The Link – Local TV Journalism, Bad Government Policy and Poor Economy
Updated Dec. 18, 2011
Do you ever wonder why the economic climate is unhealthy? Why the unemployment rate is so high? Or why government policies aren’t conducive to economic growth and the creation of jobs?
In essence, the culprits are government, business greed and inadequate coverage from local broadcast journalism.
Government is culpable because of its political theatrics – failure to set realistic priorities and implementation of unnecessary programs – an immature approach to budgeting.
Business greed led to the financial-sector collapse. That includes the behavior of Wall Street, disingenuous mortgage underwriting, the abrupt terminations of credit lines to businesses, and the predatory practices of credit card companies charging huge interest rates and fees for to small businesses and consumers for bogus reasons.
The federal government has ostensibly tried to correct the problems, but failed. Sen. Maria Cantwell (D-WA) has fought risky derivative trading and lending money to small businesses. The GOP claims to want to do something for small business. The credit card legislation hasn’t corrected all the injustices nor has it helped the majority of small businesses and consumers suffering from tepid or low credit scores as a result of the predatory practices.
The tax incentives to create jobs aren’t working because an economic engine, small business, isn’t in a position to do so. Either the businesses still have poor credit or they can’t afford to risk hiring workers. The incentives are just a pittance compared to the costs of a yearly salary, benefits and the risks of having to layoff newly hired workers. Unemployment insurance is too high for them, as it is.
And small business loans aren’t available to credit-challenged businesses. Even if they could get loans, it would only exacerbate the situation because the businesses aren’t making enough money to pay the loans back. They have too few customers. Consumers can’t afford to buy nor do they have the credit to do so.
Healthcare is a related issue. Polls show Americans opposed the efforts of President Obama and the Democrats. But the public officials didn’t listen.
Even Steve Jobs agreed before his passing, according to his biography: Will President Obama listen to Steve Jobs on the economy?
So where does that leave us regarding my premise about the connection – local TV news coverage, dysfunctional government and the economic downturn? Can we agree about the harmful effects of the Great Recession? Great.
How about the power of television? A little later I’ll point out how the power of TV is not being used and why is isn’t relevant.
That leaves the other two – news coverage and more analysis of government policy.
First, let’s consider governments’ refusals to implement best-practices in management and to adhere to transparency standards. These are huge problems and not just at the federal government level.
The state governments of California and Washington are typical examples:
California. Thanks to The Sacramento Bee, we wouldn’t learn “California agencies’ pay cuts hit departments unevenly,” or why. It’s rare for a local TV station to be as enterprising.
In a related matter, California state employees are given wide latitudes for leaves (see personnel policies). But only a third of the state agencies reportedly send certain payroll records to Sacramento. This means records are more costly to maintain, audit and verify such scattered cost centers, vis-à-vis a centralized location.
One also has to wonder about accountability. California state workers already enjoy comparatively high wages and benefits. The accrued vacation time is subject to abuse, especially when an outside watchdog is not allowed access to the records.
Typically, many government managers are afraid of their unions and employees. Last year’s furlough issue typifies the litigious atmosphere and lack of empathy for taxpayers. Government employees are notorious for gaming the system to disingenuously jack up their pensions. Pensions are calculated based on the workers’ level pay before retirement. Plus, California has a $48 billion unfunded pension liability, according to a Pew Study: “California Faces Challenges in Managing Bills Coming.”
So, it’s necessary to centralize the recordkeeping, and it would make it easier to check such records. When Californians are struggling in an era of high unemployment in an economic downturn, such state behavior is eye-opening. And given that California is mired in red ink, it’s important for state government to conform to best-practices.
Why else have a state controller?
Washington. With the exception of one statewide elected official who is retiring, it’s also important to question the Washington State Legislature’s and bureaucrats’ elitist handling of taxpayer assets and disrespect of transparency standards. Just a few years ago, I devoted multiple columns about their shell game to furtively circumvent the state’s legal spending limit after incriminating e-mails were discovered. It resulted in a case before the Washington Supreme Court.
But nothing changed and the chicanery continues.
Four times voters approved taxpayers’ protections. But lawmakers keep circumventing the wishes of voters. Despite multi-billion dollar shortfalls, the spending keeps increasing; while the private sector has cut back significantly and has lost about 200,000 jobs in the past few years.
Washington has an outstanding state auditor who has repeatedly demonstrated the need for transparency and conducts performance audits. But not enough people in state government want transparency and good performance.
TV News
My sense is that a TV steady coverage of important issues would help put a stop to the government dysfunction.
For example, the average half hour of TV newscasts in Los Angeles has a whopping 22 seconds devoted to reports about local government, according to research by the USC Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism.
The study, reported by Variety, indicates the 22 seconds is comprised of “…budgets, law enforcement, education, new ordinances, voting procedures, city and government actions and more…”
Local business and the economy got a sum total of 29 seconds per half hour.
To what did the stations allocate their news coverage?
- Crime – two minutes, 50 seconds
- Sports and weather – 3 minutes, 36 seconds
- “Fluff” – two minutes, 26 seconds
- Promotional teases – two minutes, 10 seconds
“KCAL ran the most news about local government, economy and business,” Variety reported. “As for the L.A. Times, the paper devoted 10 percent of its front-page space to local government and 6 percent to L.A. business and economy.”
Any you know what? This is typical of most local TV coverage throughout California, Washington and the rest of the nation.
Not to be gauche, but generally the closest the stations come to reporting on the economy and the impacts of business events and trends are ostentatious consumer investigations – but little about business, the big economic picture or public policy. The rest of the time they’re either rewriting Associate Press stories or rushing out to do live shots of traffic accidents. It’s tragic.
When I was a full-time broadcast journalist in the 1970s and 1980s, I learned the public does care about the impacts of government behavior and business on the economy. When we covered a story about state government, it was remarkable to see the abrupt change in bureaucrats’ behavior and ratings improved.
When was the last time you saw a business journalist on your local TV newscast? Or, for that matter, when did you last see an editorial?
Newspapers do a much better job in both areas. But even print business-journalist jobs have been disappearing.
It’s time for reflection and change in the Fourth Estate. It’s a question of pride in doing the right thing for the community. Otherwise, many Americans will continue to feel their economic and political freedoms are at-risk.
From the Coach’s Corner, here are more public policy columns.
“Domestic policy can only defeat us; foreign policy can kill us.”
-John F. Kennedy
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Terry Corbell is a business-performance consultant and profit professional. Click here to see his management services (many are available online). For a complementary chat about your business situation or to schedule Terry Corbell as a speaker, why don’t you contact him today?
Government’s Reliance on Huge Tax Increases Reaches Absurdity
Jan. 24, 2009
A piece written by Seattle Times columnist Danny Westneat caught my eye. The headline: “Sin taxes can’t fill state coffer.”
As a Biz Coach columnist and business-performance consultant, I don’t always agree with him. But in order to stay open-minded and up-to-date on current events, I read his columns as well as the opinions of people from the left, right and middle. So his views on sin taxes intrigued me.
Mr. Westneat opined about a proposed state of Washington tax – a whopping increase in cigar taxes.
Here’s an excerpt:
“Of all the people carping about new taxes coming at them this year, I’d say few are as justified as Dale Taylor. He’s staring at a staggering 500 percent tax increase. The bills, HB 2493 in the state House and SB 6443 in the state Senate, would also raise taxes on cigarettes — by a dollar a pack, a 50 percent increase — as well as on snuff, roll-your-own tobacco and other smoke products such as cigarillos.Partly it’s to raise money, about $90 million a year, state estimates show. And to crack down on smoking,” he wrote.
Mr. Westneat is correct about the sin-tax proposal. In fact, it could best be described as punitive, full of hypocrisy and discriminatory — all faced by Mr. Taylor at the hands of state government.
So lawmakers believe it’s OK to pillage purveyors of sin with over-the-top taxes and to “crack down on smoking?”
This absurd tax proposal demonstrates a monstrous hypocrisy by state lawmakers.
Here are two examples:
- The state employs 1500 employees in a major sin retail operation – liquor sales.
- Washington has displayed documented favoritism toward tribal operations, which involves gambling, and Washington state also operates a lottery system.
The state’s liquor and gambling operations lead unsuspecting state residents to “sin,” and make them unfortunate candidates for 12 step programs – Alcoholics Anonymous and Gamblers Anonymous. Many friends and relatives of alcoholics are driven to Al-Anon. For kids troubled by their parents’ drinking, it’s Alateen.
Another irony:
The tax proposal will lead to undesired results. This hypocrisy will drive taxpayers, such as Mr. Taylor, out of business, and drive cigar smokers to tribal smoke shops where there is no sales tax. This will decrease state tax revenue, not increase it.
The whole idea about increasing any taxes is unproductive because of out-of-control spending. Here’s a partial list of reasons:
- The state of Washington faces a multi-billion dollar deficit in a high-unemployment downturn.
- Washington employs a bloated level of exempt and non-exempt workers – per capita higher than other states.
- Lawmakers are years behind in funding the lavish state-worker pension plan which is 74 percent higher per worker than in the private sector.
In fact, tax increases cost jobs – thousands of jobs – according to “Study: Tax Increases Threaten More Job Losses in Washington.”
Yet, it’s OK to discriminate against taxpayers like Mr. Taylor while running two sin operations – liquor sales and gambling? That’s hypocrisy.
From the Coach’s Corner, if you or your employees have a problem with drinking or gambling – or if you’re troubled by others’ drinking – here are helpful resource links:
