Date: Fri, 1 Mar 1996 08:51:16 -0600 (CST)
From: Chegitz Guevara <mluziett-AT-shrike.depaul.edu>
Subject: [LABNEWS] FAIR: Pro-worker Republicans?(fwd)



Marc, "the Chegitz," Luzietti
personal homepage: http://shrike.depaul.edu/~mluziett
political homepage: http://shrike.depaul.edu/~mluziett/chegitz.html

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SHALLOW MEDIA COVERAGE LETS REPUBLICANS PORTRAY
THEMSELVES AS PRO-WORKER
By Janine Jackson, Research Director, FAIR

When Republican politicians express concern for workers and their
problems, you can be pretty sure it's election season. Despite
their party's history of taking management's side over labor,
conservative candidates like Bob Dole, Malcolm "Steve" Forbes and
especially Pat Buchanan all now claim to have the cure for what
ails working Americans.

A critical press would help voters sort out substance from stump
speeches. But while mainstream reporters are consumed with tracking
polls and horserace analysis, some questions vital to working
people aren't even being asked.

For instance, media spent much of January obsessed with Steve
Forbes' "flat tax" proposal, remarking on what TIME magazine called
the "apparent fairness and simplicity" of the plan. But a quick
look at the small print would show that Forbes' plan would deliver
the overwhelming majority of its benefits to the country's
wealthiest families, not to workers or the middle class.

In fact, middle class families would likely lose more in government
benefits than they would gain in tax cuts under a flat tax, since
federal spending would surely be cut to make up for the roughly
$200 billion such a plan would add to the deficit. Another little
noted fact: Forbes' plan would eliminate the earned income tax
credit, so the working poor could actually lose up to $3,000 a
year.

Sometimes journalists' short memories mean voters miss relevant
parts of a candidate's record. When Bob Dole, in his response to
President Clinton's State of the Union address, spoke of Medicare
as "a system on which lives depend and a program in urgent need of
rescue," no primetime pundit noted that Dole had voted against that
life-sustaining program when it was created. (Dole had boasted
publically of his anti-Medicare vote only a few months previously
while speaking to a group of conservative backers.)

But no Republican primary candidate has made better use of the
media failure to go beneath the surface than Pat Buchanan. While
coverage of Buchanan hasn't been uncritical, many mainstream
reporters do appear to have swallowed Buchanan's self-portrayal as
a "populist" -- without asking even the most basic questions about
where he stands on issues crucial to workers.

Buchanan has indeed delivered lines that sound populist, as when he
said, "when AT&T lops off 40,000 jobs, the executioner that does
it, he's a big hero on the cover of one of these magazines, and
AT&T stock soars". But it wouldn't require much digging to reveal
that, while his economic nationalism and a preference for small
business over big business lead him to oppose trade agreements like
NAFTA and GATT, Buchanan has done nothing to demonstrate any real
concern for workers themselves.

In fact, back when he was a regular host of the CNN talkshow,
"Crossfire," Buchanan used to argue that it was high union wages,
not trade pacts, that were weakening U.S. industry.

If Patrick Buchanan is really an advocate for workers, a reporter
might ask, why does he oppose increasing the minimum wage, when
declining wages are one of labor's most urgent concerns? Why does
he point with pride to Ronald Reagan's economic legacy, that
involved a huge transfer of wealth from the poor and middle class
to the country's richest?

And no account of Buchanan's "populism" should omit his vehement
opposition to workers' right to strike. "Listen, the job does not
belong to the guy who walks out of it," he argued in a "Crossfire"
debate with AFSCME's Gerald McEntee. On the same show he celebrated
Reagan's firing of the PATCO workers, claiming that "his approval
rating soared" because of it.

Of course, even if he didn't actively oppose so much of what labor
stands for, Buchanan's unveiled racism, anti-Semitism and
homophobia would keep him from fairly representing all workers.
This is, after all, a guy who thinks Hitler was "an individual of
great courage."

The fact that, despite some occasional criticism, the press have
allowed a millionaire rightwing zealot like Buchanan to sell
himself as workers' champion says something about shallow election
coverage that repeats soundbites more often than it digs for real
answers.

But it also says something about media's misunderstanding of
labor's issues. Mainstream pundits seem to think a vote against
NAFTA is all it takes to get unions' uncritical support, and that
workers can't tell the difference between real allies and false
ones. If the press spent less time talking to politicians and more
time talking to workers, they'd know better.

                             *  *  *

Janine Jackson is FAIR's (Fairness & Accuracy In Reporting)
Research Director. This column is produced by the Labor Resource
Center, Queens College, CUNY, in cooperation with FAIR. An updated
version of this article will appear in the May/June issue of FAIR's
magazine, EXTRA!  Call 800-847-3993 to subscribe.

For more information about FAIR, send a blank e-mail message to
fair-info-AT-fair.org or visit our web site: http://www.fair.org/fair




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