Housing Prices Up, Yet CBS Cites Comparison to Great Depression --7/26/2007

1. Housing Prices Up, Yet CBS Cites Comparison to Great Depression
On a day when the National Association of Realtors (NAR) reported a rise in the price of homes so the average median price is above where it was a year ago, Wednesday's CBS Evening News featured a soundbite claiming "home price depreciation" unprecedented since the Great Depression. "The housing market is going deeper in the dumper," anchor Katie Couric rhymed, as "America's Realtors reported today that used homes were selling in June at the slowest pace in four and a half years." She acknowledged "a bright note for homeowners," but added a caveat in relaying that "house prices went up for the first time in nearly a year, but just barely." The headline for the NAR press release from which CBS cribbed gave equal weight to two developments -- "Prices Rise, Existing-Home Sales Decline" -- but Anthony Mason's story explored only the negative, as he focused on rising foreclosures and declining sales, and even managed to spin the climbing home prices into a dire situation. "Countrywide's CEO, Angelo Mozilo, had this warning," Mason stressed. Then, with matching text on screen, viewers heard audio of Mozilo from a day before NAR's numbers were released on the higher median home price: "We are experiencing home price depreciation almost like never before, with the exception of the Great Depression."

2. CBS Promises 7 'Different Perspectives' on Gun Violence, But...
Tuesday's CBS Evening News promised many perspectives on the solution to gun violence in Philadelphia, but the report from correspondent Byron Pitts was overwhelming slanted to the left. Referring to his story from the night before on gun violence in the city, Pitts set up his follow-up by explaining how "we showed the Philadelphia story to seven people from the front lines....Each with different perspectives on this modern-day problem of violence and illegal guns." But instead of seven "different perspectives," viewers heard six variations on liberal solutions up against the NRA's Wayne LaPierre. While LaPierre stressed the need for more prosecutions of criminals, the other activists blamed the crime problem on such issues as the "gulf that's ever widening between the haves and the have-nots," inadequate spending on schools, "availability of guns" and "inherent racism." A reverend used the opportunity of CBS's cameras to blame the war in Iraq: "Until there's great debate about losing the war in Iraq, and clearly, we're losing the war not only in Iraq, we're losing the war on American streets."

3. To Deter Home Invasion Killers, GMA Advises Wind Chimes Not a Gun
In the wake of the horrific Connecticut home invasion robbery in which two paroled felons murdered a wife and her two daughters, Wednesday's Good Morning America provided some "really cheap, easy things" viewers could do to make their homes safer. But while co-host Chris Cuomo suggested planting cactus plants in your windowsill and hanging wind chimes, he ignored a more obvious option with a better chance of protecting your family against psychotic felons who've done hard prison time whom wind chimes are unlikely to deter: purchasing a gun. To make "your home a little bit of a hard target, tough to get in," Cuomo recommended "something as simple as cactus. Sounds simple, right? You know, oh, they wouldn't care about that. But they do. They think about these things. Chimes outside the window..." If the bad guys get past the cactus and wind chimes, Cuomo had another "cheap" solution: "God forbid somebody breaks into the house, you're alone with your kids. What do you do? You can make your own safe room." Finding the space for, and building, a secure "safe room" would certainly cost a lot more than a handgun.

4. Time Mag's Deep Bow to Islam: Hailing 'Burqini' Swimsuit as Chic
It's amazing how supposedly liberal and feminist publications that enjoy roasting conservative Christians will turn around and honor Islamic traditions as the latest rage. Witness Time's promotional coverage this week of the "Burqini," the head-to-toe women's swimsuit. If this was a Pat Robertson idea, they'd be bowled over laughing. But it's Islamic, so it's surprisingly chic. The front page of the Life section, in the July 30 edition, promoted the story by Laura Fitzpatrick: "The Burqini swimsuits allow women, Muslim or not, to choose comfort over conformity." Obeying Islamic dictates of modesty is not conformity? On a 90-degree day, a head-to-toe suit is the definition of comfort? On page 50, the story's headline touted, "The New Swimsuit Issue: Modest beachwear for Muslim women is taking off with secular swimmers too."

Housing Prices Up, Yet CBS Cites Comparison
to Great Depression

On a day when the National Association of Realtors (NAR) reported a rise in the price of homes so the average median price is above where it was a year ago, Wednesday's CBS Evening News featured a soundbite claiming "home price depreciation" unprecedented since the Great Depression. Apparently, reality wasn't negative enough for CBS, so they felt a need to add some embellishment.

"The housing market is going deeper in the dumper," anchor Katie Couric rhymed, as "America's Realtors reported today that used homes were selling in June at the slowest pace in four and a half years." She acknowledged "a bright note for homeowners," but added a caveat in relaying that "house prices went up for the first time in nearly a year, but just barely." The headline for the NAR press release from which CBS cribbed gave equal weight to two developments -- "Prices Rise, Existing-Home Sales Decline" -- but Anthony Mason's story explored only the negative, as he focused on rising foreclosures and declining sales, and even managed to spin the climbing home prices into a dire situation. "In a Wall Street conference call, Countrywide's CEO, Angelo Mozilo, had this warning," Mason stressed. Then, with matching text on screen, viewers heard audio of Mozilo from a day before NAR's numbers were released on the higher median home price: "We are experiencing home price depreciation almost like never before, with the exception of the Great Depression."

The July 25 NAR press release reported: "The national median existing-home price for all housing types was $230,100 in June, up 0.3 percent from June 2006 when the median was $229,300. The median is a typical market price where half of the homes sold for more and half sold for less." See: www.realtor.org

[This item was posted Wednesday night on the MRC's blog, NewsBusters.org: newsbusters.org ]

A transcript of the July 25 CBS Evening News presentation of NAR's latest numbers:

KATIE COURIC: In this country, the housing market is going deeper in the dumper. America's Realtors reported today that used homes were selling in June at the slowest pace in four and a half years. If there is a bright note for homeowners, house prices went up for the first time in nearly a year, but just barely. The median price now just over $230,000. As Anthony Mason reports, in this slump, a lot of Americans are losing their homes to foreclosure.

ANTHONY MASON: The numbers in California were shocking. In Los Angeles County, foreclosures up almost 800 percent: From just 287 homes in the first six months of last year to more than 2,500 this year. Across all of Southern California, foreclosures rose 725 percent as rising interest rates drove up monthly payments for borrowers with adjustable rate mortgages.
RICK SHARGA, REALTYTRAC INC: This is something that's cutting across all socioeconomic classes and, in a worst-case scenario, could have a ripple affect across the whole economy.
MASON: This came just a day after the stock market tumbled when Countrywide Financial, the nation's largest mortgage lender, announced sharp increases in delinquencies, even among its good credit borrowers. In a Wall Street conference call, Countrywide's CEO, Angelo Mozilo, had this warning.
AUDIO OF MOZILO WITH TEXT ON SCREEN: We are experiencing home price depreciation almost like never before, with the exception of the Great Depression.
MASON: The latest numbers show existing home sales dropping in every part of the country, down about 7 percent in both the Northeast and the West, almost 3 percent in the Midwest and about 2 percent in the South. It's the fourth straight month of declining sales and Countrywide's CEO yesterday issued the bleakest forecast yet, predicting the housing market won't recover until 2009. Katie.

CBS Promises 7 'Different Perspectives'
on Gun Violence, But...

Tuesday's CBS Evening News promised many perspectives on the solution to gun violence in Philadelphia, but the report from correspondent Byron Pitts was overwhelming slanted to the left. Referring to his story from the night before on gun violence in the city, Pitts set up his follow-up by explaining how "we showed the Philadelphia story to seven people from the front lines....Each with different perspectives on this modern-day problem of violence and illegal guns." But instead of seven "different perspectives," viewers heard six variations on liberal solutions up against the NRA's Wayne LaPierre. While LaPierre stressed the need for more prosecutions of criminals, the other activists blamed the crime problem on such issues as the "gulf that's ever widening between the haves and the have-nots," inadequate spending on schools, "availability of guns" and "inherent racism." A reverend used the opportunity of CBS's cameras to blame the war in Iraq: "Until there's great debate about losing the war in Iraq, and clearly, we're losing the war not only in Iraq, we're losing the war on American streets."

Father Greg Boyle of Homeboy Industries blamed poverty: "It's about disparity. It's about this distance and a gulf that's ever widening between the haves and the have-nots." The Children Defense Fund's Marian Wright Edelman called for more spending on education. When pressed by Pitts about the excessive cost, Edelman responded: "It's cheaper than emergency rooms. It's cheaper than a jail cell."

Miami Police Chief John Timoney called for more gun control and argued that if more of the victims were white, that there would be a call to ignore the NRA and pass more gun laws: "There's also some inherent racism. I can guarantee you...that if 85 percent of the people in big cities were getting killed were white, there'd be a different approach to this whole thing....They'd be screaming for more federal legislation. They'd be demanding it, and to hell with the NRA."

While he allowed liberal perspectives to dominate the story, Pitts did at least let the NRA's LaPierre respond to Timoney's charges directly, and the correspondent also challenged two teens to solve their own problems: "But this is America, the land of opportunity. You can help yourself. You can pull yourself up, no?"

[This item is adapted from a posting, by Brad Wilmouth, on the MRC's NewsBusters blog: newsbusters.org ]

Below is a complete transcript of the story from the Tuesday, July 24 CBS Evening News:

KATIE COURIC: There was yet another fatal shooting in Philadelphia today, and that brought the number of murders in the city this year to 236. But it's not just Philadelphia. Homicides are up sharply in other big cities as well. Tonight, our national correspondent Byron Pitts focuses on solutions as he concludes his series "Battle Line Philadelphia."

BYRON PITTS: This is north Philadelphia. We showed the Philadelphia story to seven people from the front lines. Since the year 2001, there have been 10,000 shooting victims in Philadelphia. The head of the NRA:
Wayne LaPierre, NRA Executive Vice President: It's tragic and horrible.
MEL WELLS, Philadelphia community activist: I believe that this is a war.
PITTS: The Children's Defense Fund:
MARIAN WRIGHT EDELMAN, Children's Defense Fund: There is a war going on in this country.
PITTS: A preacher, a police chief, an employer, all from different parts of the country.
Father GREG BOYLE, Homeboy Industries: It's about disparity. It's about this distance and a gulf that's ever widening between the haves and the have-nots.
PITTS: Each with different perspectives on this modern-day problem of violence and illegal guns.
Chief JOHN TIMONEY, Miami Police Department: There's been no national effort to deal with this, with the guns and the availability of guns. Any reasonable measures that have been advocated have been defeated by Congress.
PITTS: But while the adults saw and articulated what should be, it took two teenagers, former gang bangers from the south side of Chicago, to see these images, and, as they say on the street, keep it real, tell the truth.
DOMINESE: You think he's saying that for no reason? He's saying that because he means it, because he knows I didn't-
PITTS: In their neighborhood sits a makeshift memorial to kids murdered in Chicago. Eighteen-year-old Dominese said he's had at least four friends murdered. Seventeen-year-old Tim says he's lost count.
TIM: Made me wonder why, why they got to die at an early age. Just let's me know I could die any time seeing that.
DOMINESE: We don't really got nobody who help us, not at all.
TIM: We've got some people, but it ain't enough people.
PITTS: But this is America, the land of opportunity. You can help yourself. You can pull yourself up, no?
DOMINESE: To me, those are slogans, those are sayings, man. The City of Brotherly Love. If it's the City of Brotherly Love in Philadelphia, why so many people getting killed?
PITTS: That's a simple enough question, and here's the answer: There is no simple answer. The blame and the solutions lie in many places.
Reverend RAPHAEL WARNOCK, Ebenezer Baptist Church: Until there's great debate about losing the war in Iraq, and clearly, we're losing the war not only in Iraq, we're losing the war on American streets.
TIMONEY: There's also some inherent racism. I can guarantee you, I can guarantee you, that if 85 percent of the people in big cities were getting killed were white, there'd be a different approach to this whole thing.
PITTS: Remember that's a police chief talking.
TIMONEY: They'd be screaming for more federal legislation. They'd be demanding it, and to hell with the NRA.
LAPIERRE: To hell with the people that want to sit on their butt and not find prosecutors, courtrooms, judges, and prison cells to take these people off the street to make these neighborhoods safe.
EDELMAN: I would make sure that every child has a healthy start and a fair start in life. Every child needs a good education.
PITTS: I can hear members of Congress saying now, "That's awfully expensive what you propose."
EDELMAN: Oh, it's cheaper than emergency rooms. It's cheaper than a jail cell.
LAPIERRE: The choice is do you leave them out there, or do you find a prison cell?
BOYLE: It's not enough to tell kids to just say no to gangs. You also have to have society just say yes to these kids.
DOMINESE: I'm going to go back to church, try to better myself, get wise and know more about the Lord so I can see his way of things. I already know my way of things. I want to hear what he got to say.
PITTS: Whether it's a real faith or a real job, even real prison time, every kid we talked to welcomed something they could hold on to other than a gun. Byron Pitts, CBS News, Philadelphia.

To Deter Home Invasion Killers, GMA Advises
Wind Chimes Not a Gun

In the wake of the horrific Connecticut home invasion robbery in which two paroled felons murdered a wife and her two daughters, Wednesday's Good Morning America provided some "really cheap, easy things" viewers could do to make their homes safer. But while co-host Chris Cuomo suggested planting cactus plants in your windowsill and hanging wind chimes, he ignored a more obvious option with a better chance of protecting your family against psychotic felons who've done hard prison time whom wind chimes are unlikely to deter: purchasing a gun. To make "your home a little bit of a hard target, tough to get in," Cuomo recommended "something as simple as cactus. Sounds simple, right? You know, oh, they wouldn't care about that. But they do. They think about these things. Chimes outside the window..." If the bad guys get past the cactus and wind chimes, Cuomo had another "cheap" solution: "God forbid somebody breaks into the house, you're alone with your kids. What do you do? You can make your own safe room." Finding the space for, and building, a secure "safe room" would certainly cost a lot more than a handgun.

Hartford Courant story on the Monday night into Tuesday morning horror in Cheshire, Connecticut: www.courant.com

Mark Finkelstein, a blogger on the MRC's NewsBusters site, caught the missing obvious suggestion and blogged about the GMA presentation.

The MRC's Brad Wilmouth corrected the closed-captioning against the video for the July 25 segment, in the 7:30 half hour, which followed a set up piece on other home invasions and comments from a security expert about doing things to make your home look less inviting to criminals.

For the list of suggestions, Cuomo and fill-in co-host Elizabeth Vargas stood in front of a door, a mock window with windowsill and a safe room cut out:

CHRIS CUOMO: There are some really cheap, easy things that we can do to help ourselves. For instance, what is this plank of wood at my right? Peep holes. You want to see who's coming. We all have the one up here for us. What about your kids?
ELIZABETH VARGAS: Ah, good point.
CUOMO: Your kids have a peep hole so they can see.
VARGAS: You put two in?
CUOMO: Yeah, because they're susceptible. It's just a little hole in the door, easy to get, cheap. Home alarms, the professional alarm systems, very good. You have to check them out. Expensive home alarms you can get at Radio Shack or a similar place. Still a little pricy, but effective. You can do something very easy. Hold your ears for a second. You put a little monitor on the window of the door. Makes that noise. That's all you need to let you know.
VARGAS: And also put signs because that will deter people.
CUOMO: Absolutely. Good point. The alarm companies will give you signs. You can also buy signs. The burglars tell us if I see the sign, that's when I make my decision. And if I decide to go in there, I don't care what kind of alarm there is. So I sign all by itself can be of help. Also, you heard what Bob said about making your home a little bit of a hard target, tough to get in. Something as simple as cactus. Sounds simple, right? You know, oh, they wouldn't care about that. But they do. They think about these things. Chimes outside the window, you know. They're looking for something easy, your house being a soft target. Lock your windows. How many people think about that? Buy one of these little annoying alarms. Put it by your window. It's something that can really work. But, now, here is my favorite, okay. God forbid somebody breaks into the house, you're alone with your kids. What do you do? You can make your own safe room. Please open the door.
VARGAS: I shall.
CUOMO: What do we see on the inside? Deadbolt lock, cheap, easy. You get in there, you lock it. You put in a reinforced hinge, which is very inexpensive. Now that door, very tough to get through. What do you keep inside the room? Your emergency numbers. Very easy. A light, which are cheaper, your lamp, your cell phone, you're good to go. Easy tips. Cheap. Think about it. Safety is a state of mind. Absolutely.

Time Mag's Deep Bow to Islam: Hailing
'Burqini' Swimsuit as Chic

It's amazing how supposedly liberal and feminist publications that enjoy roasting conservative Christians will turn around and honor Islamic traditions as the latest rage. Witness Time's promotional coverage this week of the "Burqini," the head-to-toe women's swimsuit. If this was a Pat Robertson idea, they'd be bowled over laughing. But it's Islamic, so it's surprisingly chic. The front page of the Life section, in the July 30 edition, promoted the story by Laura Fitzpatrick: "The Burqini swimsuits allow women, Muslim or not, to choose comfort over conformity." Obeying Islamic dictates of modesty is not conformity? On a 90-degree day, a head-to-toe suit is the definition of comfort? On page 50, the story's headline touted, "The New Swimsuit Issue: Modest beachwear for Muslim women is taking off with secular swimmers too."

[This item, by Tim Graham, was posted Wednesday morning on the MRC's blog, NewsBusters.org: newsbusters.org ]

Fitzpatrick began:

Move over, Tankini. Since the full-coverage swimsuit dubbed the Burqini (as in burqa plus bikini) hit the international market in January, devout Muslim women have been snapping them up. The polyester suits were designed to accord with Islamic laws that require women to dress modestly and to eliminate the risk of drowning when the yards of fabric used in traditional burqas get soaked. Now, however, non-Muslim beachgoers are getting into the full-covered swim. Whether women are worried about health, weight or the tolls of age, the Burqini offers a comfortable alternative to a skimpy two-piece or clingy maillot. [That's fashion-speak for the one-piece.]

SUSPEND Excerpt

Fitzpatrick noted that some kinds of Christians, and not just secular women, have shown interest: "Conservative Christians, cancer patients, burn victims and senior citizens, among others, have shown surprising interest." She did allow criticism late in the piece: The Web site ShiaChat disapproves of the suits as showing curves, feminists charge that "burqas in any form are offensive to women," and Islamic burqini designer Aheda Zanetti "has been called a terrorist online." A moderate imam in Virginia deplored the focus on whether Islamic women can wear this suit or this nail polish. But the story ended at it began: The Burqini is chic:

Still, in this bare-it-all age of the string bikini, when young girls take wardrobe cues from Paris Hilton and body-image pressure is intense, the Burqini swimsuit is making a statement. And that's the point, the designers say: the suits allow women, Muslim or not, to choose comfort over conformity. "I know it sounds like an oxymoron," says [California Burqini wearer Shereen] Sabet. "But this is really about freedom."

END of Excerpt

For the article in the July 30 Time: www.time.com

-- Brent Baker