The Great Disappearing Issue of 1996:
Corporate Greed

excerpted from the book

Wizards of Media OZ

by Norman Solomon and Jeff Cohen

Fairness and Accuracy In Reporting (FAIR)

September 4, 1996

Months ago, it was the political issue. Today, corporate greed isn't even on the mass media's radar screen.

For a short while, news outlets were doing a lot of big stories about "downsizing"-the widespread firing of workers by companies eager to boost profits. But soon, most of the press simply dropped the subject.

That-was easy to do after Patrick Buchanan's 1996 presidential campaign collapsed in early spring. For Wall Street interests, Buchanan served as an ideal adversary. With a media-hyped enemy like him, CEOs making seven figures didn't need too many friends.

Running in the Republican primaries, Buchanan emerged as an anti corporate crusader with a pitch-forked tongue, shouting "Lock and load!" His assorted bigotries-toward people failing to be white, Christian and heterosexual-helped sink his campaign. Along the way, Buchanan rebuked corporations with a message so garbled that he didn't even support the basic union rights of American workers.

Since then, maltreatment of workers has virtually disappeared as an issue in the '96 campaign. While Bill Clinton and Bob Dole differ on details of economic policy, they are both firmly in the pockets of the downsizers.

Their only opponent with a chance to finish in double digits, Ross Perot, does question the anti-democratic provisions in "free trade" pacts. But he has earned such a reputation for wackiness that the pseudo-populist billionaire hardly worries corporate defenders.

The only person running for president who could demolish the Republicrat double-talk about corporations is Ralph Nader. The long-time consumer advocate will be on the ballot in about half the states. But don't look for Nader at the presidential debates this fall; Clinton strategists are sure to block him.

The media role in all this is discouraging. The national press corps doesn't seem very interested in a topic unless a "major" candidate is talking about it. So, the issue of corporate power is off the media map.

"Too much of the coverage treats downsizing and other economic problems as though they were just like natural disasters," says Scott Nova, director of a new research outfit based in Washington, D.C., the Preamble Center for Public Policy. "The reality is that downsizing, wage stagnation and the flow of American jobs overseas are products of specific decisions by corporations and government policy makers. And those decisions can be reversed-if we have the political will to do so."

Few of the nation's power brokers express alarm that international bodies such as the World Trade Organization can now override national standards on the environment, health protection and labor rights. "Policy elites in both parties are embracing a corporate global vision," Nova told us. And that vision is popular among the most influential reporters and pundits.

But Nova points to "a wide split between public opinion and elite opinion." Outside of corporate-government hierarchies, people are much less likely to be complacent about the status quo. And they're much more likely to want the government to restrict corporations.

According to a new poll, commissioned by the Preamble Center, 69 percent of registered voters "favor government action to promote more responsible corporate behavior and penalize bad corporate behavior." Fifty-four percent view downsizing as a problem "serious enough to warrant direct government intervention." And far more people blamed stagnating middle class incomes on "corporate greed" (46 percent) than on "wasteful and inefficient government" (28 percent).

Even at its height last spring, media coverage of corporate greed tended to avoid discussion of specific remedies involving government action. But Americans in general appear to be quite open to such scenarios. "The public is still angry at government," comments pollster Ethel Klein, "but they are so fed up with-and frightened by-the way corporations are treating employees that they're willing to take a chance on government action."

Another researcher for the nationwide poll, Guy Molyneux, sees a shift in political ground: '`With Americans increasingly recognizing corporate behavior as a central economic problem, political leaders are going to feel pressed to demonstrate their concern for average working people by demanding accountability from large corporations."

We may not hear much about it between now and Election Day, but the absence of corporate accountability is bound to return to center stage as a key issue in American politics.

Wizards of Media OZ