MediaWatch: December 1993
Table of Contents:
- MediaWatch: December 1993
- TV Gun Control Coverage Tilts Its Tone, Talking Heads and Labels to Liberal Side
- NewsBites: Clinton on Quayle, Take 2
- Revolving Door: Democrat Heads PBS
- Media Dive on GOP in New Jersey, Ignore Democrats in Philadelphia
- No Clinton "Sleaze Factor"
- Endangered Property?
- Editor Squashes "Pejorative" Words
- Janet Cooke Award: CBS This Morning's Giselle Fernandez Hails "Castro's Playground;" Tunnels with Nightclubs
Endangered Property?
The destruction wrought by the California fires was an inevitable result of building houses in wind-swept canyons, right? Maybe not. In a November 19 piece for 20/20, ABC reporter John Stossel suggested the problem rested less with the environmental risks than environmental regulations, specifically the Endangered Species Act. Stossel began by asserting that "in the aftermath of the fires, some who lost their homes now say one cause of the disaster was the government's rules." As Stossel pointed out, "When the Endangered Species Act passed 20 years ago, it passed easily. Everyone wants to stand for protecting nature, especially species like the bald eagle and the grizzly bear. But laws like this tend to grow."
Stossel reported the law grew to include the kangaroo rat as a protected species. The result? "These people believe they could have protected their property, but the government wouldn't let them because of a rat...One of the best ways to stop brush fires is to create a firebreak -- to clear out a strip of vegetation so that when the fire gets here, it won't have anything to burn. Doing it with this machine is called disking, and the people around here have disked the property for years, until a few years ago, when the government told them they could not because... digging into the ground destroys the burrows of the Stevens kangaroo rat."
Another Side of Canada
CBS reporter Bob Faw began his November 12 Evening News report with a familiar refrain: "Canadians can go to the doctor whenever they want and never get a bill." Instead of singing the praises of the "free" single-payer system, however, Faw introduced viewers to a rarely reported side of Canadian health care.
After hearing a doctor document the crowded condition of Canadian emergency rooms, he noted: "Despite a population of 150,000, rural Sudbury in Northern Ontario is so short of medical specialists that when Oscar Burnier broke his leg this summer he had to make a painful flight all the way to Toronto to get care, enraging his mother." Why? Faw reported: "Doctors...say the government is making things even worse by interfering and setting limits on how much doctors can make."
Faw explored the unintended incentives of the single-payer plan: "Experts agree consumers abuse the system. One study shows Canadians go to the doctors 30 percent more than Americans, often for the common cold. Result: Canada, mired in a recession, has a health care system that is hemorrhaging money." Faw ended with a cautionary message: "`Our lesson for Mr. Clinton,' said a doctor, `is that you cannot provide infinite health care for everyone with finite tax dollars. There have to be limits.'"
