MediaWatch: September 1990
Table of Contents:
Ray's Average Joes
Ray Brady not only selected economists who would reflect his own pessimism, but followed the same pattern in choosing non-experts. Of 41 soundbites from such "man on the street" interviews, 74 percent were negative, 8 percent were positive, and 18 percent were ambiguous. Not one of the non-experts aired in 1989 or 1990 said something positive.
Finding people to utter sufficiently gloomy remarks has been helpful to Brady, especially when the government figures were insufficiently gloomy. One memorable non-expert was shopper Frances Kessler, who Brady followed around a supermarket for a January 18, 1990 story. Kessler held up a box of cornflakes and exclaimed "$1.99. I think the last time I bought this, it was $1.59. That's a big increase. It's ridiculous." Kessler told Brady "Prices never come down. Once they're up, they're up. The up escalator works. The down escalator is always out of service."
In another inflation story on February 21 this year, a woman complained: "I don't know how the average, normal, moderate- living-income family is going to be able to make it."
In a July 18, 1990 piece on state economies, a woman told Brady: "We eat at coffee shops, the few that are left. Most of them have gone out of business."
Sometimes the soundbites created a sense of desperation. On August 23, 1988, an elderly woman worried about increasing food prices after the summer drought: "I'm 88 years old. How can I afford to go on at the rate it's going?"
Brady's "average" people weren't very representative. If they were, Michael Dukakis would be President.
