MediaWatch: February 1995
Table of Contents:
- MediaWatch: February 1995
- The Newt-Centric Media Universe
- NewsBites: Partisans and Pansies
- Revolving Door: NBC Goes Left with Moyers
- ABC News Argues Voters Don't Really Want Contract with America
- The Tyrannical Pope
- Regulation: A Burden?
- CNN's on the Bill Schneider Contract
- Janet Cooke Award: PBS: Clinton Fails the Liberal Litmus Test
ABC News Argues Voters Don't Really Want Contract with America
Correcting the People's Tantrum
Anchor Peter Jennings set the tone for ABC's coverage of the new Congress in a November 14 radio commentary, blaming the election on "a nation full of uncontrolled two-year-old rage ....The voters had a temper tantrum last week....Parenting and governing don't have to be dirty words." He apologized December 5 to outraged listeners, saying: "The change in Washington is surely exhilarating. But it's a lot more difficult to build and to govern."
With Congress debating the Contract with America, ABC attacked its premise, citing voters as the problem -- for not realizing how many government benefits they receive.
On the January 5 World News Tonight, Aaron Brown reported from "Knox County, Tennessee...In November, it voted Republican, 2-1. Then and now, it likes the message of smaller government." After quoting residents unhappy with taxes and spending, he opined: "That's a pretty common complaint around here... It is also dead wrong. In fact, Knox County gets back much more from the federal government than its residents pay in." He castigated voter hypocrisy: "When people in Knox County talk of smaller government and less spending, they may mean it, they probably do. But do they want to lose this bus? Or this highway? Or this tunnel? Do they want to lose this lab? This cop? This teacher? Do they really want to make that choice at all?"
Linda Pattillo found on February 3 that "the people of Seattle and King County send $10.5 billion dollars in all kinds of taxes to Washington....and get back roughly $10.5 billion dollars, the same amount. In everything from bridges to retirement benefits, they break even." Pattillo said if the people "want to send less money to Washington, they may have to give up some of what they get back. Bridges or babies, shipyards or small business loans, transportation or tourist development, benefits no one here is offering to give up."
ABC assumed since a jurisdiction receives funds, taxpayers who may not get any benefits have no right to complain. But even by ABC's reasoning, a recent Harvard study found states like New Jersey, Connecticut, New Hampshire, and Delaware pay far more in federal taxes than they get back.
Jennings presumed the popularity of the Contract's welfare reform was based on naivete and racism. "The welfare debate has been getting more intense, ever since President Reagan regularly vilified what he referred to as the `welfare queens,'" he claimed January 12. "Attitudes about people on welfare are sometimes based more on myth than reality. Most welfare mothers have only one or two children. Most welfare mothers had their first child when they were adults, not teenagers. Most people on welfare are not black."
