MediaWatch: July 1993

NewsBites: Conservative Corporations?

Conservative Corporations? Dan Rostenkowski, the Chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, put another hole in the theory that major media companies are conservative. Rostenkowski lined up more than 50 corporations to sign a statement of support for the Democrats' massive tax increase. Signing on the dotted line: Time Warner and General Electric, the parent company of NBC.

The Overspending "Myth." Boston Globe reporter Peter Gosselin doesn't think federal overspending is a problem. Gosselin based a June 20 article on one of the media's favorite Republicans, David Stockman, and his "myth" that Congress has been "beefing up already bloated bureaucracies, handing out pork-barrel projects, and distributing government benefits as if they were candy." Gosselin admitted "federal spending has risen steadily for at least the last two decades," but "much of the rise was the result of the huge tax cuts of the early 1980s, which had the perverse effect of stripping the government of a substantial fraction of its tax revenues, thus boosting borrowing, and with it, interest payments."

But figures from the Office of Management and Budget show that tax receipts increased an average of 7.27 percent per year between 1981 and 1990, while inflation averaged 4.68 percent for the same time period. By 1984-85, when the Reagan tax cuts were going into effect, tax receipts grew twice as fast as inflation, rising 11 percent in 1984 alone. Income tax revenue (after inflation) rose 22 percent between 1980 and 1989.

Summer Job Blues. Convinced that the only summer jobs available for teenagers are government jobs, the end of the school year has brought, in the eyes of Garrick Utley, nothing but hardship. On the June 12 NBC Nightly News, Utley focused his "Final Thoughts" on the President's summer jobs program, "an important symbol of the new investment in people. So Clinton put an extra one billon dollars for it in his stimulus package." Thanks to the GOP filibuster, "in New York City, 20,000 young people eligible for jobs won't get them. In Houston, 8,000 will be disappointed. In Memphis, 2,500."

Utley believed the jobs were lost because "Teenagers, frustrated for a lack of a summer job and an uncertain future, don't have a lobby -- at least not in Congress. Their lobby meets on a hot night, on a city street corner." The other side went ignored. On April 16, Denver Post columnist Michael Rosen pointed out: "The 219,000 new jobs promised this year -- half of which, it turns out, are just temporary summer jobs for kids -- will wind up costing taxpayers about $75,000 per job."

Herbert Heats Up. Perpetuating the myth of Ronald Reagan's incompetence has been a trademark of the journalism establishment during the past twelve years. It is also taught in the nation's top journalism school. In a June 21 National Review story, Stephanie Gutmann reported on last fall's orientation program at Columbia's Graduate School of Journalism. During the first panel discussion, NBC News reporter Bob Herbert lamented: "My generation had a better chance to do good journalism than any other generation in this country's history...I think the best evidence I can give that we do a lousy job covering politics is to look at the politicians: Ronald Reagan was President of us for eight years -- Ronald Reagan! Reporters should have been writing for the entire eight years of his reign that this man was gone, out of it...He should have been covered as a clown."

Herbert, also a columnist for The New York Times, was equally upset by his profession's failure to destroy Dan Quayle: "The Washington Post just did a long series on Vice President Quayle and he came out looking like a reasonably competent human being...That's not good...The Washington Post should not be covering Dan Quayle like that."

Braver's Labels. CBS legal correspondent Rita Braver has shown a penchant for labeling judicial conservatives as "far right" or "ultra-conservative" while soft-pedaling the ideology of liberals. When Supreme Court Justice Byron White announced his retirement on March 19, she said his "leaving will mean that the voting power of the far right will be greatly undercut." More recently, her labeling has shifted into overdrive with President Clinton's nomination of Ruth Bader Ginsburg to replace Justice White.

On the June 14 CBS Evening News, Braver declared Ginsburg is "considered a moderate to liberal, but today she cited this guideline to judging from ultra-conservative Chief Justice William Rehnquist." During the following weekend's Sunday Morning, Braver remarked: "You've got to remember this is an extremely conservative Supreme Court, so [Ginsburg's] not really going to be terribly liberal." This is the same "extremely conservative" Court which upheld abortion rights and ruled that breathing second-hand smoke constitutes "cruel and unusual punishment" for prisoners.

Leaning Left for Lani. At President Clinton's announcement of Lani Guinier's appointment to be assistant attorney general for civil rights, The Washington Post reported that National Public Radio's Nina Totenberg hugged Guinier. So the decision to dump Guinier didn't please Totenberg. During NPR's All Things Considered on June 4, she complained the White House wouldn't let her help save Guinier: "I personally offered to do an interview, an on-the-record interview with her so that she could explain her views in these articles, because I have known her for some time, and I think she would have trusted me not to do a hatchet job on this. They were not interested in doing this. They were interested in burying her."

Poor Prosecution. Examining New Orleans' overworked public defender's office on June 14, ABC's Day One alleged New Orleans' courts dispense justice based on the defendant's wallet. "Here's what really happens in a court system so burdened and broken down that justice is forgotten and the issues of guilt and innocence become virtually irrelevant," host Forrest Sawyer began.

Instead of blaming criminals for their acts, reporter John Hockenberry charged: "The system encourages guilt and puts a premium on innocence, all the while churning out more and more defendants each year." Who are the victims of this "system?" Hockenberry argued: "On its way from separating the innocent from the guilty, this system separates the poor from everyone else."

So if you're poor, justice's menu is short. "Defendants weigh their choices: jail or pleading guilty to a felony. For the poor in New Orleans, this is justice enough for now," lamented Hockenberry. So who ends up behind bars? "The prison houses the guilty, the innocent, and -- most of all -- the poor," he mourned. A problem for New Orleans only? Hockenberry asserted "everywhere in the United States if you can't afford your own attorney, these are the choices you face."

Gay Rape Ignored. When U.S. Navy Airman Terry Helvey confessed to beating fellow sailor Allen Schindler to death, the case received national coverage. A heterosexual had killed a gay man in the middle of the gays in the military debate. All the networks, except NBC, reported Helvey's confession on May 24. On May 27, all four reported Helvey's life sentence. The major print icons followed suit. The Washington Post carried two stories by T.R. Reid on May 27 and 28, and The New York Times ran four consecutive stories by James Sterngold from May 25-28. Sterngold's May 28 article, like reports by ABC's Bob Zelnick on May 27 and CBS' James Hattori on May 24, raised gay activists' allegations of a Navy coverup to shield criticism of anti-gay bias in the military.

But where were the media when the violence was committed by gay soldiers? On June 4, the Times' Larry Rohter wrote a thorough story on the sentencing of two Navy homosexuals in Jacksonville, Florida. In separate incidents, the convicted gays had raped shipmates. The Post covered both cases in a brief blurb on June 9. And the networks? No story.

Spoon-Fed Hunger News. When does a press release become news? When it highlights yet another crisis requiring government action. Tom Brokaw intoned on the June 16 Nightly News: "Hunger in America. There are some startling facts tonight. A study conducted by the Center on Hunger, Poverty, and Nutrition Research at Tufts University claims that 12 million American children are malnourished." Not simply occasionally hungry, but malnourished. The Tufts release included no methodology for the claim.

The next night, NBC's Sara James traveled to Los Angeles to relay anecdotes from advocates and recipients of government aid. She passed on this assertion from a hunger advocate: "Demand at food banks and soup kitchens jumped nearly 40 percent in Los Angeles last year." James followed with a soundbite from local Hunger Coalition head Caroline Olney: "The War on Poverty hasn't been fought in the last twelve years." Instead of explaining how spending for food stamps has grown 71 percent since 1989, James concluded: a "UCLA report recommends that the federal government spend an extra twelve billion dollars on food programs but admits that's a long shot given Washington's cost-cutting mood."

Transafrica Fan Club. Bryant Gumbel enjoyed guest-of-honor status at the annual benefit dinner June 4 for the far-left group Transafrica, which spent the 1980s defending communist governments in Grenada and Angola. Last year, Transafrica officials told MediaWatch that Gumbel twice flew to Washington to be briefed by the group's leader, Randall Robinson, before a week-long series of Today shows from Africa. At the dinner, Gumbel received Transafrica's International Journalism Award for -- surprise -- his shows from Africa.

At the dinner, Gumbel told WRC-TV: "I think it's important for people of color to be able to see an institution that basically represents their interests and represents the interests of those countries from which they hail, to which they feel a certain affinity or bond." Gumbel spoke at the reception for the group's Arthur Ashe library and the $175-a-plate dinner. Also attending the reception were ABC's Ted Koppel and CNN anchor Bernard Shaw. Time Warner gave $100,000 for Transafrica's new building.

Bryant Badgers Banker. On June 15, Today co-host Bryant Gumbel summarized a survey attacking greedy banks by the Naderite Public Interest Research Group: "Even as the cost is going up...the interest you get on a savings account is going down. From an average of 5.14 percent three years ago, to now just over 2 and 3/4 percent. While you suffer, bank profits are climbing dramatically."

While Gumbel threw softballs to the PIRG lobbyist, he ripped into his other guest, American Bankers Association head Donald Ogilvy, charging "these numbers seem a terrible indictment of your industry." Ogilvy argued the growing costs from federal regulations drove up account fees. He also explained profits allow banks to rebuild their capital and FDIC funds so stable banks can make loans to small businesses. Gumbel laughed, shooting back: "Well, except for small business isn't seeing that money."

Gumbel then returned to his interest rate canard: "An average savings account...cost is up a whopping 143 percent, but the rate paid [in interest] is down 53 percent." Ogilvy had to explain the obvious: "The cost, Bryant, and the rates have nothing to do with one another. The rates are down because overall interest rates are way down. The government has brought down interest rates."

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