Zoller Interview With Shipp and Morris Deserves Award

Martha Zoller pulled of an interview the other day that is worthy of a national journalistic award, which she is not likely to receive because the interview disclosed the kind of back-room bias that too often takes place in today's media world. Martha had Bill Shipp and Dick Morris on the same program, talking about how the Atlanta Constitution and Zell Miller's campaign against Herman Talmadge in 1980 was closely, and covertly, coordinated. If you'll remember, Zell Miller challenged Talmadge in the Democratic primary for U.S. Senator that year. Dick Morris was Miller's campaign consultant, and Bill Shipp was the Associate Editor of the Atlanta Constitution.

Morris revealed that once a week during that campaign, he would meet first with Zell Miller, then go meet with Maynard Jackson (who was mayor of Atlanta at the time) and then go meet with the Atlanta Constitution editorial group, including Bill Shipp. There was, Morris said, the "closest of coordination between our campaign and the (Atlanta Constitution)." Shipp agreed the editorial board of the Constitution was coordinating with the Zell Miller campaign, and noted the newspaper had at least one anti-Talmadge editorial a week; anti-Talmadge editorial cartoons constantly; and implied that the news department took its cue from the editorial stance.

Both Morris and Shipp agreed this 20-year-old collusion between the Miller campaign and the Atlanta Constitution had never before been revealed. Looking back, -Shipp said, "it was inappropriate." And in his career, he said, it was unique. Morris took another tack. In the 1980 campaign, he said, it was appropriate because you had a "very bad man" in Herman Talmadge, and a good man in Zell Miller.

Martha Zoller led them toward a comparison with today, and both Morris and Shipp agreed campaign consultants are not meeting weekly with newspaper editorial boards, the way they did in 1980, but the same coordination is taking place in a subtler way. Friendly media is taking its cue from a candidates advertisements and news releases, but the coordination between media and the campaign is happening.

Martha Zoller pulled off an amazing bit of journalism, on a reporting level with John Stossel and an opinion level with the book "Bias". It deserves national distribution, and in my book it deserves a national award.

This is Gordon Sawyer, from a window on historic Green Street.