Ted Koppel

From Left to Right: Ted Koppel, Rusty Harper, Kate Clinton, Dick Cavett

Five minutes on the Late Show with David Letterman or Imus in the Morning can sometimes spice up a candidate's public image better than an earnest newspaper series on his or her Congressional voting records.

So said a line-up of famed news people and comedians including Nightlineanchor Ted Koppel; comedy writer and talk show host Dick Cavett; and comedian Kate Clinton, who participated in a panel on Humor and Satire: How They Spin the News, part of Thursday's Money, Humor and Spin in Election 2000 duPont-Columbia forum. The forum at the Graduate School of Journalism, celebrated this year's Alfred I. duPont-Columbia Awards in television and radio journalism, which were awarded Wednesday night.

"It's very frustrating, if you're a reporter and you're trying to teach people what a candidate is about, and you've been working on a series about their voting record, only to discover that the candidate has been edited down by a comedian," said ABC correspondent Robert Krulwich.

Still, most agreed that a little self-irony can score a candidate major points with voters.

"It's the same drill as junior high school," said Mark Katz, a humor writer for President Clinton. "Everyone wants to be in on the joke and no one wants the joke to be about them."

The big news on the political humor front was First Lady Hillary Clinton's appearance last week on the Late Show with David Letterman, and Koppel pointed out other successful comedy moments - such as when President Clinton went on Imus in the Morning and called himself "Bubba."

"There are gains from going on such shows with such people," said Cavett. "It might come out badly, but the odds are that you're going to score a great benefit, that millions of people out there will say 'hey, she's got a sense of humor.'"

The day-long forum also featured a panel on Following the Money: Covering Campaign Finance, moderated by Gwen Ifill of PBS' The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer and Washington Week in Review . Participants, who included U.S. Sen. Russell Feingold (D-WI); Peter Overby of National Public Radio; and Paul Taylor, founder and director of the Alliance for Better Campaigns, cashed in on whether news outlets are doing a good job of reporting the campaign finance issue.

Taylor, who spent 15 years as a reporter for The Washington Post, said media, particularly broadcast outlets, have failed the public in presenting candidates in any kind of meaningful forum.

"Let's open up a different avenue of communication," he said. "Television is our largest public square, and broadcasters use these airwaves free of charge. But broadcast has consigned presidential discussion to a niche event, to cable stations."

Nicole Gordon, executive director of the New York City Campaign Finance Bureau, portrayed a bleak picture of campaign finance. "As bad as the picture is that is painted by the press of influence of money in politics, it's much worse," she said. Still, she added that while reporters have limited access to information, the press has become overly cynical about changing campaign finance practices.

"I fault the press for buying into the cynical picture of this and not helping the public," she said. "It's not so much that the public is apathetic but that the public feels powerless. People feel like they don't own their government."

And though more solemn discussion touched on voter apathy and a political climate in which there is no galvanizing public issue, the day was not without its laughs: Koppel sang a song he wrote some 30 years ago when he interviewed President Richard Nixon about the Great Wall of China and Rusty Harper, a humorist for the Montana Logging & Ballet Company which has been broadcast regularly on National Public Radio, strummed a guitar and shared a song Montana Logging had written about flag-burning.

"I believe in humor activism," said humorist Kate Clinton. "There's a window of vulnerability that allows people to listen to things they wouldn't necessarily listen to."