October 2001 - VOLUME 22 - NUMBER 10
T H E F R O N T
Easy on Sunday MorningWashington, D.C. politics revolve around issues related to corporate
power from trade agreements to the minimum wage, from environmental
protection to antitrust enforcement. But a new study conducted by Essential Information, the publisher of
Multinational Monitor, concludes that the Sunday morning television political
talk shows fail to touch on corporate power concerns. The environment,
labor rights, corporate welfare, corporate crime and victims right
to sue corporations go virtually unmentioned on the Sunday talk shows. Sunday Morning Political Talk Shows Ignore Corporate Power Issues,
by Justin Elga and George Farah, finds that topics loosely related to
corporate power make up only 4 percent of the discussion topics on the
talk shows [see http://www.essentialaction.org/spotlight/report/index.html]. Elga and Farahs conclusions are based on a review of every transcript
of Meet the Press, Face the Nation, The McLaughlin Group, and This Week
aired between June 1995 and June 1996 and during the last six months of
1999. The report also highlights the shows near total exclusion of newsmaker
guests from the ranks of labor, environmental, consumer, anti-corporate
globalization or other public interest groups. The shows almost exclusive preference is for presidential candidates,
high administration officials or Congressional leaders though former
Christian Coalition leader Ralph Reed was a frequent guest when he headed
that right-wing lobby. Horserace politics dominate the political gabfests, with corporate power
shunted to the sidelines. Elga and Farah juxtapose what topics were and were not discussed on the
shows: During the June 1995 - June 1996 period, they note, Colin
Powell was the topic of Sunday morning conversation 47 times, corporate
crime 0. Travelgate was an issue 27 times, whereas corporate welfare was
mentioned once in a list of Clintons accomplishments. The shows
discussed O.J. Simpson 16 times, environmental matters 0. They talked
about the Christian right nine times, but never about consumer issues
such as bank charges, phone charges or HMO abuses. ... Roundtable pundits
argued about Oliver Stones Nixon on two occasions but
never discussed renewable energy, redlining or blockbusting. The shows
never even mentioned the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund or
foreign aid, but one show made the weather, complete with a guest from
the National Weather Service, the center of discussion. Only a single
program, This Week, so much as discussed the telecommunications bill and
media mergers, which relate closely to the owners of these Sunday programs. In the first six months of 1999, they report, Aside from the McCain-Feingold
campaign finance reform bill, the most discussed issue concerning corporate
power was HMOs and a Patient Bill of Rights, ranked 26, well after Ken
Starr, the Middle East peace process, the controversial Brooklyn art exhibit,
Egypt Air Flight 990 and Jesse Ventura. The only other issues concerning
corporate power discussed during the second half of 1999 were free trade
with China and the Microsoft antitrust case. The McLaughlin Group also
devoted a segment of a single episode to urban sprawl. Instead of addressing consumer issues, environmental matters, corporate
crime, the IMF, the WTO, labor rights or the minimum wage, they
write, shows devoted time to topics like the womens World
Cup soccer victory, a moon landing tribute, Jerry Springers possible
senatorial campaign, a heat wave, Tina Browns kickoff party for
Talk Magazine, mail order brides, fathers day and football player
Reggie Whites religious views. Elga and Farah do not account for this state of affairs but they permit
themselves some speculation. Is it too much to suspect that corporate influence over the networks,
the shows and the guests in part explains the remarkable omission of issues
related to corporate power? they ask. Multinational conglomerates
own the networks, major corporations sponsor specific shows, businesses
regularly pay celebrity journalist lecture fees, and massive corporations
fund the campaigns of the guest newsmakers. The report focuses attention on the 1995-1996 price-fixing scandal surrounding
the food company Archer Daniels Midland. Developments in the scandal, including the settlement and payment of
what at the time was the largest price-fixing fine in U.S. history, regularly
made the front pages of the New York Times, Washington Post and Wall Street
Journal. In September 2000, New York Times reporter Kurt Eichenwald published
a book, The Informant: A True Story, about the ADM scandal that was widely
reviewed and characterized as being as engaging as a Grisham thriller. Despite the high drama of the corporate saga, the leading Sunday
morning political talk shows
all failed to say a word about the
scandal during the times when the story was earning banner headlines
in the leading U.S. newspapers, Elga and Farah report. Instead,
the Sunday morning roundtables focused on the state of the Republican
Party, Ross Perot, Doles campaign, Colin Powell and Hillary Clinton. The report notes that Archer Daniels Midland is a huge advertiser on
NBC (The McLaughlin Group, Meet the Press) and sponsors Meet the Press
and This Week and longtime This Week host David Brinkley is now
a paid spokesperson for ADM. The report asks, Might this account
in some measure for the shows failure to mention the ADM scandal,
despite its simultaneous newsworthiness and entertainment value? Although many dismiss the Sunday talk shows as entertainment only, and
not to be taken seriously Eleanor Clift, a regular panelist on
The McLaughlin Group, once called the show the Superbowl of bullshit
Elga and Farah demur. While it may be accurate to describe
the shows as full of bluster and bombast, it does not follow that they
are no more politically consequential than professional wrestling (Jesse
Ventura notwithstanding), they write. The report notes that the
talk shows are watched by journalists and policymakers in Washington,
and that they work to frame news coverage and political debate. Robert Weissman
|
Top Twenty Issues On Sunday Morning Talk Shows
|
1. Presidential elections |
2. Hillary Clinton and the New York Senate Race |
3. Budget surplus and tax cuts |
4. George W. Bush's personality and history |
5. Pat Buchanan |
6. Clemency for Puerto Rican FALN members |
6. John McCain and campaign finance reform |
8. Waco investigation |
8. Chinese espionage at the Los Alamos nuclear lab |
10. JFK Jr.'s death |
10. Al Gore |
10. The Reform Party |
13. Nuclear test ban treaty |
13. Columbine shooting and gun control |
15. Jesse Ventura |
15. Brooklyn Art Museum exhibit vs. Mayor Giuliani |
15. Egypt Air Flight 990 |
15. Barak and the Middle East peace process |
15. Bill Bradley |
15. Monica Lewinsky and Kenneth Starr |
15. Kosovo |
15. Terrorism |
Bangalore, India Health experts are sending out an international
alert that mental health problems are dramatically increasing worldwide,
with the World Health Organization (WHO) warning that depression is set
to become the main cause of disability by 2020.
WHO has focused this years World Health Day (October 10) on mental
illness, raising the question: what triggers mental health problems?
In India, where the number of cases of clinical depression and anxiety
is rising even more steeply than elsewhere, opinion is sharply divided
on whether poverty is the main cause a debate sparked off by a
study by Dr. Vikram Patel of Londons Institute of Psychiatry.
Patels 1996 study, Poverty, Inequality & Mental Health
in Developing Countries, an updated version of which has been published
in a book, investigates the relationship between poverty, disability and
depression in the Indian state of Goa. He found that more than 40 percent
of adults attending primary health care clinics had a common mental disorder
(CMD) such as anxiety or clinical depression. Women were two to three
times more likely to have CMDs than men.
The study concluded that relative poverty, disability and gender were
strongly associated with these disorders. According to Patel, poverty
is an important risk factor: clinical depression can be triggered
by adverse life-events such as physical illness, housing problems and
unemployment.
Being poor means you are more likely to experience such events
and you will have fewer resources to draw upon, Patel says. The
relationship between impoverishment and mental illness is bi-directional.
Thus poverty can lead to mental illness which can worsen the economic
circumstances of the person and their families.
Not all mental disorders are increasing in India. Patel specifically
attributes Indias growing incidence of anxiety and clinical depression
to rising inequality, as witnessed in many other developing countries.
The latest WHO report on mental health, Stop Exclusion, Dare to
Care, agrees. Mental disorders occur in persons of all genders,
ages and backgrounds ... poverty, war and displacement can influence the
onset, severity and duration of mental disorders.
However, Dr. Mohan Isaac, head of psychiatry at Indias prestigious
National Institute of Mental Health and NeuroSciences (NIMHANS), points
to the resilience of Indias family and social support networks.
He cites numerous studies of schizophrenia which have shown better recovery
results in developing countries like Nigeria and India, largely because
of their strong social support systems. Isaac adds, In the midst
of poverty people still live a sane life; otherwise 38 percent of this
country living below the poverty line would be mentally depressed.
Patel concedes that the humor and spirit of those living in conditions
that the rest of unequal India might buckle under, indicates how well
the poor are able to cope. The challenge for public health researchers,
he argues, is to identify the protective and nurturing qualities
in those who do not become depressed when faced with awful economic circumstances
... to help and prevent mental health problems.
What everyone, including Patel, agrees on is that women are at greater
risk, although experts offer different explanations. Dr. Sanjeev Jain,
associate professor of psychiatry at NIMHANS, says: There is a tremendous
amount of depression in women. They tend to internalize situations.
Others argue that depression and low self-esteem among women is due to
factors in the home such as a lack of identity, and domestic violence
and abuse. Weve come across a tremendous amount of suffering
in women in the training sessions we impart, says Dr. Thelma Narayan,
a community health worker who is helping to formulate health policies
at both national and state (Karnataka) levels.
There are no recent studies in India on the extent of CMD, but the National
Human Rights Report 2000 says 20 to 30 million people appear to
need some form of mental health care about 20-30 percent
of the population.
Indias National Mental Health Policy was formulated in 1982 using
a model developed by NIMHANS. The policy envisages decentralized training
in mental health for rural health workers, provision of basic drugs, developing
a mechanism for community awareness and monitoring of the whole policy.
The government only began to implement it in 1995, but there is practically
no awareness of common mental disorders among health professionals in
rural areas or among the sufferers themselves, says Dr. Ali Khwaja of
Helping Hand, a Bangalore-based counseling organization.
Countrywide, there are only 37 government-run mental hospitals, 3,500
psychiatrists, 1,000 psychiatric social workers and 1,000 clinical psychologists
all serving a population of one billion.
The government view on the availability and cost of drugs for primary
health centers is yet again optimistic. Anxiolytics, a common drug to
treat depression, is said to cost less than the treatment for tuberculosis.
Dr. K. Sekar of NIMHANS cites an India and Pakistan study last year of
rural patients that shows that half a months wages of approximately
$16 goes towards treatment.
But, treatment need not always be a medical response, says
Dr. Jain, reiterating that family and community support systems need to
be reinforced.
Patel agrees, saying, Preventative strategies aimed at strengthening
protective factors in local communities may be a more sensible investment
of scarce resources than duplicating the extensive health systems of the
developed world.
Keya Acharya, Third World Network Features/PANOS