Giving Us The Business

Mass media currently functions to give the public what they "want" to know and see, as indicated by ratings, yet the public also entrusts the media to report on what they "need" to know. Because of their pivotal role in a democracy, journalistic institutions have a duty to follow a moral high road compared to other businesses. In the area of economics news, only the newspaper business section ever approaches doing an adequate reporting job. Businesspeople demand reliable information in order to carry out their investing.

Business reporting on the front page, or on television, however, is completely superficial and pathetic. Whether due to an expectation of low interest or literacy in economics matters, or as part of a rational effort to maintain the status quo via withholding of information, U.S. media sources have failed to inform the public about the workings of the economy and budget.

When the expensive Savings and Loan scandal received less coverage than babble about Jim & Tammy Faye Baker, people didn't even notice what was being stolen from them, or walked away believing that the problem resulted from a few crooks. The press has operated as a mindless parrot, repeating without analyses intentionally misleading spectacles such as the GOP's flat tax sideshow propaganda, or incessant cries about "tax and spend liberals" (creating truth through repetition).

One or two years ago, when the GOP was (inaccurately) blaming the deficit on the Democrats (it was Reagan, after all, who tripled the national debt), the TV news fell into step with this message by highlighting segments focusing on examples of government waste such as 'The Fleecing of America' on NBC, and 'You Paid for It' on KOMO. These reporters were guilty of a sort of dishonesty because they almost always chose to bring out examples of abuse at minor government agencies involving relatively small parts of the total budget.

In the past year, NBC has focused on an $18 million commuter rail project in Vermont, a pork barrel airport project in Illinois, a $250,000 experimental marijuana farm, Radio Free Europe and Asia, and corruption at the Bureau of Indian Affairs. KOMO has indicted the new climbing rock at Marymoore Park and expensive waiting room projects in government buildings. The direct implication is that the budget is unbalanced due to the cumulative impact of these small potatoes wasteful allocations.

Of course, any sort of government waste is a matter of concern. Yet members of the public have given the responsibility for filtering the news over to these "professionals" and can reasonably expect them to prioritize the most important issues. The fact of the matter is that no combination of wasteful social programs can account for last year's national deficit. On the local level, the TV stations are extremely slow-witted at catching on to the most egregious cases of abuse, such as the Nordstrom's parking garage or stadium plan fine print. The Weekly, The Stranger, and ETS! are often months ahead of the Times and P-I. Local TV news, the primary source of news for many, usually isn't even in the race.

Excluding Social security and medicare, last year's national budget was $1407 billion. 19% accounted for direct military spending, 5% for veteran's affairs, and 16.6% went to interest on the debt (largely created by past military spending). $456 billion or 32% of the total is taken by a variety of good to malevolent tax expenditures or loopholes such as corporate welfare, the mortgage interest deduction, earned income credits, and itemized deductions. These items are included in the numbers because they are directed writeoffs. Non-medicare health programs take up 8%, and all miscellaneous agriculture, welfare, education, environment, research, and law enforcement programs constitute 19%. Because almost all debt is owned by the top 5% of the public in the form of bonds, this budget item in itself accounts for a massive redistribution of wealth which is much larger than all social programs combined. This also gives the wealthy an incentive to oppose debt reduction, which may be why Newt Gingrich and Trent Lott prefer a tax reduction rather than debt payoff with this year's surplus. Where is the outraged consumer reporting?

Now that Congress has superficially balanced the budget, attention has been taken away from wasteful spending scandal stories. That doesn't mean that the national government isn't still wasting your money to a massive extent by redistributing it to military industries and the rich. Read the business pages to get the whole story.

MediaWatch is written every two weeks by members of the MediaWatch collective, a local group monitoring Seattle news media. Our next meeting will be Monday, Mar. 30 at 6:00 PM, 3rd floor Univ. Baptist Church (4554 12th Ave. NE in Seattle). For info or to get involved, e-mail mediawatch@u.washington.edu or call 632-1656.