MediaWatch: April 1994
Table of Contents:
- MediaWatch: April 1994
- A World Destroyed by Capitalism in Need of Higher Taxes, More Government
- NewsBites: Embarrassing Eleanor
- Revolving Door: Baer To the Rescue
- No Such Media Concern During Iran-Contra, Wedtech, Sununugate...
- America, Full of Hatemongers
- Good Money After Bad
- Times Says Post Suspended Reporter
- Janet Cooke Award: All Four Networks, Newsweek Distort Studies of Hunger in America
America, Full of Hatemongers
Rather Hostile
Dan Rather turned April into Guest Editorial Month. While Rather pulled punches on lifting the trade embargo against Vietnam in the April 4 National Review ("Only the President can answer whether he has kept faith" with the Vietnam dead), he fired both barrels in the April 11 edition of the far-left magazine The Nation.
Rather took a verbal bat to the religious opponents of homo-sexuality: "Gays and lesbians are beaten to death in the streets with increasing frequency -- in part due to irrational fear of AIDS but also because hatemongers, from comedians to the worst of the Christian right, send the message that homosexuals have no value in our society. Sometimes that message has a major-party affiliation and a request for a campaign contribution. In the post-Cold War era, gays have been drafted to replace communists as the new menace to the American Way: We're told gays corrupt youth and commandeer art and entertainment to win converts."
The CBS Evening News anchor found hatred across America: "North or south, east or west, you'll still see racism, violence, and inequality all over this country. Look at the white institutions outside the south that keep ethnic and racial minorities locked away in ghettos. American children of color are presented with an onslaught of lessons and images telling them they're not worthy."
Rather moved on to Indians: "The first Americans fare no better. A century after genocidal wars ended on the Western plains, Native Americans are still subjected to conditions of hopelessness, poverty, and disease that make a dent in white consciousness only when some germ crops up on the reservation and threatens to spread." As for making a dent on "white consciousness," how many CBS Evening News stories have focused on Indians since 1990? Four, and none yet this year.
He concluded the diatribe: "The list goes on and on: Vietnamese- Americans, Arab-Americans, Mexican-Americans, Americans from every corner of the globe are daily subjected to abuses of civil rights, to violence, hatred, and inhumanity. Across the country. Don't try to tell me or any other New Southerner that civil rights was and is a `Southern problem.' The Old South shared the worst of its legacy with all Americans."
