RUSTLINGS

"Advertising properly done doesn't cost a cent."

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Without conflict, life would be beige.

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I believe in Norman Vincent Peale's philosophy of the Power of Positive Thinking. More people fail because of negative thoughts or because they are affected by other people's negative thoughts or predictions. Work on what you can make happen ... not on what you would do if things went wrong.

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*Simon's Safe Bet

In 1980, economist Julian Simon bet Earth Day hero PAUL EHRLICH (I heard him speak in Academic Hall) that the world was not coming to an end. The $1,000 bet was whether by 1990 the price of five metals, including copper and tin, would be down (Simon) or up (Ehrlich). More broadly, the bet was between two conflicting views of the world, possible boom vs. inevitable doom. A recent article in the New York Times Magazine disclosed that Mr. Ehrlich had to pay up because the price of all five metals fell "for the same Cornucopian reasons they had fallen in recent decades entrepreneurship and continuing technological improvements." Mr. Simon now offers to up the bet to $20,000.

We note that Mr. Ehrlich was made famous in 1968 with his environmental scare-mongering "The Population Bomb." Mr. Simon is the author of the recent book "The Economic Consequences of Immigration," which argues that we should allow many more Americans. It sounds as if Mr. Simon has the makings of another winning bet if he can also get Mr. Ehrlich to put his money where his mouth is on the population issue.

--Wall Street Journal

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NBC SWEEPS TO VICTORY: NBC won its 11th sweeps in a row, a Pyrrhic victory, as its ratings were down 13% from last November. (Sweeps ratings are used by local stations to set advertising rates.) November's sweeps race the closest since 1975 was the lowest rated ever. The four networks mustered only 69 percent of the TV audience. The numbers: NBC, 13.1 rating/22 share; ABC 12.8/21; CBS, 12.0/20; Fox, 6.6/11. (A ratings point equals 931,000 households; share is the percentage of TVs in use.)

--U.S.A. Today

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National TV News Parrots the

Government's Budget Line

By L. Brent Bozzell III

and Tim Graham

If readers of Human Events had relied only on the network news reporting of the recent federal budget battle, they would not have discovered that the coverage was noteworthy not for what was reported but for what was ignored. In the midst of determining the winners and losers, the networks never reported that despite alleged "cuts," federal spending continues to soar. In short, the public received a distorted picture.

We watched every ABC, CBS, CNN and NBC evening news story from the emergence of the first budget bill September 24 to October 28, the day after the final budget passed. In total, we reviewed 231 news stories to determine:

* How many reported the actual size of next year's budget, compared to this year's budget? Answer: ZERO. The budget for fiscal year 1990 was $1.26 trillion. The latest figures from the Office of Management and Budget project a 1991 budget of $1.36 trillion. That's an increase of $100 billion (8 per cent) in one year, hardly a spending reduction.

Instead, reporters' emphasis on "getting a deal" accepted politicians' promises to reduce the deficit at face value. Reporters led viewers to assume the budget deal will reduce the deficit by $500 billion over five years. But there is ample precedent for government deception on budget matters.

Bipartisan budget agreements were passed in 1982, 1984, 1987 and 1989. In each case, promises were made to curtail spending growth and dedicate new revenues to reducing the deficit. Instead, the spending went to new programs and the deficit grew.

* How many reported that many, if not all, of the budget's "spending cuts" were not spending cuts at all, but cuts in projected increases? Answer: Zero.

Reporters did many stories on the supposedly disastrous effects of spending cuts, but not one reporter explained that the "cuts" were really reductions in spending increases.

"Tonight both sides say that unlike budget deals of the past, these cuts are real," ABC's Ann Compton emphasized on September 30. Simply by reporting phony "spending cuts" as real, the media misled the American taxpayer.

Medicare is a perfect example. Every network told viewers Medicare would be "cut" $60 billion and devoted at least one entire story to "profiles in suffering." But reporters didn't say that Medicare is the fastest-growing program in the budget, and is scheduled to grow 12 to 13 percent a year. Even with the "cuts" over the five years of the new budget deal, Medicare spending is still projected to grow from $105 billion to $168 billion a 60 per cent increase.

* How many reported a full one-year sequestration would still allow higher spending? Answer: Zero. A full one-year sequester would have cut spending by $85.4 billion. As a percentage of a $1.3 trillion budget, that's a 6.5 percent cut from previously scheduled increases. Even after the sequester, overall federal spending would have increased $15 billion.

Instead of reporting the actual numbers, reporters promoted the government line that the allowed spending increase required a shutdown, calling it a "disaster," a "train wreck" that "cripples the country." NBC showed the least restraint, reporting "it appears we are going over the precipice," "the guillotine coming down," an "alternative too horrible to contemplate," and "a long nightmare with no morning."

* How many reporters concentrated on the potential massive savings from cuts in government waste? Answer: Zero. "Waste, fraud and abuse" may sound like a catch-phrase, but Charles Bowsher, head of the General Accounting office, estimates there is still $180 billion a year in waste, fraud and mismanagement.

The Congressional Budget Office has identified $60 billion in annual savings. Citizens Against Government Waste called for $305 billion in waste reduction over the next five years. All these arguments were ignored.

The networks knew waste worried taxpayers. "As for the public, an overnight ABC News poll shows that 65 per cent of Americans don't like the agreement, mostly because they don't think it's necessary. They think the real problem is government waste," Peter Jennings reported on October 1. But ABC went on to do another story on the victims of Medicare "cuts" and never aired a story on waste.

After the budget passed, the networks mentioned a few examples of pork-barrel spending, like the $500,000 to renovate Lawrence Welk's boyhood home, but no reporter devoted a story to putting a stop to the annual pork parade before the budget passed.

The Washington budget process looks increasingly unreal to the American people, and networks only added to the unreality, reporting on nonexistent spending cuts and their victims, clucking about the deficit while ignoring the huge annual increase in spending.

The anchors and reporters who covered the budget process have no right to claim the mantle of government watchdog, since they reported the news exclusively in the language of the government establishment.

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