Economy On Prozac!: The "what's good for Wall Street is good for all of us" ethos pervades corporate coverage of economic news, as well as political policy. Reduced unemployment is bad news; "free" trade is manna from heaven. Trouble is, the good times, even in Seattle (an unusually prosperous city these days), aren't trickling down a whole lot. The news simply doesn't apply to many of us. Meanwhile, when the other side of the story pops up, it gets buried; last week's release of figures by the U.S. Conference of Mayors, showing (yet again) increased hunger and homelessness in urban America was reported as a short, wire-service blurb in the back of the New York Times, our elite "newspaper of record." Wouldn't want to contradict the official line--or upset the hallowed investors, who, as we saw a few weeks ago, could undo this whole boom in a hurry if they wake up depressed or neurotic one morning.

Campaign Finance Scandals: A story, in cumulative impact, roughly equivalent to the horror of revealing that Nordstrom's sells shoes. And the farce of Congressional hearings where nobody wanted to look too hard would have been funny, were it not so nauseating.

JonBenetButtafusco Septuplets Scandal!: The popularity of trash TV talk shows is declining. Somebody ought to tell the news department.

Saddam Eats Small Babies For Breakfast!: The ongoing work of national media, at the obedient lead of the Clinton Administration, to whip up war fever is easily the most transparent propaganda we've witnessed in years. The only two possible reasons for this U.S. obsession (at the cost, now, of a million civilian Iraqi lives, a notable non-story) are that a) he is one of the world's few thugs who is not on the CIA's payroll, or b) he is on the CIA's payroll, and is intentionally helping to further U.S. policy in the region.

Airplane Crashes: Apocalyptic body counts, computer images of fireballs and flying metal--it's just like a James Bond film. Never mind that more people still die from car crashes, war, famine, disease, and our collapsing health care system.

Mayhem!: Among stiff competition, Seattle's local TV news ranks among the worst in the country for its obsession with violent crime. Even if it were an indicator of a more general problem (which it's not--see below), the stories by themselves are meaningless; their appeal is strictly, "That could have been you!" Charlie Chong's Escape From Western State Hospital: It was a day pass, all right? Geez, lay off already.Blame It On El Nino: Responsible for everything from bad hair days to the birth of the Christ Child, the media used El Nino to draw our attention away from the true causes of environmental degradation (see below). It's convenient to blame it all on a freak of nature.

Anything Involving Sports Scores, Celebrities, Fashion, Music, Horoscopes, Pet Features, Tragedy-Stricken Children, or Five-Day Weather Forecasts. Obvious, so it has to be said: these are products of a profit-driven entertainment industry. There is nothing wrong with being entertained. But it's not news.

Lady Di and Mother Teresa: It was a very good week.

1997's Most Underrated StoriesPaul Allen's Stadium Election Finance Scandal: Without question, June's special election to build a state-of-the-greed football stadium was the year's most underrated local story. Not that it didn't get gobs of media coverage, to the point where the very word "stadium" induced nausea in most non-sports fans (and a surprising number of sports fans as well).

The significance of the vote, however, didn't get much play, and still doesn't. June's win for Allen had a far greater long-term impact than a new playpen for the rich, or an opportunity to raise the corporate welfare ante (a setup that Allen continues to milk, through the Public Stadium Authority, with stunning efficiency). For countless people, the ability of one multi-billionaire to buy off a legislature and governor, pressure the courts, pay for an election, and then spend another six million to win the vote itself represented the death of democracy. On issue after issue, the lesson has been hammered home: Why bother? How can we possibly make a difference? Big money owns politicians, owns the system. It's hopeless. Especially on the heels of the Mariners' stadium, approved as "emergency" legislation by Olympia after voters turned it down, the new Seahawks complex is a monument to citizen cynicism and despair. It's not even built yet, and it's already one fucking ugly building.

Charlie Chong Wins Election!: Local media's treatment of Chong's mayoral campaign was one of the most continuously lopsided displays of political favoritism ever seen in corporate media. Both daily papers, taking cues from every other political power broker in the city, slammed Chong as, in so many words, senile, crazy, dangerous. To top it off, he ran a lousy campaign. But he still won, and nobody reported it.

Chong won because the agenda he brought to the city council, of a more open, responsive, inclusive government, was the mantra to which every major council candidate adhered this year. He won because his challenge to the turf-dominated way in which city council does business is now being taken up by Tina Podlodowski in her bid to become the council's new president. He won because his entry into the mayor's race prevented it from becoming a "me-too" lovefest with no possibility for substantive debate of issues. He won because his mayoral entry put two of the most progressive people in memory on city council--Peter Steinbreuck, who, without Chong's entry, would have lost in his bid for mayor, and Nick Licata, who would have lost in his bid for Jan Drago's council seat. And, most importantly, Chong won because he did all this, walked away, and can now retire and laugh about it all.

Planet Continues to Die: Here's what we wrote in this category last year: "For a time in past years, things like ozone holes, global warning, mass species extinctions, and toxic waste attracted headlines and scientific concern. The concern is increasing, and the headlines have disappeared. Not only has the Antarctic ozone hole widened, but a matching Arctic hole extends at times as far south as Seattle. (Vancouver, B.C. media reports local ozone counts; Canada, like the rest of the world, is a bit more worried than we are.) The rainforests, of course, continue to fall as fast as they can be processed into disposable chopsticks. Global warming is now an accepted fact. Cancers and other illnesses based on chemical sensitivities are fast becoming a global epidemic. The U.S. continues to work hard to stall international agreements that might cut into transnational profits in an attempt to save life on Earth."

Add declining sperm counts, genetic engineering, contaminated food supplies, polluted oceans, and the Al Gore For President Campaign, and it's clear that our biosphere is in even greater danger 12 months later. The crisis, when mentioned at all, is portrayed as a crisis in potential corporate earnings. May the cockroaches have pity on our souls.

Peace-Hating Israel: Hussein may indeed be satanic, but he may not even be the most war-loving leader in his own region. Bibi Netanyahu's calculated, escalating oppression of Palestinians, his defiance of both the "peace process" (already rigged in Israel's favor) and international opinion and law, and his contempt for neighbors he is supposedly at peace with are all subjects of heated debate in the Israeli press. Here in the U.S., where both public and private money is a major part of Netanyahu's ability to finance his atrocities, coverage of Israel is muted, monolithic, and much friendlier than in Israel itself.

U.S. Is International Pariah: For much of the world, the lunatics are in Washington, not Baghdad. The U.S. is out of step on Iraq, Israel/Palestine, nuclear disarmament, land mines, global warming, the United Nations, respect for international law, CFCs, human rights, the death penalty, bioengineering, and a host of critical issues for the 21st century. Our knee-jerk opposition to democracy, wherever it might rear its fearsome, anti-corporate head, has intensified with the end of the Cold War. You'd never know it from the relentless boosterism of TV networks and newspapers, or from the lack of alternative views made available here--to some of the world's most poorly informed citizens.

Swiss and Asian Bank Failures: You read about Asia, but did you know that Switzerland's banks are folding en masse, too? Seems the paragon of private, elite Capitalism Uber Alles is also running into big trouble. The whole rickety structure of the new, speculative global economy is a lot shakier than we're led to believe--unless loan funds are set up to cover such collapses with the dollars of working people. The fixes suggested for Mexico, South Korea, etc. are--surprise--yet another mechanism for transferring money from everyone else to the wealthy. How much more?

Crackpots in Olympia: Charlie Chong may be sane, but some of our state legislators clearly aren't. Olympia will, in a couple of weeks, rev up again as the law-making playpen of some of the country's most bizarre and reactionary elected officials. Last year's onslaught of scary bills--some of which became law--went largely unreported, both because there were so many of them and because Olympia is a small town: most state news outlets don't have a permanent presence there, and politics makes for boring news anyway.

Deregulation: Global austerity is coming to the U.S., and not just in the form of social service cuts. Two critical issues to watch for in 1998: utility deregulation and privatization of social security. Both are scams that could literally cost consumers and workers trillions. You know who wins.

Boeing Goes To War: Boeing, with its acquisition of Rockwell and McDonnell Douglas, became one of the world's leading arms dealers this year. You'd never know it from the extensive and fawning coverage of local media--which, between product release puff pieces, asks hard questions about production techniques but never spends any time looking at where the finished products are going, or which dictators are using them to murder which large masses of civilians. That would be bad for business.

Exploding Housing Prices: Until Paul Schell started to talk about it last month, local media went through the whole year oblivious to a housing crisis that was quite possibly (along with health care access, another forgotten issue) the single biggest political issue in most folks' personal lives. Maybe it's because all the editors, anchors, and reporters have nice, comfy adjustable rate mortgages in Issaquah.

Welfare Cuts: Aside from the occasional Republican press conference, featuring a triumphant WorkFare story, there has been little examination of the impact of social service cuts on America's poor. It's an ugly story, and it's going to get much, much worse as the cuts come full force in 1998. Violent Crime Is Down: This story was reported, but most folks don't know it because of the deluge of violent TV images in the nightly news (see above). And when we hear it, it's invariably in the context of justification for tough-on-crime policies ("See, it works!") that have had little to do with dropping crime stats--most of those policies have focused on making life miserable and jails home for nonviolent offenders. And in the long term, crime was never up much to begin with-unless you're counting corporate crime, which, of course, nobody does.

Media Eats Itself: The continuing corporate consolidation of U.S. and global media--news, TV, print, books, movies, radio, cable, Internet--has huge implications for our music, our culture, our politics, and who we are. Media won't cover it. Guess in 1998 we'll just hafta eat them.

--Geov Parrish