MediaWatch: June 1988
Table of Contents:
Study: Primary Concerns: Playing Up Economic Gloom
"History," explained NBC business correspondent Irving R. Levine one night in May, "tells us the pocketbook issue should prevail" in determining the winner of the 1988 presidential election.
Nearly eight years of Reaganomics have created 67 months of consecutive growth, a modern peace-time record, as inflation and interest rates rest at half their 1980 level, creating 15 million new jobs in the process. So, just what kind of verdict have the TV networks rendered on Reaganomics?
A MediaWatch Study has determined that network stories relaying good news about the economy never credited Reagan's policies. In contrast, 75 percent of the reports focusing on negative economic news blamed Reagan's policies and suggested these bad economic conditions would help Democratic candidates.
To conduct the study, MediaWatch examined all ABC World News Tonight, CBS Evening News, CNN PrimeNews and NBC Nightly News stories of at least 30 seconds which dealt with economic issues. The study ran from February 1, a week before the Iowa caucuses, through California primary day, June 7. The four networks ran a combined 35 stories. Seventeen focused on the health of the economy, of which 13 were prompted by the release of government figures showing good news, like falling unemployment which hit 14 year lows. Six stories included a mixture of good and bad news, or tempered the good news with warnings of an imminent downturn. Another 12 stressed perceived economic weaknesses.
CNN most closely reflected reality, running seven positive stories and refraining from airing any purely negative ones. ABC followed a similar pattern. Serving as partisan cheerleaders for Democrats trying to disparage Reaganomics, CBS and NBC ran more than twice as many negative than positive pieces.
Anchor Peter Jennings' February 15 look at booming New Hampshire stood out as the only such positive story aired before a primary. Other good news stories included a May 6 Levine piece telling of a New York town where unemployment remained so low that businesses were concerned about the possibility of labor shortages. On the same day, CNN's Deborah Marchini reported that even formerly depressed areas, such as Texas, are rapidly creating new jobs. Mixed news stories included an April 30 ABC story by reporter Chris Bury who found both the "winners and losers of Reaganomics" in Cincinnati.
Not by coincidence, when it came to reporting on the economic status of regions facing presidential primaries, CBS and NBC political reporters found only sour economic news. CBS chief political correspondent Bruce Morton weighed in with stories on weak regional economies in Ohio, Pennsylvania, and New York, each timed to air shortly before their primaries. Before the April 15 New York primary, Morton traveled to Buffalo to find the state's highest unemployment rate and union members "talking Dukakis."
From Clareton, Pennsylvania, on April 22, Morton began: "Clareton is a dying town with dying steel mills." Morton focused on a small, chronically depressed population and endorsed the Democratic agenda, declaring: "This election is about their lives." He then showed a series of laid off steel workers praising Jackson and Dukakis. One explained: "We've suffered a lot in the valley. Three Republican regimes, and they just forgot about us." Referring to past heavy union votes for Reagan, a local Democratic leader said he believed "they learned their lesson." But Morton neglected to note the state unemployment rate rested at 4.8 percent, below the already low national average.
A week later, as the Ohio primary approached, Morton reported from the state: "Reminders of jobs lost twist slowly in the wind." Again, Morton ignored the big picture: Ohio's unemployment rate fell a whopping 1.4 percent in April alone. Two days before the "Super Tuesday" southern primary, NBC's Douglas Kiker, called 1988 a "hard times election." On March 7, Tom Brokaw profiled Georgia textile workers "hurt" by the Reagan years. Just before the March 13 Illinois primary, NBC's Tom Petit was in East St. Louis and Hillsboro, Illinois, towns described as "urban ruins" with voters eager to vote for Jesse Jackson and Paul Simon. Petit then moved to western Pennsylvania on April 24, where he found steel workers "down and out." Reporting from Erie the next day, Ken Bode made a clear dig at the GOP. "Morning," he announced, "is not what came to Erie."
CBS and NBC political reporters hunted out pockets of bad economic news, giving viewers an overall impression that Reaganomics failed, a conclusion that flies in the face of reality. If reporting so far serves as a preview of what's to come, expect at least NBC and CBS to become active partners in Mike Dukakis' effort to distort the economic boom of the past five years.
