MediaWatch: October 1994
Table of Contents:
- MediaWatch: October 1994
- Newsweek Removes Noted Clinton Sycophant from the White House Beat
- NewsBites: Sticking to the Issues
- Revolving Door: Matalin's Matchmaker
- Reporters Club Contract with America with False History of the 1980's
- Who lost Socialized Medicine?
- Health Risk Hype
- Relentless Russert
- Janet Cooke Award: ABC Environmental Reporter Loads Cairo Story with White House-Favored Spokesmen
Relentless Russert
Meet the Press host Tim Russert went on a tirade against Newt Gingrich on October 2, demanding eight times that he name budget cuts. Pulling out a chart showing how the budget will be allocated in 2002, Russert queried: "Could you explain to our viewers what areas of the budget you would seek cuts in?"
After Gingrich set Social Security aside, Russert shot back: "So, if we're talking a deficit of $319 billion, you've taken away Social Security. Defense -- if you'll give me a specific number....If you take 50 percent of all domestic spending, that would be the FBI, drug enforcement, breast cancer research, that would get it down to about 150 billion, which would mean about a 20 percent cut in Medicare....tell me, specifically, where you'd cut."
Between 1980 and 1992, Russert noted, "Entitlements went up 54 percent," adding "There's a new book out called Dead Right.... which says that Ronald Reagan never cut...a major social program." But thanks to a lot of shoddy reporting on victims of non-existent cuts, many blame Reagan for social ills. Given the media's defense of spending, politicians are naturally reluctant to suggest cuts.
Look at Russert's colleagues. In the late 1989 special The Eighties, Tom Brokaw falsely asserted over video of homeless people: "Social programs? They suffered under Reagan. But he refused to see the cause and effect." Last year Bryant Gumbel stated: "Faced with declining levels of assistance from Washington over the last 12 years, long-standing urban problems have been aggravated, leading to increases in decay, business failures, and crime, and shortages of housing, school funds." While direct aid to cities fell, social program spending in cities rose from $255 to $285 billion in real terms from 1980-1992.
