From: harelb@math.cornell.edu
Newsgroups: alt.activism
Subject: More NPR bias.
Date: 12 Jan 93 08:07:00 GMT
Nf-ID: #N:9301120804.AA24184@tba.msi.corne:1288889642:000:3701
Nf-From: math.cornell.edu!harelb    Jan 12 00:07:00 1993


From: harelb@math.cornell.edu (Harel Barzilai)
Subject: More NPR bias.


From: Harel Barzilai <harelb@igc.org>
To: fax:14155532241 
Subject: Weekend Edition 
--text follows this line--

					       Harel Barzilai 
					       112 Sapsucker Woods Rd 1A 
					       Ithaca, NY 14850 
					       harelb@math.cornell.edu 
Weekend Edition 
National Public Radio 
2025 M Street, North-West 
Washington, DC 20036 


Your report on the alleged anti-Bush media bias [during the
presidential campaign] was revealing.

While the public is not allowed to perceive the truism that the mass 
media consists primarily of a "Free Press" which are large 
corporations in the business of selling mass-audiences to client 
advertiser companies, we hear constantly about the "liberal bias" of 
the press. 

While we are not to note the pro-business, anti-labor, and 
*conservative* "mainstream" bias obviously inherent in this 
overwhelming control of the media by business and the corporate 
interests generally, including the considerable clout they wield over 
even public broadcasters such as NPR -- your interviews with media 
watchdog groups conspicuously ommited half the spectrum by not 
including a representative of FAIR [Fairness and Accuracy in 
Reporting] -- our attention is to be focused elsewhere. 

Namely: instead, air-time is given to analyze the mysterious and 
highly-suspect reasons for the negative coverage given to the 
President overseeing the worst recession since the Great Depression -- 
the member of the two-man 12-year Republican team which oversaw the 
U.S. starting as the leading lender and becoming the world's Number 
One debtor nation, all while overseeing a massive transfer of wealth 
from the middle class and poor to the wealthy, and the biggest 
taxpayer ripoff in history -- the S&L bailout on the backs of ordinary 
Americans -- rather than the high-rollers who caused the mess -- but 
which President *still* managed, before the campaign was over, to have 
Iraq-Gate revelations of secret loans to his ex-pal Saddam Hussein 
come to light -- and, if that wasn't enough -- just before the end of 
the race, managed to have another revelation come to the voters' 
attention: namely, still more hard evidence, from Weinberger's diaries 
this time, of Bush's having flat-out lied yet again about the 
Iran-Contra scandal. 

Indeed, that such a President could get 38% of the vote (that is, of 
those who actually bothered to vote; the figure is otherwise 21%) is 
an eloquent indictment of the timid coverage given to these scandals 
by the Free Press and the power wielded over it by the Establishment 
and the monied interests. 



--Harel Barzilai 


PS -- The U-Mass study "IMAGES/ISSUES/IMPACT -- The Media and Campaign 
'92" by Lewis and Morgan illustrates well the role played by the 
media, with such findings as that "Most respondents knew .. that the 
Bush family has a dog called Millie (86%), while only 15% know that 
both Bush and Clinton support the death penalty, and less than 5% are 
aware that both candidates have proposed making cuts in capital gains 
taxes" 

PPS -- concerning the Bush record, the above only scratches the 
surface; see for example Andrew Shapiro's _We're Number One_ (Vintage 
Books: New York, 1992) for extensive statistical analysis, on the back 
cover of which appears: 

    ``America is becoming a land of private greed and public squalor.     
    This book is an indispensable road map through the wreckage. The     
    facts it reveals will startle you. They may depress you. But     
    ideally they'll fire you up to help rebuild this nation.'' 

                        -Robert B. Reich, author of The Work of Nations     
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