The national media watch group
FAIR's new alert takes CBS Evening News to task for relying heavily on CEOs associated with the corporate-backed Fix the Debt campaign in their recent reporting about the so-called "fiscal cliff."
If you're sending an email to CBS, please consider pasting your message in the comments section below.
About Peter HartActivism Director and and Co-producer of CounterSpinPeter Hart is the activism director at FAIR. He writes for FAIR's magazine Extra! and is also a co-host and producer of FAIR's syndicated radio show CounterSpin. He is the author of The Oh Really? Factor: Unspinning Fox News Channel's Bill O'Reilly (Seven Stories Press, 2003). Hart has been interviewed by a number of media outlets, including NBC Nightly News, Fox News Channel's O'Reilly Factor, the Los Angeles Times, Newsday and the Associated Press. He has also appeared on Showtime and in the movie Outfoxed. Follow Peter on Twitter at @peterfhart.
CEO's do NOT represent the People. STOP with the drama about the "fiscal cliff". At most it is a little slide, but serves the Media for sensational fear based reporting.
Dear CBS Evening News,
Your coverage on November 19th of the fiscal cliff was misleading and unbalanced. Reducing Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid benefits is not necessary for reducing the national debt. For example, the Congressional Progressive Caucus in 2011 released their "People's Budget," which reduces the debt without cuts to the social safety net. It is highly misleading to present unchallenged the view that social safety net cuts are inevitable.
I also find it curious that Lloyd Blankfein was sought out as an expert on fiscal matters, since Mr. Blankfein and Goldman Sachs played a central role in the 2008 financial crisis. It is disturbing to hear Mr. Blankfein talk about the need for working people to dampen their expectations about the social safety net when Goldman Sachs survived the financial crisis due to massive support from the federal government. If CBS Evening News wants to do a story on Mr. Blankfein, perhaps they can try to hold him accountable for his role in the 2008 economic collapse.
Hello CBS,
I hope your coverage of the so-called "fiscal cliff" will include voices that are more representative of the rest of us regular folks. The CEOs of large corporations have a definite vested interest in maintaining stock market values and ensuring that the fiscal burden gets carried by payroll deductions (that finance "entitlements") instead of income taxes, and they are using you to get their message out.
By the way, these same CEOs are sitting on most of the substantial gains they've made since the meltdown. Why do they need lower taxes? They are not the job creators. They won't do much hiring until we – the consumers – resume buying patterns that they feel like betting on. WE are the job creators.
Peter Emmel, Pittsford, NY
Please include, in your reports on the economic choices we face at this critical juncture, discussion by experts who aren’t just entitlement-busting CEOs. How about some visionaries who can imagine an economy that's of the people, by the people, and FOR the people?
Waiting for inspiration to our leaders from our media, or are you just as sold-out as they've been?
A senior living in poverty, so grateful for food-stamps and medicare,
New Mexico
CBS Evening News:
Why on earth would you have the wealthiest CEO's in the U.S. provide commentary on our social safety net programs when every citizen understands he and men in his financial position are not even remotely concerned with SS, Medicare or Medicaid since they have enough money that they have no need whatsoever for the paltry sum these programs would provide when they reach retirement age. Mr. Blankfein has no idea how most Americans live and how dependent they will be on these programs, so all he is providing is his 'PERSONAL OPINION' which carries as much weight as to be completely meaningless. If you are going to have anyone discuss these programs, select a public service employee who possesses first hand of the importance of them in his/her life or someone who works for these programs.
Sincerely,
To: CBS Evening News
Your interview of Lloyd Blankfein, CEO of Goldman Sachs was not news, It was propoganda. Do you want to be classed with the likes of Fox News.
Before anyone considers cutting SS, Medicare or Medicaid they first need to address the bloated Department of Defense budget, which even the Defense Department agrees with, and corporate welfare handed out freely by congress to companies making obscene profits.
Please provide a difference of opinion when you interview someone with such a biased view.
You give media a bad name.
Stan Phipps stan.phipps@gmail.com
10:19 AM (15 minutes ago)
to evening
To Whom It May Concern:
I was disappointed to see that the head honchos at CBS news seems to have decided that your coverage of the so-called "fiscal cliff" will be dominated by Corporate CEOs who seem determined to use this crisis to make the rich even richer and poor even poorer.
Social Security and Medicare can be protected rather than eviscerated by simply removing the current caps on the payroll taxes that fund them. Most middle class people pay these payroll taxes on all of their earnings. Currently, the payroll tax is capped at rather modest $142,000. If the cap is removed social security would be solvent for the next 75-years.
There is a similar situation for Medicare. The current cap is $110,000. All income above that level is sheltered from the payroll tax. Remove the cap and that greatly improves the solvency for Medicare. Why are no AARP spokespeople or others with a commitment to save the nation's premier retirement program and health care system interviewed by CBS news to address this issue from a more progressive pointy-of-view?
Please address this failing if you expect to have any credibility as a news source as we enter a politically charged debate on the well-being of the nation's senior citizens.
Surely, there must be some people at CBS news who understand the gravity of this situation.
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Rusty Solomon
I object to your bias coverage regarding the Fiscal Cliff. The corporate agenda is designed exclusively to benefit corporations only. Thus, corporate spokesman will never give substantial weight to protecting social security or Medicare. Goldman Sachs has zero sense of ethical corporate citizenship. You should give equal weight to the impact on the poor, the working poor, and the middle class.
Gentlemen: Please do not underestimate the feelings and intelligence of those who take the trouble to write to you. Please don't treat us like ditto heads as Limbaugh does. Please be free of bias and give us true info from both sides. We can separate whiff from the chaff. Thank you.