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----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- INTRODUCTION: Coming up, Fox News Watch with Eric Breindel tackles media coverage of Scientology.
ERIC BREINDEL (on camera): As every tax payer knows, it isn’t easy either to charm or intimidate the Internal Revenue Service.
IRS building; workers inside IRS building doing paperwork; President Bill Clinton
BREINDEL (voiceover): But some say the Church of Scientology managed both to bully the IRS into granting the church a controversial tax exemption and to trade favors with the President of the United States.
BREINDEL (on camera): And all the while, the national media turned a blind eye. I’m Eric Breindel. We’ll look at the press and the Scientologists today on Fox News Watch.
Fox News Watch music and videoclip
BREINDEL (on camera, with close-ups of the panelists): First our panelists: John O’Sullivan, editor-at-large of the bi-weekly magazine National Review; Los Angeles Times media reporter Jane Hall; and Laura Flanders of the media watch group Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting.
clips from upcoming "Primary Colors" movie; cover and first page of article in George magazine; Clinton
BREINDEL (voiceover): John Travolta plays the Bill Clinton character in the forthcoming film "Primary Colors." And in a current magazine interview, Travolta, one of a number of prominent celebrity Scientologists, claims the President offered to take up one of the church’s major peeves, perhaps in hopes of influencing Travolta’s performance in the film.
BREINDEL (on camera): True? If so, where was the coverage? And in general, why do so few in the press chase stories of any sort involving Scientology? Here’s Eric Burns with some background.
title, "Covering Scientology"; a number of shots of Scieno rally in Berlin; IRS building; workers inside IRS building doing paperwork; outside and inside another building(s) in Germany; footage of Dustin Hoffman, Goldie Hawn, Oliver Stone, Larry King, John Travolta
ERIC BURNS, FOX NEWS MEDIA ANALYST (voiceover): Is Scientology a religion or a cult? Well, according to the Internal Revenue Service, it’s a religion and therefore tax-exempt. This is the result of a deal in 1993 in which the Scientologists paid the IRS $12.5 million in back taxes and agreed to stop inundating the IRS with lawsuits. According to numerous others, Scientology is a cult, dangerous to its members, harmful to society, sometimes vindictive to its critics. In Germany, Scientology is looked at as a money-making group with some of the traits of organized crime. The German government has gone so far as to place the Church of Scientology under surveillance as an extremist movement. For that reason, German Scientologists claim that they are the victims of Nazi-like persecution, and such celebrities as Dustin Hoffman, Goldie Hawn, Oliver Stone and Larry King placed a full-page ad in the International Herald-Tribune asking the Helmut Kohl government to end its anti-Scientologist campaign. And John Travolta says that President Clinton told him that he, the President, would like to help the Scientology cause in Germany.
ERIC BURNS (on camera): Which brings us to questions about the media and Scientology. Some reporters say that they have been harassed by Scientologists merely by reporting on them. Have they responded by harassing Scientologists, both on the air and in print?
more footage of Scieno rally; footage of Jenna Elfman, Travolta, Kirstie Alley and Tom Cruise
ERIC BURNS (voiceover): Or, far from harassing Scientology, are they too accepting of it, perhaps for the same reason that the President might be, because of all those stars, those heroes of the mass audience, who are members? Eric Burns, Fox News.
BREINDEL (on camera): A lot of interesting issues about, I think, a very interesting and not all that well known subject. And I’m gonna start here by talking about this lack of coverage--if anybody disagrees that there has been a lack of coverage I can surely say so--but Laura, I was wondering whether you thought that those who claim the media, individual journalists are intimidated by the Church of Scientology; and Rick Behar, who wrote a big cover piece for Time, is countersuing the Scientologists--they sued Time and him and lost--he’s claiming that his life was disrupted; credit card misuse, credit rating problems, uh, questioning of his neighbors. Is the press intimidated?
LAURA FLANDERS: Well, I think whether you’re talking about the Texas meat farmers or the organized religions of various kinds, we routinely on this program talk about journalists being unduly intimidated by people with power. And I think that you’re right, that in the case of Scientology there is a trail of reporters who believe that their lives have been affected by the work that they’ve done on this movement. But at the same time I don’t think it’s an isolated case; it’s a problem with journalism in general that intimidation is a factor from, when, that bars reporters from really investigating people of power--
BREINDEL: Well, you know, it may be, but let’s stay to the specific and talk about this; do the Scientologists scare people away from writing about them? I gotta tell you, the way I asked people on this sh--to come on this show and talk about it and they didn’t want to because they were scared.
JANE HALL: I think people have been, I think people have done the stories. I don’t agree, I mean intimidation to me means you don’t do the story. Time--
BREINDEL: At all--
HALL: Time did the story; the Los Angeles Times did a multi-part series. But from talking to some reporters who have done stories, uh, they have told me that, you know, there are credit card checks, they ask for meetings with your editors, they use--they are at the very least extremely aggressive about when you’re gonna write about them; they make it very difficult.
BREINDEL: John, you want to talk--
JOHN O’SULLIVAN: I was struck by the fact that when you look for the stories that have appeared, they’ve all appeared in the really major news organizations like the New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, Time magazine, organizations which are really big enough to be able to take on the most substantial opponent and can sit out and fight major lawsuits. It’s the smaller magazines that--
BREINDEL: And not only--even among them--you know, it was a pretty thin clip file--
O’SULLIVAN: It was.
BREINDEL: A major story in Time, yes. An L.A. Times story, yes. Not a lot, though, given that this is a 25-year-old controversy. But, well, Jane, maybe it’s not intimidation. You know, maybe the media is in a way seduced by the fact that a lot of celebrities--Kirstie Alley, Tom Cruise, not just John Travolta--are Scientologists and proclaim it. Or maybe some in the media think that this particular entity has been subjected to harassment. I don’t know and I ask--what do you think?
HALL: Well, I don’t know, either. Uh, I mean I think it’s interesting there has been recent coverage--the George magazine story about Travolta, they did a story earlier on that. The New York Times has written a story about Travolta and the Celebrity Centres that this group has. They obviously encourage celebrity endorsement. I haven’t seen any evidence of people being seduced; I think people are spooked by writing about them.
BREINDEL: So intimidation--I’m gonna ask us to hold on to this because we’re gonna go on to a number of other issues and we’ll find, I think, a lot of the issues being related, so let’s hold our thoughts; we’ll return. Stay with us.
Berlin Scieno rally
commercial break
clip of John Travolta, description "actor/Scientologist"
JOHN TRAVOLTA: It’s about most of the minority religions; it’s Scientology, it’s Buddhism, it’s, um, Charismatic Christians and a few others, Jehovah’s Witnesses. So it’s not just our group, you know. Um, and I think one possibility could be from not understanding it fully. That’s a--that’s a considerable possibility. And, um, sometimes when we don’t understand something, it upsets us.
BREINDEL: You know, John Travolta makes a compelling case in sort of a more in sorrow than an angry tone. But there is something strange that happened with the Scientologists and there I speak of this tax exemption; 25 years of U.S. Government policy saying, "This is a business and a scam and it does not deserve a tax exemption" out the window. Not only that, but the terms of the settlement include the IRS getting the church to promise that it will stop harassing IRS officials. Sounds like a government agency--and one that we usually think of as harassing people, not being harassed--saying "Please stop being mean to us and we’ll give you what you want."
O’SULLIVAN: Well, it’s very odd, isn’t it? And, and of course you have to say that the one organization that is difficult to arouse sympathy for is the IRS. The battle between the IRS and the Scientologists is Godzilla versus Godzilla--
BREINDEL: It’s not even sympathy here. I mean, you know, did they cave for a reason?
O’SULLIVAN: It is mysterious, because first of all, by any common-sense standard, the Church of Scientology is not a religion. It doesn’t believe in a deity, it doesn’t have prescribed forms of worship, its doctrines are a mish-mash of science fiction. And indeed, unlike all other religions that I know of, it doesn’t attempt to preach its doctrines, it attempts to keep them hidden.
BREINDEL: Well, it also sells them; but let me get to a more specific point which is media again. Uh, this was a big front page story last year in the New York Times, but it raised a lot of questions it didn’t answer--the Times even said so in the story--why didn’t it invite a rash of investigatory articles?
FLANDERS: Who knows? I mean, I think what was, what’s an interesting point that John brings out is how little we really know about the Scientologists’ faith, and you mentioned this, too.
BREINDEL: And why is that, given that there’s 25 years of controversy--
FLANDERS: Well, I agree. I mean, I would like to see much more aggressive reporting on Scientology, then I would also like to see more aggressive reporting about--
BREINDEL: Reporting about--
FLANDERS: All religions--
BREINDEL: Well, sure--
FLANDERS: And if we’re talking about the INS and--I mean the IRS and religion, let’s not forget the Christian Coalition’s IRS status, for years breaking the rules around lobbying as a non-profit organization.
O’SULLIVAN: You know, we’re also talking here about the exercise of political influence, aren’t we? We’re talking about the fact that this settlement, which is an odd settlement by any standards, was reached after prolonged negotiations in which they seemed to have exchanged quid pro quos, which is not the way you normally deal with the IRS. Including--and the quid pro quos seemed to be, "Please stop harassing us." And secondly, look at the President getting involved and telling--
BREINDEL: Let’s get to that in a second but--
O’SULLIVAN: Sure.
BREINDEL: Quite right. And speaking of the President, let’s get to national policy. You know, anybody who reads the State Department Human Rights Watch List is quite used to seeing certain countries’ names. What--I think might have come to, as a surprise to many is that last year, there right in the middle between Saddam Hussein and North Korea is the government of Germany, which is accused by the State Department--this is a democracy and one of America’s long-standing European allies--is accused of harassing members of the Church of Scientology, when in fact, uh, their policy wasn’t vastly different from the attitude of the Government, this government, for 25 years. We’re--what do you think?
FLANDERS: I have to just say, with the mention of Saddam Hussein, that I think it’s wild that we’re discussing the vilification of Scientology, you know, we--where the vilification of Islam and Muslims has in part led to a build-up to war. So that having been said, I think you’re right. But the comparisons between the Germans and any other human rights abusers are absurd. If you have a religion--
BREINDEL: I’m gonna have to hold you--
FLANDERS: Well, I would say that--
BREINDEL: And ask--
FLANDERS: If the Germans don’t like your religion you tend to know about it.
BREINDEL: OK. We’ll be right back
title--Questions & Comments, FOX NEWS WATCH, 1211 Ave. of the Americas, New York, NY 10036; newswatch@foxnews.com
commercial break
clip of Heber Jentzsch, description "Church of Scientology President"
HEBER JENTZSCH: On April 7, 1933 there was this, uh, a decree saying nobody could hold these civil service positions out there in Germany. In 1996, the province of Bavaria, Gunther Beckstein, is saying that no one could hold civil service. These are the same type of implementation of those laws. We don’t like to make this comparison but that is what’s happening.
BREINDEL: You know, this is, uh, the Scientology position on what’s going on in Germany, and they’ve made it another way. They’ve made it into a massive ad campaign which nobody could possibly have missed in which one sees Nuremberg rallies and then major text comparing the manner in which the Church of Scientology is treated to the Nazis--to the manner the Nazis treated Jews. And some of the people who signed these ads, who Eric Burns mentioned, are not Scientologists--Goldie Hawn, Dustin Hoffman. Jane, again, is the media commenting on how the Scientologists get names on their ads of people who aren’t members? And on this ad campaign, which many found massively offensive--I mean, is the Clinton administration adopting it something that should have led to some stories?
HALL: Well I was--before I saw the clip from their representative, I was gonna say we should say that they view it as religious persecution, to have to register, as their official just said. I think the piece that has been missing in the reporting is asking celebrities who signed this and who are members, "What do you think about the reports of these practices?" Because you don’t--as far as I know, I’ve never seen John Travolta asked about allegations, you know. And that, to me--the Clinton administration has had a love affair with celebrities of all kinds, and I haven’t seen them really asked about, you know, well what about the disparity here between the celebs who believe in this versus the allegations against the group.
O’SULLIVAN: And the allegations are awful.
HALL: The allegations are that they’ve harassed people who go after them, that the IRS settlement had some questionable pieces to it--
BREINDEL: Let me tell you about the German government’s allegations. The German government says this is a dangerous cult and, uh, membership in the Church of Scientology can lead to psychological and physical dependency, financial ruin and suicide, and they can doc--and they can docu--they claim they can document this. Uh, John, in any event, we had this episode with John Travolta. The subject of Scientology came up. Suddenly the government of Germany appeared in the State Department Human Rights Report. Again, now it’s on the news stands. What do we make of it? It’s curious as all heck.
O’SULLIVAN: Yes, I think in this case this is an administration that is in love with Hollywood. And there are major stars in Hollywood who are members of this cult, and Clinton runs into one of them, Travolta, and he cozies up to him in the way that Clinton can cozy up to anyone. He knows what they like and he says what they--
BREINDEL: Did he want something from Travolta?
O’SULLIVAN: Well, I mean, the implication was, some people have argued, that he wanted a softer version of himself in the film "Primary Colors" where the Clinton character will be played by Travolta. Now I don’t think anyone can prove that and I don’t think there would ever have been an explicit quid pro quo--
BREINDEL: Laura, what was the coverage, where was the media on this?
FLANDERS: I’m still thinking about Scientology causing suicide and trying to figure out how--and financial ruin--and how that’s different from Catholicism and so on.
laughter from the group
FLANDERS: Where was the media coverage? I mean, there was more op-ed pages, op-ed articles in the New York Times--
BREINDEL: I don’t--I don’t think that it advances this particular discussion to compare the Scientologists to Catholicism any more than the Scientologists comparing themselves to persecuted Jews--
FLANDERS: Well, I think--
BREINDEL: Well, let me, Jane, ask you, uh, is this Travolta episode, mysterious as it is, something that deserved a little bit of play?
HALL: Well--
BREINDEL: Which didn’t get it--
HALL: Well, it’s interesting; I hadn’t realized, if I read it correctly, there was an item in Time magazine before--
BREINDEL: Five months ago--
HALL: Before the George story, that nobody picked up on, uh, and then George did it and it’s the lead and it’s a part of a very splashy cover--
BREINDEL: And by the way--
HALL: And it got a ton of pick-up--
BREINDEL: It got a little, it got a little--
HALL: It was in the New York Times, it was on the news programs. A lot of people picked up on George’s story.
BREINDEL: Yeah, you know, uh, do you, Laura, have an explanation of the John Travolta encounter with the President?
FLANDERS: Well, I don’t think--I think that John’s right; we don’t know if there was any kind of quid pro quo. We know that Travolta rarely plays any really completely unlikable character, even when he’s playing an assassin, so I don’t think he would have been cast in that role if the goal had been to truly vilify the President; and if we want to talk about the sort of friendly relationship between this presidency and powers that be in Hollywood and particularly media, people powerful in the media, then that’s a story that deserves more attention absolutely. And I was concerned in one of the articles that I read that the State dinner with the Prime Minister of Britain included many media moguls and Hollywood celebrities and no poets, no writers, no painters--I’d like to see more coverage of that.
O’SULLIVAN: I’m struck by the degree to which Laura’s answers and, to a lesser extent, Jane’s exhibit what might be called immoral equivalents. (laughter) Mainly that they’re continually producing examples of other organizations which might be legitimately examined or which do dubious things. The fact is--
HALL (smiling): I didn’t do that, Laura did that--
O’SULLIVAN: The fact is that this is an organization which, if the stories that have appeared in Time, in the New York Times--
BREINDEL: John, the fact is also that, well, I take your point; I think before we finish out--because we do have an audience and they’ve been writing--we ought to go and try to do some viewer mail.
goes on to read viewer mail from past shows
BREINDEL: As for the rest of you we’d like to hear what you think about any of the subjects that we’ve discussed.
title--Questions & Comments, FOX NEWS WATCH, 1211 Ave. of the Americas, New York, NY 10036; newswatch@foxnews.com
BREINDEL (voiceover): Write us at Fox News Watch, 1211 Ave. of the Americas, New York, NY 10036 or e-mail us at newswatch@foxnews.com. Either way, please include your name and home town.
BREINDEL (on camera): John, Jane, Laura, many thanks. Thank you for watching. We’ll see you again next week on Fox News Watch.
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