Censored in 2009, Part 2

Censored in 2009, Part 2

Media Rants

By

Tony Palmeri

Last month I identified half of the top ten stories that were underreported, ignored, misrepresented, or censored by local and state corporate media in 2009.

Now the top 5:

No. 5: Oshkosh Grand Opera House Repairs: No Thinking Allowed. When the city of Oshkosh restored the historic Grand Opera House in the early 1980s, costs were spread out among city taxpayers, federal funds, private donations, and foundation grants. Because of the lease terms agreed to by the Oshkosh Common Council in the 80s and rubber stamped by subsequent councils, Oshkosh taxpayers cover repair costs over $1,000. That’s an extremely uncommon method of funding repairs; historic arts houses similar to the Grand (e.g. Baraboo’s Al Ringling Theatre, Wausau’s Grand Theater, Milwaukee’s Pabst Theatere, Viroqua’s Temple Theater, the Kenosha Theater, Menomonie’s Mabel Tainter Theater) rely mostly on private, corporate, and foundation funding.

Last summer the Oshkosh Common Council approved $1.8 million dollars for roof repairs. Coverage and editorializing by Gannett’s Oshkosh Northwestern was incomplete, under researched, intolerant of different points of view, and unwilling to consider that the current ownership model is not sustainable or suitable to guarantee the Grand’s long term health. Reporter Patricia Wolff’s tepid story on ownership issues appeared a week after the repair vote, greatly limiting the story’s value. The lesson? When Gannett has to choose between responsible journalism and protecting ad clients (in this case the Opera House Foundation), the ad clients will prevail every time.

No. 4: Oshkosh Corp. TIF: Gannett Mocks Press Watchdog Role. Gannett’s “Principles of Ethical Conduct for Newsrooms” are worthless. Still, the corporation claims that “We will be vigilant watchdogs of government and institutions that affect the public.” In 2009, the Oshkosh Corporation announced a request for taxpayer assistance from Oshkosh citizens in the form of tax incremental financing. Gannett won’t ask difficult questions about the request or Oshkosh Corp’s financial health. When I pointed this out at a December 22 common council meeting, the Oshkosh Northwestern’s managing editor responded with a piece of inane pettiness that mindlessly lampooned citizens involved in a serious neighborhood dispute with the Oshkosh Corp that threatens their home values and safety. Worse, he actually mocked Gannett’s own watchdog principle: “We’re just watchdoggin’ it, you know.”

No. 3: Health Care Reform: Misinformation and No Medicare For All Coverage. Good reasons exist to oppose Barack Obama’s health insurance reform scheme. The idea that the president is proposing a “government takeover” of health care is NOT one of them. Indeed, Obama’s plan would force at least 30 million Americans to purchase insurance from private, for profit corporations; the exact opposite of a government takeover. A single-payer, Medicare for all proposal exists in the House of Representatives and Senate, yet insurance lobby controlled “leaders” refuse to give it a fear hearing, and the corporate press are all too ready to sweep the measure under the table. Throughout 2009 mass media eagerly covered tea party shouting matches, yet the arrest of nine citizens at New York Senator Chuck Schumer’s office while rallying in support of Medicare for all received scant coverage.


No. 2: Outsourcing Wisconsin. In 2004 the Wisconsin Democracy Campaign revealed that the state was paying huge sums of money to engineering giant HNTB in spite of the fact that state workers formally did the same work for a fraction of the cost. You’d think that since then the state’s media would do a better job of monitoring outsourcing in return for campaign contributions, right? Wrong. Even though a study showed engineering work done in-house by state DOT workers was 18% less expensive that the outsourced work, the outsourcing continues without any public accountability. The Democracy Campaign’s Mike McCabe told me that a source inside the Department of Transportation claims that the feds have registered a complaint about the level of outsourcing in Wisconsin. Federal funds might be in jeopardy if the state doesn’t address this. The remodeling of Highway 41 in northeast Wisconsin provides local media with a golden opportunity in 2010 to do some Pulitzer Prize worthy reports on outsourcing.

No. 1: Obama’s Bush-Lite Foreign Policy. Mainstream media insist Barack Obama is committed to softening the War on Terror. A contrary view comes from Glenn Greenwald, author of Great American Hypocrites: Toppling the Big Myths of Republican Politics. He told Amy Goodman that Obama talks a good game while continuing Bush’s policies:

But despite that rhetoric . . . the same policies are being continued. So we’re closing Guantanamo at some point, but we’re shifting the very indefinite detention scheme and military commission scheme that caused such controversy simply to a new location. And although he talks about how air strikes enflame that part of the world, he has escalated air strikes not just in Afghanistan but in whole new countries . . . and in Pakistan especially . . . I think what you see is that he is afraid to or unwilling to challenge the orthodoxies of the intelligence community, of the Pentagon, of the lobbyists and industry interests that have long run Washington. And so, whether his intentions are good, whether he has a purer heart, these things are impossible to know, but they’re really irrelevant. The reality is that the same dynamic continues.