MediaWatch: December 1995
Table of Contents:
- MediaWatch: December 1995
- Budget News Without Basic Numbers
- NewsBites: A Wee Bit Off
- Revolving Door: Crossing Into Crossfire
- Deck the Cuts with Gusts of Folly
- TV Ignores Travelgate Acquittal
- "Al Capone of Apple Juice"
- Media Mourn Moderates' Decline Pennsylvania's Problem
- Janet Cooke Award: DeParle's Drama of Destruction
"Al Capone of Apple Juice"
On November 17 the new CBS Evening News feature "Bernard Goldberg's America" showed a country whose government has lost all sense of proportion. Goldberg focused on Ben Lacey, 73, a Virginia business owner who makes sparkling apple cider. He is also a convicted felon. He could be sent to prison for up to 24 years, longer than most convicted murderers, and fined up to $2 million. Goldberg noted, "He's even been called `the Al Capone of apple juice.'"
What could he possibly have done to face such prison time? Goldberg explained: "Ben Lacey is in big trouble, not because he killed anyone or robbed a bank. No, it's a lot worse than that: Ben Lacey has been convicted of falsifying environmental reports. Each month he had to fill in numbers, numbers about how much oxygen and nitrogen and ammonia was in the apple juice run-off and the bathroom waste water that was being discharged into this tiny stream behind the plant. The government found seven wrong entries that it said Lacey intentionally falsified. Seven out of thousands."
Lacey says the incorrect entries were mistakes, not intentional. Goldberg found that even a local environmental group agreed the stream was not polluted. But the bureaucrats won't bend: "The government says Lacey's no victim, he's a big time polluter who years ago was fined for violating labor laws involving his apple pickers...So whether he's the monster the government says he is, or whether he's the victim of a bureaucracy run amok, Ben Lacey could face 24 years in prison, and while no one really thinks the judge will give him the maximum, at 73 he faces the possibility of some time behind bars and a stiff fine."
Wehmeyer: Faith Works
Every once in a while the media admit that sometimes the private sector is more efficient than government bureaucracies. Even less often do they admit that religion can accomplish something that government cannot. On the November 7 World News Tonight, anchor Peter Jennings made a startling discovery: "In Texas there is a faith-based program which has been remarkably effective in dealing with alcohol and drug addiction. It does not cost the taxpayers a cent."
ABC religion reporter Peggy Wehmeyer asserted: "At 130 Teen Challenge centers across the country, addicts are taught that Jesus Christ, not Prozac or psychiatrists, can help free them from addiction....A recent University of Tennessee study showed that 70 percent of Teen Challenge graduates were drug free after six months," compared with a state-funded rehab specialist's suggestion that a 25 percent rate would be "very good." Despite their success, Wehmeyer found Texas state auditors are looking at revoking their license over, among other things, the accreditation of the counselors: "Teen Challenge doesn't want to pay for training they don't believe in. They use their own reformed addicts as counselors."
