MediaWatch: June 1990
Table of Contents:
NewsBites: Tax Time
TAX TIME. The decision of California voters to double the state's gas tax renewed media hopes for higher taxes. Time's June 18 issue gleefully concluded that "after more than a decade of sharply reduced services, Americans have at least grudgingly acknowledged the need to pay for badly needed improvements." Time was so excited it listed five methods politicians could employ to convince voters of the need for higher taxes. Among them: "If all else fails, try leadership." Time's model? New Jersey Democratic Governor Jim Florio, who proposed massive increases in his state's income tax. Florio's picture appeared under a red graphic that read "Facing Realities."
Newsweek agreed: "In the post-Reagan era, more states are facing up to the need to raise taxes...Some states have no choice but to raise taxes." Anchoring the June 6 CBS Evening News Ed Bradley worried: "For all the talk of hiking taxes and reversing the trend of more than a decade, there is a question tonight if that would come in time to help the nation's beleaguered public school system."
BRYANT GRUMBLES. Every day under a Republican President is a bad day for NBC Today co-host Bryant Gumbel, but some, like May 9, are worse than others. During the show's introduction, Gumbel groused about the budget summit: "The bottom line is more tax money is going to be needed. Just how much will be the primary issue on the agenda....It's a Wednesday morning, a day when the budget picture, frankly, seems gloomier than ever. It now seems the time has come to pay the fiddler for our costly dance of the Reagan years."
Taxes weren't the only issue on Gumbel's mind, however, as he moved on: "Family leave. It's an employee right guaranteed through-out the world, but not in the United States." Mad that Bush threatened to veto a bill to "correct" the situation, he grilled John Sloan of the National Federation of Independent Business. For Gumbel, regulation is the only solution: "How else then do you claim that a worker might get the minimum standards? Should he just depend on the good wishes of his employer?"
SUMMIT SLANT. Profiling budget summit participants on May 14, USA Today reporters Paul Clancy and Johanna Neuman described Democrats more favorably than Republicans. While Democrat Dick Gephardt was "a consensus builder who thrives on long meetings and eye-glazing detail," Republican Newt Gingrich was "an ardent conservative" who "often blasts Democrats." Clancy and Neuman called Democratic Whip William Gray a "master of budget politics" who has "steered a middle course" and Sen. Wyche Fowler a "rising star in the Senate." At the White House, John Sununu, "no stranger to controversy," was the one who "shook environmentalists" when he toned down a Bush speech on global warming.
A DEMOCRAT TO SAVE DIXIE. New York Times Washington Editor Howell Raines recently traveled home to Alabama. "While neighbors have flourished," he announced in a June 3 Times Magazine article, "weak leadership and excessive perks for business have kept the state in a Wallace-era time warp, dirt-poor and backward." The solution? Elect a liberal Democrat, preferably an Ivy League graduate. "For years, Alabamians comforted themselves by making fun of their backward neighbors. But Louisiana and Arkansas elected polished young Ivy Leaguers as governors while Alabama wallowed along with Gov. Guy Hunt, a former Amway salesman," Raines sneered.
After detailing how the entrenched political establishment ruined the state, Raines noted that "behind his [Hunt's] back, Alabama's educators and lawyers laugh at his table manners and grammar," missing the point that the people laughing are the establishment which Republican Hunt upset in 1986 by wresting control of the State House from a century of Democratic rule.
Still, Raines urged voters to replace Hunt with one of the three liberal Democrats then facing off in an early June primary: "It is clear that [Attorney General Don] Siegelman and [Congressman Ron] Flippo, as well as [union boss Paul] Hubbert, could provide worthy leadership on the New South model. These three men may represent Alabama's only chance to escape a long siege of dynastic politicians."
MEANER AND HARSHER ATTACK. "Judging from several of his actions, it has been difficult to imagine in recent days that during his 1988 campaign, President Bush called for a 'kindler and gentler' presidency," Boston Globe Washington reporter Stephen Kurkjian began a front page diatribe, labeled "news analysis." Bush's opposition to further child care regulation and a bill forcing employers to give their employees three months of leave for family illnesses, Kurkjian's May 16 article charged, "have been seen as a reversal of his campaign pledge." Bush "also faces the political fallout from the gap that has evolved between his campaign rhetoric on the environment and Oval office reality.
In short, "some Democrats believe Bush is finally beginning to pay the political price of running a campaign that was based on high rhetoric but little substance." Kurkjian didn't bother to quote anyone pleased with Bush's resistance to liberal demands.
MAO'S MILLER TIME. As the one-year anniversary of the Tiananmen Square massacre approached, NBC reporter Keith Miller's interests laid elsewhere. His May 28 report focused on the revival of Chairman Mao's cult of personality. "The number one train to Shaoshan in south central China is running full these days, loaded with pilgrims to the holiest of China's revolutionary shrines," he declared. "The birthplace of Mao Tse-tung is at the heart of the national campaign to renew the spirit of Chinese communism." Miller claimed that "Some people come here because of nostalgia." Fond memories, no doubt, of Mao's purges and mass executions. Miller told viewers that "Mrs. Mao" of Mao's Restaurant "cried when [she] met [Mao]...they were tears of happiness. She says people miss the Chairman because he knew how to take care of the Chinese people."
Why is Mao's cult returning now? "The government is promoting this revival of all things connected with Mao Tse-tung as a way to restore traditional communist values."
CHALLENGING CHENEY. Defense Secretary Dick Cheney's caution during uncertain world events has made him a target for network reporters on the Pentagon beat. Fred Francis began an April 26 NBC story: "Secretary Cheney enhanced his image as a cold warrior today by trimming only two and half billion dollars from a defense budget that many critics say ignores the prospect of peace."
ABC's Bob Zelnick unloaded on Cheney in a May 15 World News Tonight story: "Cheney's attitude towards Moscow has him out of step in Washington...Cheney has often appeared out of sync with the administration, Congress, and military leaders inside his own building." Zelnick offered no on-air opinions defending the Defense chief, but included clips of Senator Sam Nunn, Lawrence Korb of the Brookings Institution, and Gordon Adams of the Defense Budget Project. The latter two organizations have each called for defense cuts in excess of 100 billion dollars.
As his one example of Cheney's alleged "political weakness," Zelnick implied that the Marines lobbied for the V-22 Osprey helicopter because of Cheney's lack of clout. In fact, as Cheney has tried to kill the Osprey, he's battled the pork barrel spending process. Cheney can't win: when he tries to end wasteful programs, he's called politically weak, but his "fight against drastic cuts...continues to erode his influence," according to Zelnick.
FLAGS FOR FASCISTS. When the fight over flag burning reached the Supreme Court on May 14, NBC's Carl Stern noted that the defendants were "the same activists who last year won a Supreme Court decision that they could not be prosecuted for flag burning," but never mentioned they were members of the Maoist Revolutionary Communist Party (RCP). Only a caption under Gregory Johnson's name noted his affiliation. Stern's treatment of the RCP's opponents wasn't so generous: "There were also counter- demonstrators, even American Nazis."
ABC's John McKenzie took the fascism argument to a more global level, noting: "In Britain and most other democratic countries, people don't take their flag that seriously." As viewers saw black and white video of Nazis, McKenzie declared, "In Europe, many experienced what happened when a flag was once considered sacred, when it so symbolized a nation's identity."
HIDING HUDSON. When the liberal Economic Policy Institute released a study condemning the U.S. for ranking 14th in education spending as a percentage of national income among industrialized nations, The New York Times, The Washington Post, USA Today, Newsday, The Christian Science Monitor and Time all gave coverage to their recommendations. Yet when the conservative Hudson Institute rebutted the EPI report, concluding that "restructuring education does not require bigger budgets but different priorities," none of the above gave any mention. The Hudson Institute study noted the U.S. ranks second in per capita education spending, slightly behind Sweden.
SHOOTING BLANKS AT LIBERALS. USA Today "Inquiry" Editor Barbara Reynolds and reporter Shrona Foreman loaded the deck in conducting interviews on gun control May 16. Gun control opponent Stephen Halbrook was asked direct, accusatory questions such as, "Since thousands of deaths are caused yearly by handguns, why do private citizens need guns?" and "In London, where guns are banned, the murder rate is only a quarter of the USA's. Doesn't that make a strong case against guns?" and "Why do citizens need the right to bear the kind of assault rifles that Patrick Purdy used to mow down children in a Stockton, Calif., schoolyard?"
On the other hand, gun control advocate Joshua Horwitz got softball, open-ended questions: "Why is gun-control legislation so important to you personally?" and "What do you think of the NRA's power to block gun-control legislation?"
FALLING SHORT. Covering the April 28 Rally for Life, National Public Radio reporter Paz Cohen gave NPR's liberal listenership an overly triumphant account. In NPR's first feed of Weekend All Things Considered at 5 p.m., Cohen reported: "The organizer of today's rally, J.C. Willke, head of the National Right to Life Committee, had tied his movement's political future to its ability to turn out greater numbers of people today to those who marched in defense of abortion rights a year ago...But the number present at the anti-abortion rally fell far short of those of last year's abortion rights march by police count. Today's crowd was estimated at 60,000. The abortion rights march had drawn some 300,000."
When contacted by MediaWatch, Cohen explained she revised later reports to the final police count of 200,000, as well as the organizers' estimate of 700,000. But that hardly excuses making convenient political conclusions before the final attendance figures were even released.
SAME OLD MEDICINE. Once again, ABC's "American Agenda" series has urged increased government regulation and control as the answer to America's health care problems. Health correspondents George Strait and Dr. Tim Johnson spread the myth that socialized health care is free. "In Canada, families never have to struggle to pay for medical care," Johnson claimed April 30. "In the U.S., the most sophisticated care is readily available for the wealthy and the insured...In Canada...no one who needs reasonable care is left out in the cold." Some may prefer the U.S. system, but Peter Jennings asserted, "others have been saying for quite some time that what the U.S. needs is what already exists in Canada."
On May 3, Strait lauded Hawaii: "In this state, health care is a fundamental right." He suggested other states could imitate Hawaii's mandated benefits system: "They too could start and copy what makes the system here work: One set of rules, one set of benefits, equally and universally distributed among all citizens." Dismissing the failure of similar programs in California and Massachusetts under Michael Dukakis, he claimed "those failures do not mean the Hawaii model is a fantasy that cannot be duplicated." Indeed, Strait suggested Hawaii offers "a glimpse of what the rest of America could be, if it chooses."
TV'S GREENHOUSE DEFECT. The networks have a strange way of reporting on the greenhouse effect: promote studies confirming it, and ignore studies challenging it. For example, when the United Nations issued a report May 25, all three networks reported the story and used it to prod President Bush into taking action.
On World News Tonight, Peter Jennings introduced "A new warning today about global warming and one likely to put considerable pressure on President Bush. The President has been skeptical of research predicting a warming trend, calling always for more studies before he takes any action. Now the most prestigious panel yet has reported in." ABC reporter Ned Potter took it from there: "[Scientists] say the administration has lost its excuse not to take more action...One environmentalist says the only real uncertainty about global warming is what President Bush will do about it."
But two days earlier, when a U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) study of nearly 1,000 official weather station records showed that the nation has cooled by one-third of a degree since 1920, the networks were silent. Data that contradicted the media- friendly theme of dramatic global warming was better left forgotten.
GREENHOUSE PAPER TRAIL. The same was true for newspapers. The UN report made page 1 of The Washington Post, covered by Post reporters Michael Weisskopf and William Booth. The Boston Globe ran the Post story on the front page. The New York Times ran a story by Craig Whitney on page 6. But none of the papers found the USDA study important enough to assign their reporters to it and the placement was quite different: The Post ran a brief AP dispatch on page A16; the Globe buried a Knight-Ridder brief inside; and the Times, the paper of record, ignored it.
When Science magazine released a study showing no warming trend March 29, only The Boston Globe assigned a reporter to the story and put it on the front page. The Post reported the study with an AP dispatch on page A26. The Times again ignored it completely. But USA Today has been most one-sided, ignoring both skeptical studies while pushing its front-page panic button last December 5: "Scientists now fear global warming and ozone depletion could have the same impact on health as a nuclear holocaust."
DOW DOUBT AFTER DOUBT. "Dow defies doubters, hits new high" read the June 5 USA Today "Money" section headline. USA Today should know about doubters. Just take a look at some of its worry-wart headlines in the midst of May's bull market: "April stock dip likely to go on" (May 1); "Uncertainty paralyzes stock market" (May 7); "But sudden surge may be short-lived" (May 15); "Individual investors getting wise to Wall Street rallies" (May 17); "Dow's high still leaves some skeptics" (May 18); and "High-tech slump may doom rally" (May 29) and our favorite, "Dow may hit potholes on road to 3000" (June 4).
