MediaWatch: October 1992
Table of Contents:
- MediaWatch: October 1992
- Watching the Ad Watchers
- NewsBites: Attacks off Limits?
- Revolving Door: Democratic Revolver Sees Bias
- Markle Foundation Funds Slanted Campaign Coverage
- Media Still Defend Aspiring First Lady
- Time, Corporate Tool
- Post's Deficit Solution
- Janet Cooke Award: NBC: Liberal Public Relations
Markle Foundation Funds Slanted Campaign Coverage
CNN'S ADVOCACY SPECIALS
In the hope of creating a better-informed electorate, the Markle Foundation made an unprecedented $3.5 million grant to the for- profit Cable News Network to fund election-year specials. But instead of informing voters with in-depth, investigative journalism, CNN abandoned its usual pattern of balance. Its first three Nation's Agenda specials, larded with melodramatic music and slow-motion visuals, replaced news with liberal sermonizing.
The first episode, "A House Divided," aired September 20 and examined race relations but resorted to the usual liberal reflex of blaming white America for all the ills of black America. One segment, titled "Apartheid in America," discussed the inner cities. In another, called "No Common Ground," Norma Quarles reported Detroit was an "American Dream turned into American nightmare. A ravaged mostly black city surrounded by indifferent, if not hostile, mostly white suburbs....This is what it looks like when white and black America divide. When white fear and flight leave behind black isolation."
"Pillars of Our Prosperity," broadcast September 27, concerned the economy. Ignoring history, correspondent Frank Sesno stated: "The explosion of debt is due largely to the policies of the Reagan Administration which slashed taxes while boosting military spending." Sesno blamed Congress for being "unable or unwilling to curb domestic spending" but returned to lay the blame at the feet of supply-siders: "Though the economy boomed in the mid- '80's, it never could grow its way out of the deficits as many had promised." Never mind that the deficit actually declined in the mid-'80's. In another myth put forth, Sesno claimed that the bottom 60 percent of Americans saw their incomes decline in the '80's. Actually, all five quintiles of earners saw their average income rise.
Sesno also offered a very telling solution to our economic ills: "Some say economic growth is still the way out. But increasingly, leaders from both parties and academia say it's time for the American public to be told the truth." And what is that "truth"? "Raise taxes," Sesno explained. "Advocates of this course observe the U.S. has the world's largest economy and among affluent nations, one of its lowest tax rates."
The last episode on October 4, "Government for the People," continued the series' advocacy for liberal solutions. Reporter Brooks Jackson observed, "Over the past 80 years or more other nations of the industrialized world have enacted comprehensive systems to pay for health care and control cost...But the U.S. has only a patchwork system of insurance and leaves prices to the private market. Result? Costs rising relentlessly and millions of people without insurance."
