DOUBLE STANDARD FOR NATIONAL MEDIA EVIDENT IN FBI HEARING COVERAGE

The laziness and astonishing double standards of the national news media were never more vividly on display than last month at a crucial hearing convened by Sen. Fred Thompson, R-Tenn. Front and center to testify under oath at the Sept. 22 hearing were four FBI agents assigned to the campaign-finance investigation and offering riveting testimony. Their undisputed version: That officials of Janet Reno's Justice Department repeatedly blocked their efforts to pursue key investigative targets -- including information that Clinton crony Charles Yah Lin Trie was bringing "duffel bags full of cash" to the Democratic Party.

Giving this incredible and unprecedented testimony the kind of heavy coverage it deserved were only two valuable news outlets: the redoubtable Washington Times and Rupert Murdoch's increasingly vital and steadily more interesting Fox News Channel. On the latter, tough interviewer Bill O'Reilly of "The O'Reilly Factor" devoted more than one night to the sickening corruption of what has come to be known as President Clinton's "Obstruction of Justice Department."

Neither the New York Times nor the Washington Post covered the FBI agents' amazing revelations. The Associated Press largely took a pass. What some still laughingly call the "three major networks" didn't deem the hearings worthy of coverage on their evening "news." In these precincts, Brokaw/Rather/Jennings and Co. seem comfortable with their "newscasts," dominated as their 23 minutes increasingly are by "soft" features on health trends, entertainment, culture and the like.

So most Americans didn't hear of the FBI's special agent in charge of the Little Rock, Ark. field office, who wrote personally to FBI director Louis J. Freeh to complaing about what he called an "increasing amount of frustration by the working street agents engaged in this matter." Wrote special agent Ivian Smith: "I am convinced the team [at the Justice Department] leading this investigation is, at best, simply not up to the task."

In 1997, the FBI learned that CLinton pal Trie was destroying documents at his Little Rock office. The FBI wanted to make these documents the subject of a subpoena. Officials at Reno Justice declined the request, the very sort that is routinely approved. The documents were destroyed. This was before the same officials prevented the four FBI agents from executing a routine search warrant. They also testified that a Reno Justice official told them they should "not pursue any matter related to solicitation of funds for access to the president."

Agent Roberta Parker was told that Justice "would not take into consideration" evidence involving Mr. Clinton's legal defense fund and an obstruction of the Senate's investigation. She also said 27 pages of her notes recounting her disagreements with Reno Justice lawyers disappeared after whe turned them over to FBI superiors when Congress began asking about the disagreements. Thompson is trying to pursue this.