Plugged Conduit (and Condit)

In the end, the “get” turned out to have been bigger than the “got.” Connie
Chung‘s interview with Congressman Gary Condit on ABC’s Primetime
Thursday received almost as much attention as a major sports event, with
pre-interview features carried throughout the day on the major cable news
networks and post-game-like quarterbacking following it. While many
newspapers headlined the interview this morning with variations of “Condit
Breaks His Silence,” columnist Tom Shale’s Washington Post commentary
on the televised
interview was headed, “Condit Didn’t Break His Silence So Much as Bend It,”
a reference to the fact that the congressman declined to discuss his alleged
affair with missing Washington intern Chandra Levy, despite insistent
prodding from interviewer Connie Chung. Chung, who some suggested had as
much riding on the interview as the congressman, received mixed reviews in
the morning newspapers. Eric Mink in the New York Daily News observed
that she kept returning to the same questions that Condit refused to answer
at the beginning of the program about his relationship with Sandra Levy but
“seemed unable to even recognize, much less follow up on, other intriguing
avenues of inquiry.” (He then went on to list several of them.) But Jim
Rutenberg in the New York Times observed: “In the days leading up to
last night’s interview, media critics declared that Ms. Chung would best
acquit herself by being tough, by keeping Mr. Condit from using the 30
minutes to steamroll her with a carefully crafted message. And she did not
let that happen.” Joseph Farah, a former editor of the Sacramento
Union who now heads the online WorldNetDaily.com, commented in an
editorial: “Connie Chung would do a better investigation of [Chandra Levy’s
disappearance] than the FBI.” And Adam Buckman in the New York Post
concluded: “I didn’t learn a darn thing last night, but I’m not blaming
Connie. Short of applying brute force, I don’t know what an interviewer is
supposed to do to force the truth out of someone like Rep. Condit, who seems
intent on evading difficult or embarrassing questions.”