GOP-Led Congress and School Lunch Lie (4/12/95) By Jeff Cohen & Norman Solomon With the first 100 days behind us, the press is awash in analysis of Newt Gingrich and the Republican-led Congress, asking: How did they do? The question could be turned around and aimed at news media: How well did journalists perform in the first 100 days? While some reporters probed behind the rhetoric, most seemed content to be aboard Gingrich's speeding train -- acting more like stenographers than journalists. Perhaps the clearest example is the school lunch debate. The House passed a bill that would reduce the amount of food available to school kids. Taking food out of the mouths of children is something that Republicans are understandably defensive about. So they've taken the offensive...with a big lie, repeated endlessly. And most reporters have ducked and gotten out of the way. The lie is that -- under the GOP's plan -- funding will increase 4.5 percent next year and in succeeding years. In broadcasts and press quotes, Gingrich has claimed, ''We raised school lunches 4.5 percent for five years.'' He called the charge that Congress is cutting the program ''one of the most horrendously disgusting examples of demagogy I have ever seen.'' The 4.5 percent yearly increase for school lunches has been stated as fact by Republican leaders, in news reports quoting those leaders and in conservative editorials and commentary. Pundits from George Will to John Sununu to Mona Charen have asserted the figure. Charen huffed: ''Everyone is entitled to his opinion, but not to his own facts.'' Here are the facts. The legislation that passed the House establishes a school nutrition block grant -- combining funds from several federal programs into one grant that will go to the states. The block grant covers not only the school lunch program but the school breakfast program and portions of programs for summer meals, before- and after-school snacks, and low-cost milk. This year's Congressional Budget Office figures show that these programs currently cost $ 6.52 billion. The Gingrich block grant allocates $ 6.68 bilfor next year, an increase of only 2.5 percent. Because inflation is running at over 3 percent (and school enrollment is rising), the block grant will cut the amount of food getting to kids through school-based nutrition programs next year. Under the current food programs, funding automatically rises with increases in food costs and school enrollment -- and the support level for every kid in need is constant. If Republican leaders think too much is spent on school-based nutrition programs, they should say so. They shouldn't claim a bogus 4.5 percent yearly increase. Where did they get that figure? They apparently concocted it, as we learned after obtaining a revealing ''worksheet'' prepared by the House Economic and Educational Opportunities Committee. For cash outlays to ''the school lunch program'' to increase by 4.5 percent, other nutritional programs within the block grant would have to be reduced -- some by as much as 34 percent. But there's nothing in the legislation mandating that states cut certain food programs so that they can increase school lunch outlays by 4.5 percent. Indeed, the idea behind block grants is to let local authorities make their own decisions. When we asked committee staffers to explain their statistical sleight of hand, we received no answer. One of the few reporters to press for an answer was Cox News Service reporter Andrew Mollison, who wrote that a House Republican Conference spokesman admitted the 4.5 percent figure was wrong. Not only are the Republican figures wrong, says Robert Greenstein of the independent Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, but so are their claims that block grant funds will better target food to those in need. About 89 percent of federal school-nutrition funds now benefit low-income children; the block grant requires that only 80 percent benefit such kids. No commentator has been more out to lunch about school lunches than Rush Limbaugh. On March 10, he rallied his followers: ''Today, we're going to give you marching orders...to follow us in lock step.'' Brandishing the 4.5 percent figure, Limbaugh alleged a media ''conspiracy'' against Republicans -- ''a total brainwashing equaled only by the worst days of Stalin, of Pravda, of Tass.'' The truthful one urged his millions of listeners to phone news outlets: ''All you say to them is, 'Stop lying about the school lunch program, thank you' -- and hang up.'' Maybe the thousands of such calls received by journalists had nothing to do with the timid and inadequate coverage of the issue. There's another explanation: Reporters simply didn't bother to look up the numbers. -- Jeff Cohen is executive director of Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting. Norman Solomon is co-author of ''Unreliable Sources: A Guide to Detecting Bias in the News Media.'' National TV-Turnoff Week (4/5/95) By Jeff Cohen and Norman Soloman It's a modest proposal: Turn off your television for a week. But for many Americans, it is sure to sound like a radical idea. And that's the problem. If going without television for seven days seems like a disruptive notion, then the sponsors of the upcoming ''National TV-Turnoff Week'' really are making an important point. Incessant TV watching may be similar to other substance abuse: People who feel that they can't do without it for very long are probably addicted. The national effort to prod Americans away from their TV sets from April 24 to April 30 is coming from a broad-based coalition, ranging from the Children's Defense Fund to the American Medical Association to the PTA. A group called TV-Free America is organizing the no-television-for-a-week project. Its board of advisers includes novelist Barbara Kingsolver, environmentalist David Brower, poet Wendall Berry and media critics such as Jerry Mander, Mark Crispin Miller and Neil Postman. Executive Director Henry Labalme says that ''this campaign represents a significant departure from the stale debate about program content and the endlessly unsuccessful attempts to improve the quality of television.'' In other words, don't hold your breath for the networks to clean up this nation's TV mess. And keep in mind that there is another option besides continuing to consume it. For many of us, walking into a room and seeing a blank TV screen prompts an insistent invitation -- even a demand -- that amounts to: Turn it on and keep it on. The National TV-Turnoff Week may not make a dent in longstanding TV addiction. But as the April 24 kickoff day approaches, there are signs of significant momentum. Already, at least 3,000 schools nationwide -- with more than a million students -- have opted for formal participation during the last week of this month. ''Pledge cards'' are being distributed to students, encouraging them to swear off the tube for that week -- and to fill in blanks with what they plan to do instead. The president of the District of Columbia's Congress of Parents and Teachers has high hopes for the endeavor. Thriftone Jones predicts it will ''help us all realize how much richer and more productive life can be without a universal time-filler that all too often overwhelms more productive, active and rewarding forms of learning: reading, writing, thinking, doing.'' Well said. This TV-zoned-out nation needs a jolt out of its passive lethargy. The basic message from television to viewers is to not do much of anything -- other than go out and buy things. Organizers of National TV-Turnoff Week cite some grim statistics: Two-thirds of Americans ''regularly watch television while eating dinner.'' In the average U.S. home, TV is on for seven hours a day. When asked whether they'd rather watch television or spend time with their fathers, 54 percent of kids between ages 4 and 6 said they'd rather be with TV than dad. On the average, a child sees 20,000 commercials in a year. By age 18, a person has seen 200,000 violent acts on TV, including tens of thousands of murders. Quite a few TV viewers are not complacent about their habit. Many would like to kick it. One survey found that 49 percent of Americans say they watch too much television. (And 73 percent of parents express a desire to limit their children's TV watching.) National TV-Turnoff Week provides an opportunity to turn vague desires into action. And the healthy impacts could extend beyond the mental and emotional to the physical. Television, points out Michael F. Jacobson of the Center for Science in the Public Interest, ''keeps us firmly planted in our chairs, often with food firmly planted in our mouths.'' And, he warns, ''television will become more alluring as TV sets get bigger and sharper, receive hundreds of channels and are hooked into computers.'' Often, complaints about media seem to have no more effect than gripes about the weather. But here's something you can do: Mark April 24-30 on your calendar as a TV-free week in your household. And if you want to spread the word, pass this column along to friends, neighbors and co-workers. You might even want to contact the TV-Free America office (202-887-0436) for an organizing kit. The lives you improve may include your own. -- Jeff Cohen is executive director of Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting. Norman Solomon is co-author of ''Unreliable Sources: A Guide to Detecting Bias in the News Media.'' Eupehmisms Save Wilson, Buchanan (3/22/95) By Jeff Cohen and Norman Solomon Pete Wilson has become the ''moderate'' poster boy of the national media. With California's governor poised to enter the race for the Republican presidential nomination, the press seems enamored indeed. News articles about Wilson routinely hype him as a ''moderate.'' But to many people in California, he is anything but. After four years of Gov. Wilson's stringent budgets, skyrocketing tuitions at state universities have put higher education out of reach for many. Meanwhile, millions of California's youngsters attend public schools that are now among the most neglected in the nation. The governor has made drastic cuts in funding for public health facilities and medical clinics across California. People are dying as a result of his frugality. But Wilson is enthusiastic about spending tax money for prisons. He led the charge for the state's ''three strikes'' law, while funneling huge outlays into prison construction. Wilson spearheaded the statewide passage of anti-immigrant Proposition 187 last year. If upheld in court, the measure will kick ''undocumented'' children out of school and deprive families of health care along with other social services. A few weeks ago, Wilson's eager endorsement of a 1996 anti- affirmative-action ballot initiative made him a champion of the nationwide backlash against efforts to provide equal opportunity. So how come almost every article profiling Wilson features the adjective ''moderate''? Part of the explanation appears to be that the national press corps sticks the ''moderate'' label on just about any Republican politician who opposes outlawing abortion. But the problem goes deeper. Wilson will seem like a ''moderate'' as long as journalists persist in using euphemistic labels. Recently, when Patrick Buchanan announced his entry into the GOP presidential race, National Public Radio described him as a ''pugnacious populist.'' Associated Press opted for ''conservative firebrand'' and ''blunt-spoken TV commentator.'' The New York Times report called him a ''conservative commentator.'' Those are inadequate terms for a man who has often displayed fascist inclinations. In his autobiography, ''Right from the Beginning,'' Buchanan reminisced fondly about his dad's hero, Gen. Francisco Franco of Spain. The general's alliance with Adolf Hitler didn't seem to trouble Buchanan, who referred to Franco as a ''Catholic savior.'' Franco and Chile's Gen. Augusto Pinochet were military dictators who ended democracy in their countries. Buchanan used a 1989 column to laud them as ''soldier-patriots.'' Buchanan -- who has questioned the historical record about the gassing of Jews at Treblinka -- declared in an earlier column that despite Hitler's anti-Semitic and genocidal tyranny, ''he was also an individual of great courage.'' Buchanan alluded to Hitler's ''extraordinary gifts.'' Buchanan has an attraction to notions of white superiority. While working for President Nixon, he lavished praise on an Atlantic magazine article that claimed a genetic basis for intelligence. It was ''a seminal piece of major significance for U.S. society,'' Buchanan wrote in a memo to Nixon. The article, Buchanan went on, indicated that ''integration of blacks and whites -- but even more so, poor and well-to-do -- is less likely to result in accommodation than it is in perpetual friction, as the incapable are placed consciously by government side by side with the capable.'' In the late 1980s, Buchanan continued to defend apartheid South Africa -- which he admiringly referred to as the ''Boer Republic.'' He demanded: ''Why are Americans collaborating in a U.N. conspiracy to ruin her with sanctions?'' When he sought the presidency in 1992, Buchanan couched many of his campaign themes in racial terms. During a discussion of immigration, he asked contemptuously whether ''Zulus'' or ''Englishmen'' would be easier to assimilate. Buchanan is also contemptuous of what he calls ''the democratist temptation, the worship of democracy as a form of governance.'' Five years ago he wrote: ''Like all idolatries, democratism substitutes a false god for the real, a love of process for a love of country.'' He has written disparagingly of ''the one-man, one-vote Earl Warren system.'' In a 1991 column, Buchanan suggested that ''quasi-dictatorial rule'' might be the solution to the problems of big municipalities and the federal fiscal crisis: ''If the people are corrupt, the more democracy, the worse the government.'' Perhaps the extremism of Buchanan's views -- proclaimed daily in his high-profile punditry -- has begun to sound commonplace. If a man with Buchanan's outlook is a ''conservative'' in the media lexicon, then it figures that Pete Wilson keeps being called a ''moderate.'' The question is: Compared to what? -- Jeff Cohen is executive director of Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting. Norman Solomon is co-author of ''Unreliable Sources: A Guide to Detecting Bias in the News Media.''