CyberAlert -- 03/01/2001 -- CBS Spiked Pro-Tax Cut Poll
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CBS Spiked Pro-Tax Cut Poll; ABC Focused on Budget Cut "Pain"; Dan Rather: Bush Cut Earthquake Help; Public Radio Censorship 6) Letterman's "Top Ten Answers to the Question, 'How Boring Was George W. Bush's Speech?'" 1 CBS trusted its poll of 978 people enough to tout on Wednesday's The Early Show, as noted in the February 28 MRC Media Reality Check distributed Wednesday afternoon in a CyberAlert Special, and on its Web page. The Web site summary of the poll revealed it also discovered that tax cuts are Bush's most popular policy idea: "Given a choice of four of the proposals offered by Bush, the viewing public is most interested in his proposal to cut income taxes. Thirty-eight percent of viewers say they would like to see it happen in the coming year. Proposals on increasing Social Security/Medicare and education spending follow, chosen by 23 percent and 21 percent, respectively. Thirty percent of those who did not watch or listen to the speech chose tax cut. Overall, 35 percent of the public prefer the tax-cut proposal." For CBS's rundown of its poll, go to: But CBS Evening News viewers heard nothing about any
of the poll findings. Instead, the show painted the tax cut as a risky
scheme which scares the public. Dan Rather introduced the February 28
story, as transcribed by MRC analyst Brad Wilmouth: Roberts checked in from Bush's stop in Omaha where
he showed Bush arguing tax money belongs to the people in the first place.
Roberts explained Bush was campaigning for his plan in states where
moderate Democrats could make the difference. After a soundbite of Bush
predicting his cut will pass and it will boost the economy, Roberts
announced: One CBS News doesn't want Bush to get.
During Special Report with Brit Hume's "Grapevine" segment, Hume observed: "Early poll results on Mr. Bush's speech were highly favorable. A CBS poll of those who saw it found 88 percent agreed with the Bush proposals, which anchor Dan Rather had characterized as quote, 'a cut-federal-programs-to-get-a-tax-cut plan.'" Hume went on to report that a USA Today/CNN/Gallup poll discovered 79 percent support Bush's tax cut plan.
On Wednesday night ABC's Terry Moran focused on how Bush's budget plan will cause "pain" as he outlined the "big losers," departments which would get less money. But while Moran highlighted how the Transportation Department budget would be cut by $2 billion, the Washington Post reported the department had done "spectacularly under the budget proposal." By failing to explain if his numbers were real cuts or just reductions in the rate of increase and by failing to state the percent cut each represented of an agency's total budget, Moran's "cut" numbers were meaningless. From Omaha, Moran warned World News Tonight viewers: "The budget document that the White House released today reveals that along with the promises there will be pain." After a clip of Bush on the road complaining about
out of control budget hikes in recent years, Moran asserted: Following about a three word soundbite from OMB Director Mitch Daniels, Moran blamed the tax cut for the pain: "The President's lean budget is aimed in part at making room for his main priority: his across the board tax cut." I've yet to find any news source which puts the
budget numbers into the context of baseline budgeting or which adjusts for
inflation in order to offer a more relevant perspective on the real size
of any cuts, but a budget analysis posted Wednesday on the
WashingtonPost.com Web site destroyed Moran's claim of a cut in spending
at the Department of Transportation. Reporter Don Phillips explained:
CNN's Bernard Shaw also raised the same program cut with Vice President Cheney during an abbreviated Inside Politics. Other than ten minutes with Cheney, IP's 90 minutes were devoted to the earthquake, so the planned hour-long tribute to the retiring Shaw was bumped to Friday at 5:30pm ET.
Earlier this week Jim Romenesko's MediaNews, online at http://www.poynter.org/medianews/, linked to Greenberg's recitation of his suppression. Greenberg is the editorial page editor at the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette and a syndicated columnist. An excerpt from his Sunday, February 25 piece in his newspaper: Censorship is one of those subjects journalists love to fulminate against, in part because it so directly threatens what we're about, and also because it's the hallmark of societies at a safe remove -- like the old Soviet Union or the "People's Republic'' of China. But it's a little different when opinions are stifled right here at home. Especially when you're the one being stifled.... Here's how it happened to me: A couple of weeks ago, I got a call from Ron Breeding at KUAR, the public radio station that broadcasts from the UALR campus....Ron had called to ask if I'd like to do a brief commentary on the news once a week.... Actually, Ron explained, the station wasn't interested just in my dulcet tones. It was looking for a conservative counterpoint to its liberal commentary. Duty called. "Sure," I said. I proceeded to do a couple of three-minute radio essays, and enjoyed them, ham that I yam. I also enjoyed the usual responses: the raves from fans, the nasty e-mails from critics. I thought that's why I was picked: to interest listeners and get them thinking, even responding. Then I got the phone call. My services would no longer be needed. Maybe they'd call me later, when a different format was devised that would include various viewpoints from the community. Hmmm. Would the liberal commentator continue weekly? Yes. So much for conservative counterpoint. So much for balance. It seems that the station had got some complaints -- not about my style or language or delivery -- but my political opinions. So it had decided to drop me, at least for now. "It wasn't my idea," said Ron Breeding. He just got to break the news to me, lucky fellow. So I called Ben Fry, the station manager, though I already had a pretty good idea which of my commentaries had brought the politically correct out in force. Was it my discussion of ethics at this session of the Ledge, including the ethics of abortion? Yes, Ben said. And who called to complain -- contributors? "They're all contributors," said Ben. Well, were they big, rich backers? He hesitated. Would it be fair, I asked, to describe them as prominent? Yes, he said. And he'd caved. His defense: "What do you expect me to do, Paul?" Well, Ben, I expected you to show a little courage. Because without courage, neither journalism nor freedom itself will prove a going concern for long. I also wondered how Ben would justify this squalid little cave-in to students at UALR. I'd love to be there when he does. It'd be a kick to hear him explain how public radio promotes the free exchange of ideas, or just listen to him dilate on the importance of freedom of expression on a university campus.... On a national level, NPR -- or as we aficionados call it, National Propaganda Radio -- is well known for its ideological bias. But I had no idea the rot had spread so far down.... My first broadcast had drawn fire, too, Ben Fry told me. Which isn't surprising. In that little essay, I'd pointed out some of the problems with the hate-crime bill being debated at the Ledge. (I wonder if some of the criticism was hateful.) Now I'd compounded that thought crime by saying something critical about abortion -- the one subject beyond respectable criticism in our enlightened times, aka the Culture of Death. That's what tore it, of course. If there's anything advocates of Choice can't tolerate, it's a choice of opinions. It's all been enough to make me grateful, again, that I work for a publisher who has never told me what to say or what not to say in this column.... As for those whose only response to any opinion different from their own is to censor it, they don't understand. They don't understand that the surest way to protect their own freedom of opinion is to assure that others are free to express theirs. But the defining weakness of modern, conventional "liberalism" is a fear of ideas, and rather than confront and debate conservative ideas, the instant reaction is: Suppress them. Dilute them. Get them off the air, or at least limit the people's exposure to them, lest the masses be led astray and grow restless. As for the fearful types who yield to pressure, and let themselves be intimidated, they are the natural accomplices of our new Thought Police. Boy, it's good to get that gag out of my mouth. END Excerpt To read Greenberg's piece in its entirety, go to: Maybe an Arkansas reader could inform us of what is the "Ledge"? E-mail me at: cybercomment@mrc.org
10. It was so boring, the Secret Service changed his code name to
"Sominex" Bush keeps benefitting from Bill Clinton's behavior. Four of the ten were Clinton-related. >>>
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A CBS News
poll of those who watched President Bush's Tuesday night address to
Congress found 67 percent support his tax cut plan, a more than two-to-one
margin over the 31 percent who oppose it, but Wednesday's CBS Evening
News didn't mention their own poll. Instead, reporter John Roberts
highlighted two women in Omaha who think it's too big, including one
who, Roberts asserted, "fears the President is rolling the dice on
eight years of success just for political gain."
FNC's
Brit Hume noted the CBS News poll, which the CBS Evening News skipped, as
he also picked up on how Dan Rather characterized the impact of Bush's
tax cut plan, a quote from Tuesday night cited in the February 28
CyberAlert.
In the
media lexicon, a tax cut is "risky" and any reduction in
spending, no matter how minor, will cause "pain." That's
because reporters look at government spending from the perspective of the
spenders and not from the viewpoint of taxpayers.
President
Bush endangering lives by killing spending on earthquake preparation?
After a series of stories on the Seattle-area earthquake, CBS Evening News
anchor Dan Rather intoned on his February 28 broadcast:
Intolerant
public radio liberals. Federal and state taxpayer money may support public
radio, but that doesn't mean individual public radio donors think they
should have to suffer through conservative opinions. So conservative Paul
Greenberg learned recently in Little Rock when a local NPR affiliate
dropped his conservative commentary but kept his liberal counterpart on
the air.
From the
February 28 Late Show with David Letterman, the "Top Ten Answers to
the Question, 'How Boring Was George W. Bush's Speech?'" Copyright
2001 by Worldwide Pants. Inc.
