MediaWatch August 1993
Table of Contents:
- MediaWatch August 1993
- PBS Documentary Series Routinely Excludes Conservative Experts, Topics
- NewsBites: It's His Fault
- Revolving Door: deLaski's Defensive Detai
- Networks Legitimize NRDC's Press Release Science
- Two Views on the Ozone Hole
- Russert Returns to 1990
- Media's Lack of Religion Addressed
- Janet Cooke Award: CBS Street Stories Touts France's Socialist Day Care System, Downplays the Costs
Russert Returns to 1990
NBC Meet the Press host Tim Russert has added historical perspective to the budget debate by comparing the Clinton plan to the 1990 deal. On June 27, he grilled Budget Director Leon Panetta: "You raised taxes, the economy went further into recession, and there was no deficit reduction. Why is it going to be different in `92 when it didn't work in `90?" Treasury Secretary Lloyd Bentsen received the same welcome on July 25. "1990. Congress got together with the President, raised taxes, cut defense, tried to limit Medicare growth, promised a $500 billion dollar deficit reduction....The deficit went up. Why isn't the same going to happen this year?"
The same day, he asked Sen. Pete Domenici (R-N.M.): "What do you think of a plan that raises taxes a couple hundred billion dollars, limits growth on Medicare, cuts a little defense spending, reduces the interest on the public debt, and promises $500 billion in deficit reduction?" Domenici condemned Clinton's plan, and Russert sprung his trap: "The plan I actually talked about was the one you supported in 1990, vigorously...you raised taxes, and what happened is you promised $500 billion dollars in deficit reduction and instead the deficit went up $50 billion."
Eye on Male Bashing
CBS reporter Bernard Goldberg punctured the politically correct bubble of TV news on the June 24 Eye to Eye with Connie Chung. His report took a look at feminist male-bashers. "Male bashing has become part of the American culture," Goldberg noted. "Redbook magazine says male bashing is reaching epidemic proportions. Newsweek says 'So what! White guys are paranoid.'"
Goldberg allowed feminists to defend themselves, but his questions exposed some zealotry. "At the Whitney Museum in New York this spring, you got this button as you walked in: 'I can't ever imagine wanting to be white.'" He asked the exhibit curator if she would allow the button to read "I can't ever imagine wanting to be homosexual" or "a woman" or "black"? Her reply: "I would never have allowed that."
At an anti-male "rage conference," he asked two women why they were so angry. They said men "get all the good jobs, they rape women" and "all white men share [guilt] simply by virtue of the fact they are white and they have penises."
Ron Reagan Reports
On the premiere of the Fox Front Page magazine, Ron Reagan Jr. reported the intrusive effects of the Endangered Species Act on a Utah developer, Brant Child. "At issue is what he wants to do with his property. He had big plans: campground, golf course, curio shop. There was just one little problem. His problem was the Kanab amber snail."
On the other side, "Carl Pope of the Sierra Club says all species deserve protection. If any die out it eventually hurts the human species." But Reagan asked: "There must be 20 pearly mussels classified as endangered ...How many...mussels do we need?"
