A Healing Media Avoid Fearmongering
"The House Republican
budget bloodletting will infuriate lots of people. Besides the
Medicare cuts, Medicaid, the government health plan for the
poor, loses $184 billion."
- CNN reporter Bob Franken on Inside Politics,
May 9.
"Senate Budget Chairman
Pete Domenici, R-N.M., unveiled a seven- year budget blueprint
that would....Make huge cuts in Medicare and Medicaid."
- USA Today reporter William M. Welch, May 10.
"Senate Republicans
yesterday offered a politically daring and far-reaching plan to
balance the budget by 2002 by substantially reducing Medicare
and Medicaid...."
- Washington Post's Eric Pianin, May 10.
'Fiscal blueprint' targets
Medicare, Medicaid for cuts
- Chicago Tribune, May 10
Steep cut seen for Medicare;
space station would be saved
- Houston Chronicle, same day
"Senate Republicans on a
key committee geared up to approve one version of a plan to
balance the budget. House Republicans voted their version out of
committee earlier today. Both call for deep cuts in Medicare and
other programs."
- Connie Chung, May 11 CBS Evening News.
George Will: "It's a cut
against projected increases."
Sam Donaldson: "That's
right, but that is a cut. May I just, without getting ad hominem
here, not too long ago, the Will family had a welcome addition,
a child. So your budget perhaps had to increase to take care of
the welcome addition. Yet if it could not increase enough to
care for the welcome addition sufficiently, that's a cut."
- Exchange on ABC's This Week with David Brinkley,
May 14.
"Many members of Congress
from both parties - as well as some independent analysts -
acknowledge that the deep Medicare cuts sought by the GOP would
increase costs in the private sector while reducing insurance
coverage."
- Los Angeles Times reporters Edwin Chen and
Doyle McManus, May 15.
Reality Check:
"Under current law,
Medicare would grow about 10 percent a year. Under the
assumptions of Mr. Domenici's budget, it would grow 7 percent a
year, from $178 billion this year to $283 billion in 2002....and
the growth in Medicaid spending would be halved, to five percent
a year over the next seven years."
- New York Times reporter Robert Pear, May 10.
"Seven percent under the
Senate plan, Senator Daschle, five percent under the House plan.
How can you Democrats continue to run around and scream that the
Republicans are going to cut the smithereens out of Medicare and
throw old people out on the streets?"
- CNN Late Edition host Frank Sesno, May 14.
Right Track, Wrong Track
Poll Finds Disapproval Of GOP's
Budget Plans
- Washington Post, May 16
Poll: GOP on right budget track
- USA Today, same day
Henry Foster, My Hero
"He's done more to prevent
abortion than Operation Rescue."
- Time columnist Margaret Carlson on CNN's Capital
Gang, May 6.
Reaganomics: Plante Says Give It A Facelift
Charles Osgood: "How is it
possible to do all these things that everybody wants to do -
balance the budget, not hurt people, provide social services,
and at the same time provide a tax cut? How is it possible to do
all those things?"
Bill Plante: "Well, the
short answer is, Charles, it's not possible. It simply can't be
done. We've talked about this before. People have very short
memories. I mean, we were going to do all that during the Reagan
years....The truth of the matter is it's probably not possible
at all to balance the budget without degrading the social
services unless taxes are also raised."
- Exchange on CBS Sunday Morning, May 14.
Conservatives Are Dangerous to Your Health
"This all comes at a time
when the Jesse Helmses of the world are anxious to cut back or
cut off funding to groups like the World Health Organization.
Would such cuts lay the foundation for further problems down the
road?"
- Bryant Gumbel to reporter Laurie Garrett about the
spread of the Ebola virus, May 11 Today.
The Profession Known As "Journalism," A Network Calling Itself CBS
"Adding petrol to the
partisan fires on Capitol Hill this week, the political agenda
of the movement known as the religious right. The group calling
itself the Christian Coalition is aligned with hard-right stands
on issues ranging from gay rights to school prayer, and it's
demanding its due for its help in getting Republicans
elected."
- Dan Rather, May 15 CBS Evening News.
Like Comparing Auschwitz to the Autobahn
"The good news for
Russians? They no longer have to worry about being shipped to
Siberia for defying the old communist state. The bad news? They
may have to come to Moscow, where the chances of dying in a car
crash are greater than expiring in Siberia. This city is one
large wreck 'em derby....Isn't capitalism grand?"
- Tom Brokaw, May 8 NBC Nightly News.
Peter's Right: You Were Two-Year-Olds
"There was a temper tantrum
that did take place in the American electorate last November. No
doubt about it. They were mad at the Democrats, they were mad at
the President. They were frustrated because, there's all kinds
of reasons to be frustrated, and talk radio - in my estimation,
I think the President is right about that - focuses on
that."
- 60 Minutes reporter Mike Wallace agreeing
with the Peter Jennings radio commentary blaming the November
election result on "a temper tantrum....a nation full of
uncontrolled two-year-old rage." Interview with Arianna
Huffington, CNBC's Talk Live, May 6.
Communism Would Have Vanished By Itself?
"The long march down Ho Chi
Minh Trail has ended in the shopping mall. Saigon has moved from
socialism to Sony, from VC to VCR. Everything we fought for,
everything we lost 58,000 men for, is being given to us now.
Perhaps we have trouble accepting that because it's one final
confirmation that the war never had to be fought at all."
- CBS reporter Bob Simon reporting from Vietnam, April
28 Evening News.
Million Dollar Connie: A Victim?
"Most notoriously, Chung
was attacked for the January interview in which Kathleen
Gingrich volunteered that her son, House Speaker Newt Gingrich,
had said of Hillary Rodham Clinton: `She's a bitch.' Chung had
teased the revelation out of Mrs. Gingrich by asking her to
share it `just between you and me.' But the fact is, the cameras
were rolling when Chung made her now-infamous come-on, and Chung
spoke in a stage whisper that the two had jokingly used earlier.
To anyone who bothered to watch the whole interview, it was
clear that Mrs. Gingrich was nobody's fool. So why does it all
stick to Connie Chung? Sexism?"
- Boston Globe TV critic Frederic M. Biddle,
May 10.
- L.
Brent Bozell III, Publisher;
-Brent H. Baker, Tim Graham; Editors
- James Forbes, Andrew Gabron, Mark Honig, Steve Kaminski,
Gesele Rey, Clay Waters; Media Analysts
- Kathleen Ruff, Circulation Manager;
-Melissa Gordon, Anna Johnson; Interns