeast, where support for Weinberg ran strong, was surprisingly low.

So it would be difficult to argue that a media conspiracy did him in. Weinberg made no such remarks in his concession speech or the day after the primary, and he could not be reached for this article (a secretary at his law firm said he was taking some time off). Still, some supporters contend that Weinberg did suffer more than his share of indignities at the hands of the press.

In the Weinberg camp, the extensive coverage, beginning early last year, of Weinberg’s house in the suburbs was one thing. The Oct. 23, 1998, installment of Clout, the Daily News’ irreverent political section, was quite another.

At a forum, Weinberg was asked whether he supported the idea of giving wage-tax credits to recent college graduates as a way to entice them to live in the city. Clout printed Weinberg’s incoherent response word for word: "Yeah, I think, ah, I was a college professor for six years, and, ah, sitting next to, ah, a good friend of mine from Drexel University. I love the idea, I do. I, ah, would be in favor of anything that can help the academic tree up. I think there’s a connection between the academic community and the, ah, the whole (unintelligible) that deals with the community around it. You have to have a connection. When you look at Temple, and what it’s done, it’s just unbelievable. (Unintelligible) and what it’s done to help the city. So, I’m there."

Clout writer Gar Joseph defends the item (which was headlined "Another Casey Stengel?" – a reference to the former New York baseball manager known for his obtuse speaking style). Having seen Weinberg in action before this forum, Joseph says he was struck by how poorly the first-time candidate sometimes spoke in public. As this can be a crippling disadvantage to a political hopeful, he believed it was worth noting in print.

But what Clout didn’t explain, says a Weinberg campaign staffer, is why Marty sounded like an idiot. The question was tossed to him without warning, and at the same moment that he was chomping on a bagel and attempting to ask a server for some coffee.

The source contends that this Clout item solidified the campaign’s resolve to advertise heavily on television "to counteract what we knew was going to be a long series of cheap shots."

Ken Smukler, a political consultant who worked on Weinberg’s campaign, describes another perceived low blow that came in February. After another of the Daily News’ Rethinking Philadelphia forums, reporter Dave Davies interviewed some participants about their takes on the candidates’ performances. The brief article that ran the next day opened with these lines: "Sam shone. Marty misfired. And Happy handled herself well on a stage-full of men."

Smukler suggests that Davies was selective in his reporting; he finds it hard to believe there was enough disapproval of Weinberg’s presentation to warrant such a stinging characterization. "It editorialized in an article that was presented as a news article," he says. (Davies says he reported what people told him; he talked to about 15 participants, and his article reflected their comments accurately. To quote from it: "When asked if they thought any candidate performed poorly, many complained about Weinberg.")

"I’m kind of hesitant to talk about this stuff, because it sounds like sour grapes," Smukler says, adding that he doesn’t believe that negative press cost Weinberg the election (Rendell’s aggressive support for Street and Katz’s late-in-the-game attack ad did more damage). "But it certainly didn’t help."

Smukler says his candidate was held to a higher standard than the others. "I believe the coverage [of Weinberg] was skewed," says Smukler. "I don’t believe it was part of any conspiracy, it’s just what happens when a candidate is viewed as the politically incorrect candidate."

This perception of Weinberg, Smukler says, comes from the fact that there were three "credible" black candidates in the race before Weinberg, and that Weinberg chose to run after Tom Leonard and Tom Knox passed on the same offer of support from Fumo if they ran.

So the press viewed him cynically and dismissively as "the white candidate," Smukler says. "And not just any white candidate, but Marty Weinberg, right-hand man to Frank Rizzo.… So Marty was the politically incorrect candidate, and as such he had to make a greater case [for himself than the other candidates did]. The burden was on Marty."

Another example: the controversy surrounding Fraternal Order of Police President Rich Costello’s remarks about local NAACP chapter President Jerome Mondesire and attorney Charles Bowser at the announcement of the FOP’s endorsement of Weinberg in early April. Costello noted that neither Mondesire nor Bowser had visited the families of the three police officers shot by drug dealers this year, and speculated sarcastically that perhaps they’d visited the shooters. But Smukler points out that Costello was responding to a question that had nothing to do with Weinberg; it was about Mondesire and Bowser’s criticisms of a judge’s decision to dismiss charges against an officer who had shot and killed an unarmed 19-year-old black man.

"And yet Marty had to deal with that for a week," Smukler says. (The headline of the Inquirer’s article the next day was "FOP leader’s remarks dog Weinberg.") Granted, Mondesire forced the issue by immediately calling on Weinberg to renounce the FOP’s endorsement. But Mondesire had his own agenda: He wanted a black mayor. For more than a year he’d been trying to find a way to get one or two of the black mayoral candidates out of the race to lessen the odds that they’d split the black vote and hand Weinberg a victory.

"I’m not sure any of the other candidates would have faced the same kind of scrutiny," Smukler says.

But even scrutiny can’t explain the photo the Inquirer ran of Weinberg on Jan. 31. Even political consultant Larry Ceisler, who believes Weinberg was covered fairly, admits that this shot is so unflattering that he couldn’t help but wonder what was behind its selection (presumably, he notes, the Inquirer has many photos of Weinberg and Rizzo in its archive).

"He looks like Inspector Gadget," says Ceisler, but that may be putting it too mildly. His face is almost maniacally contorted, as if he’s in pain, or impersonating Jerry Lewis. Or both. "It had to be the goofiest picture they could find."

Radio talk show host and attorney Michael Smerconish posted the photo on the "Inquirer Watch" page of his Web site (www.mastalk.com/inquirer.html.), with this question: "How many file photos of Rizzo and Weinberg do you think they discarded before they found what they wanted to convey?"

 

Five days after endorsing Street, the Inquirer struck again with another editorial that made the same point – Street good, Weinberg very, very bad – in different words. But in the end, did it make a difference? Ceisler believes it did.

"This was the first election I’ve seen in Philadelphia where endorsements actually mattered," says Ceisler, who did not work for a mayoral candidate in the primary. The Inquirer’s endorsement resonated not only with voters leaning toward Street, but also with those who didn’t feel strongly about any one candidate but were worried, for whatever reason, that Weinberg might win, Ceisler explains.

Many people interviewed for this article admitted (most off the record) to being surprised that the Inquirer editorial board went as far as it did. "I’ve never seen anything like it," says one journalist who asked not to be named. "And I think it’s evidence of animus, like they thought he was evil."

Why not just make the endorsement and sum up the weaknesses of the other candidates in a line or two, as the Daily News did – and as the Inquirer did with Evans, Fernandez and White? "That’s absolutely one way to do it," says Jane Eisner, editor of the Inquirer’s editorial page. "We chose to go another way."

Eisner says the editorial board spent a tremendous amount of time speaking with the candidates, examining their experience and studying their positions on the issues relevant to this race. "We were immersed in the issues of this campaign," she says. "We were not bearing grudges against [the Rizzo] era.… If you’re going to forgive John Street his past, you should forgive Marty Weinberg his past as well. That’s only fair."

The board was influenced by Weinberg’s advertising assault, she says, though not in the way his campaign intended. The ads about Weinberg and his proposals painted him as a multifaceted public servant (at least in spirit) with clear and workable plans for leading the city. "And that," says Eisner, "was a message we felt needed some correction."

Ultimately, however, the decision to ask readers not to vote for Weinberg stemmed from the board members’ belief that he was not at all qualified to run the city. "Unfortunately," says Eisner, "I don’t think Marty Weinberg – as we said in the editorial – belonged on that stage."

Two days after publishing the first version of its Street endorsement, the Inquirer ran letters from some outraged readers. "Not content to express your support of Street," wrote one, "you rail at Marty Weinberg and have the impudence to label him the worst candidate in the race.… I accept your right to hold opinions with which I disagree. What I find totally unacceptable is when you cross the line of good taste and indulge in character assassination."

And on May 16, when the second version of the endorsement was published, the Inquirer’s Op-Ed section included a pro-Weinberg essay from attorney Allen Beckman, Weinberg’s North Philadelphia campaign coordinator. But Beckman says he was censored. Quotes from Buzz Bissinger’s book about Rendell’s first term, A Prayer for the City, were edited out of his essay, Beckman says. The passages pertained to Rendell and former chief of staff David L. Cohen’s need to handle Street, president of City Council at the time, with great care. The book depicts Street as a high-maintenance ally to the administration, and suggests that he needed an inordinate amount of stroking. Street has scoffed at the charge.

"I quoted [Bissinger’s] own fucking words," says Beckman, but those lines never made it to print (although three paragraphs about "legitimate questions" surrounding Street did). And to add insult to injury, he says, the same day, the Inquirer published an essay by Bissinger in which he took a thinly veiled shot at Weinberg: "… [W]e as voters should not tolerate any candidate who believes the path to the mayor’s office is through attack ads that are worthless, petty, pathetic, and insulting to all of us." (This could have referred to Katz as well, but it’s worth noting that Bissinger called Weinberg "the worst candidate for mayor" in the December 1998 issue of the since-folded magazine The Player.)

Beckman was more angry, however, at what he saw as the biased news coverage of Weinberg.

"From day one," he says, "Marty Weinberg’s name was not mentioned without Frank Rizzo’s name being mentioned within four words.… They beat that horse to death, and for only one purpose – negativity."

And don’t even mention City Paper (which described Weinberg as a pre-fabricated candidate with a carefully revised resume in its pre-election analysis, "Handled with Care") or Philadelphia Weekly ("Anybody but Marty"). "They went out of their way to belittle him," Beckman says.

 

A large part of the Weinberg supporters’ arguments that their candidate faced a media bias is the belief that reporters and editors in this town, generally speaking, harbor negative feelings about the late Frank Rizzo and the very-much-alive Vince Fumo.

Even when not raised by Happy Fernandez, the specter of the free-spending, tax-raising City Hall of the 1970s lurked in the background of nearly every aspect of this race. These were the Rizzo years, and Weinberg was a member of Rizzo’s inner circle, even serving for a time as City Solicitor.

But Jim Gardner, editor of the Daily News’ Rethinking Philadelphia series, says it would be a mistake to assume that journalists are uniform in their attitudes about Rizzo.

"There is no such thing as one mind" in the media, Gardner says. "Individual reporters really do have individual takes on people and events." And their feelings about Rizzo in particular tend to be "profoundly complex"; some reporters, he adds, "really loved the guy."

Furthermore, linking Weinberg to Rizzo is not only fair, but unavoidable. Weinberg was not really involved in policy discussions in the last 20 years, Gardner notes. "So the only thing you have to measure his candidacy is his experience in government" – which for Weinberg began and ended in the Rizzo administration.

"His record of public service was thin," adds Daily News reporter Dave Davies. "Maybe that meant people did remember Rizzo more."

And the Fumo connection? The Weinberg staffer who spoke anonymously contends that it hurt.

"Vince Fumo is a guy who does not like reporters, and makes no bones about the fact that he doesn’t like reporters, and has shown he will sue reporters," the source says. (Fumo has an ongoing suit against City Paper.) "And that was the most insidious part of [the bias against Weinberg]."

"He’s not [reporters’] cup of tea," says Ceisler, the political consultant. "Sen. Fumo really doesn’t care what’s written or said about him, he just does his job. And that’s what makes him effective."

But Ceisler adds that Fumo’s response to Fernandez’s attempt to have Weinberg tossed off the ballot over the residency issue could not have been handled worse. "After [saying] something like that [to reporters] – ‘You don’t know what it’s like to own two houses because you don’t make that much money’ – well, what kind of coverage did they expect? If the press was inclined to treat Marty roughly, that cinched it."

A political source who’s friendly with Fumo says this is "absolutely correct.… I think that press conference was one of the single most negative influences on [Weinberg’s] campaign. It set a them-against-us mentality."

Gardner – like other journalists interviewed – says it would be wrong to suggest that all reporters dislike Fumo. But ultimately, he adds, confrontational relationships with the press are almost always counterproductive. "When you get into the mode of us vs. them – them being the media – them is going to win every time."

Fumo’s spokesman, Gary Tuma, declined to comment for this article.

 

Davies, one of the most experienced political reporters in Philadelphia, contends that most of Weinberg’s wounds were "self-inflicted." He, like others – including Weinberg supporters – noted the candidate’s lack of polish, especially when compared to his rivals. His tendency to ramble and to cram multiple thoughts into a single fractured sentence undermined whatever efforts he might have made to grasp the issues and get his message out.

"As a candidate, he was not as well prepared as any of his supporters would have liked," Davies says. "Rendell spent a year learning the issues before the race [in 1991]. Things like that show."

"Marty, at the heart of it, is a college professor," says the anonymous campaign staffer. "He’s used to filling 50 minutes of class time. So his sentence construction is on the long side, he’s given to going off on tangents. You have to listen for a long time to get the whole story."

But at the same time, even this campaign insider agrees with the reporters who complain that Weinberg was generally less accessible than the other candidates – that he was "being protected," as Davies puts it.

"There was a lack of confidence in his ability to communicate within the campaign, and that translated into limited access," the campaign staffer says. "So you’ve got all these reporters who never sat down one-on-one with Marty, who heard from their colleagues that he had no charisma, and who read in the Daily News that he talks with his mouth full."

Smukler, however, says access was reasonable, and points to the days after the first ads attacking John Street were aired.

"Obviously, there were going to be a lot of questions, and Marty answered every one of them," Smukler says. "[Reporters] were stacked up, waiting to talk to him. Now compare that to Sam Katz, whose ads [against Weinberg and White] probably made history, and he essentially went into hiding [and allowed his campaign director to answer questions]. And there was no great hue and cry about Katz ducking the press."

The reporters say the Weinberg camp also tended to view coverage of the race with blinders on. Davies notes that the Inquirer published a point-by-point analysis of Katz’s attack ad against Weinberg, explaining the ways in which the ad spun the facts, and that the Daily News ran several stories about questions surrounding some contributions to Street’s campaign (some of the most damaging articles ran the same day the News endorsed Street).

"I wrote an item about John looking like a Klingon, and I didn’t hear a word about that," says Joseph. "I say Marty sounds like Casey Stengel, and [his campaign staff] goes crazy."

 

Logic suggests that the next seven months will hold no major surprises for Ken Snyder. As Street’s spokesman, Snyder dealt with so many questions about attack ads and rumors and facts that reporters had dug up on their own that he figures there’s nothing left to use against the Democratic nominee – at least nothing of the same magnitude as the personal financial problems and physical altercations that were dragged into the light again during the primary.

"Street is probably the most vetted nominee the party ever had," Snyder says. "But I have no complaints about the fairness with which he was covered."

Snyder says he worked hard to answer every question and provide every document requested, especially in cases where "the facts were not on our side," like Street’s old habit of not paying his bills. And apparently the effort paid off – many of the journalists interviewed for this story noted that Street seems to have overcome his formerly adversarial attitude toward the press (he used to hang negative articles about himself in his office), and one commented that Snyder’s handling of press inquiries was "masterful."

Street was never "embraced" by the media, the way other political figures have been, most notably Rendell, says Joseph. "But I have to tell you, he was exemplary in the primary."

And he’d be well served to keep doing what he’s doing. Sam Katz has enjoyed largely favorable coverage throughout his political career, starting with his unsuccessful bid for the Republican mayoral nomination in 1991. His performance during an appearance on A.M. Philadelphia with rivals Rizzo and Ron Castille, speaking calmly but passionately about issues as the other two bickered about Castille’s past, earned him a level of credibility and respect that no amount of advertising can buy. He went on to win the Inquirer’s endorsement.

"I don’t know that he’s a media darling," says Robert Barnett, Katz’s campaign director. "I think there is a lot of respect for him, and respect tends to translate into favorable coverage. But I think John Street enjoys the same kind of respect."

So are we looking at a marked decrease in the so-called horse race coverage, the accounts of skirmishes between the campaigns that make the race more, well, exciting? Not necessarily. Davies notes that Street and Katz are "both people who will commit the blunder of saying what they think, and will sometimes get themselves in trouble by saying too much." Katz’s off-the-record (or so he thought) admission to radio host Mary Mason that he wasn’t sure he could beat John White is an example. And Street might find that his post-victory crusade to unite the party would have been easier if he’d not admitted to reporters that he’d like an apology from Weinberg.

Joseph says Katz may have an edge in media relations, but agrees that he will have to watch his tongue.

"Sam doesn’t know when to shut up," Joseph says. "I’m sure it drives his handlers crazy… but people in the media love it. [His campaign should] let him say too much once in a while to keep us happy."

Approaching the general election, both daily papers will continue with their issues- and discussion-oriented efforts, Rethinking Philadelphia (the Daily News) and Citizen Voices (the Inquirer). While all of the candidates have participated, seemingly enthusiastically, in these projects, the Weinberg staffer who spoke anonymously expressed some concerns about how these efforts might have tainted the process.

"What disturbs me," the source says, "is newspapers doing their own focus groups and their own polling, as if they were participating in the race and not disinterested observers.… I don’t care how they came to their conclusions, that’s advocacy journalism. They succeeded in defining what would and would not be an issue" in this race.

"Whether it’s a good idea or not is a larger argument that journalists can have at conferences. But it’s not disinterested journalism.… And at the end of the day, it’s a self-referential process, because the people who are going to participate in those forums are regular readers. So they’re talking to themselves. It becomes a feedback loop."

Eisner says this source apparently doesn’t understand how Citizen Voices worked. No polling was involved, and the forums were not "focus groups." "We had no idea how members of Citizens Voices would vote. We never asked them. We didn’t want to know."

The mission, she explains, was to promote discussion, not candidates, not even specific ideas. "In a way, it’s just an extension of what [journalists] always do, and that’s to listen," she says. "It was really an extensive exercise in listening."

"I think readers were left to make up their own minds," says Gardner, the Rethinking Philadelphia editor, "and that’s what good journalism is supposed to do.… And ultimately, voters are pretty smart, and they know what they’re doing."

Ceisler suggests that in this case, at least, the media did as well.

"Marty was too easy a target for the press to ignore," he says. "Marty’s campaign was a blimp, and there was a lot of anti-aircraft fire. It could have been a lot worse.