|
Ref. : Civic Events
Ref. : Arts & Education Events
Ref. : Public Service Notices
05.17 Why American Colleges Are Becoming a Force for Inequality
05.17 Why Private Schools Are Dying Out
Ref. : Letters to the editor
05.21 Ellen Page [6:49 video]
05.20 Lisa P. Jackson [6:19 video]
05.20 Climate Change Denial is Costing us Trillions, Threatening Farming, Fishing, Animals (Video)
05.20 Blinding Us From Science
05.20 The Baltimore Lead Study [3:17 video]
05.19 A Black Mound of Canadian Oil Waste Is Rising Over Detroit
05.18 Four Examples from the Last Week Prove Obama Is Full of Hot Air on Climate Protection
05.17 The Murky World of Hospital Prices
05.17 New Jersey Hospital Is the Costliest in the Nation
05.17 Angelina Jolie has done something extraordinary
05.17 Obama must Make Fighting Climate Change National Project, or Die the death of a thousand Scandals
05.17 Study: Why Pot Smokers Are Skinnier
05.16 What Will It Take for Us to Recognize That the Way We Live Could Be Destroying Life as We Know It?
05.16 How Drug Companies Keep Medicine Out of Reach
Video Health Care Systems in Less Corrupt Countries
Daily FAIR Blog
The Daily Howler
05.21 Guatemala annuls Rios Montt's genocide conviction
05.21 Obama DOJ formally accuses journalist in leak case of committing crimes
05.21 The Criminal Case Against the Tea Party Cabal and Why the Justice Department Won’t Pursue It
05.21 Carl Hiaasen: IRS went after small fry, but let the big ones get away
05.18 Senator wants U.S. in oil price-fixing probe
05.18 Timothy Geithner Is Key To IRS Scandal
05.16 Why Won't the SEC Rein In the Firms That Tanked America's Economy?
05.16 Elizabeth Warren to Obama Administration: Take the Banks to Court, Already!
05.17 The Great American Descent into Plutocracy
05.17 The Real Benghazi Scandal
05.16 Take Politics Away From the I.R.S.
05.16 Should 501(c)(4)’s Be Eliminated?
05.16 What We Mean When We Say 'Race Is a Social Construct'
05.20 Paul Krugman’s right: Austerity kills
05.20 Is EVERY Market Rigged?
05.19 Can two senators end ‘too big to fail’?
05.18 Pope blames tyranny of capitalism for making people miserable[1:00 video]
05.18 A Simple Graph That Should Silence Austerians and Gold Bugs Forever [graph]
05.18 The Savings Heist
05.18 Sheila Krumholz and Danielle Brian on How Money Rules Washington [20:31 video]
Ref. : Susan Crawford on Why U.S. Internet Access is Slow, Costly and Unfair [25:35 video]
Ref. : Nurses vs. High-Speed Traders
Ref. : We’re More Unequal Than You Think – Graphic: Unequal rise in income
05.21 Jobless Youth: Europe's Hollow Efforts to Save a Lost Generation
05.21 The Job Market of 2045 [14:32 podcast]
05.19 Italy coalition: Thousands rally in Rome against cuts [graphic]
05.18 Hans Rosling: the man who's making data cool [3:19 video]
05.18 Washington gets explicit: its 'war on terror' is permanent
05.17 Egypt 'suffering worst economic crisis since 1930s'
05.16 Catholic Church Finally Decides That Austerity is Bad
You can also mail a check to:
P.O. Box 42581
Baltimore, MD 21284-2581
ACTION ALERT:
ABC's 'Made in America' Hypocrisy
Focusing on consumers, not corporations like Disney
ABC World News With Diane Sawyer kicked off its "Made in America" series on February 28, encouraging consumers to buy U.S.-made products in order to spur job growth. But why focus on consumers and not major corporations like ABC parent Disney, who are the ones who actually choose to manufacture products overseas?
The February 28 report consisted of reporter David Muir touring one family's home, discovering that the vast majority of the family's possessions are not made in the United States. Muir even checks the children's toys, only to discover that they are mostly made in China.
Consumers, of course, do not choose where the products offered in their local stores are manufactured. Instead of focusing on what consumers should do with their limited choices, why not focus on the much more powerful decisions made by major corporations--like Disney? FAIR founder Jeff Cohen (CommonDreams, 2/27/11) checked the label at the Disney Store website:
What would be more helpful is a TV news series that scrutinizes the powerful U.S. corporations that make decisions every day determining what products mainstream Americans have access to.
I scrutinized Disney myself by going to DisneyStore.com -- "Official Site for Disney Merchandise." The first 40 products I looked at were all listed as "Imported."
As Muir put it at the close of the segment, "Economists say if we spent 1 percent more than what we're spending now on American goods, we could create 200,000 jobs immediately."
"That's 18 cents a day!" anchor Diane Sawyer exclaimed. The following night (3/1/11) Sawyer reiterated that point, telling viewers that spending just $64 a year will create 200,000 U.S. jobs.
Why is the focus on consumers--and not corporations? Will the ABC series talk about Disney, whose reliance on cheap labor is well-documented? The company's history is not encouraging. As FAIR pointed out (Action Alert, 11/20/00), ABC News killed critical investigations into Disney theme parks and sweatshops, evidence of a larger pattern:
One ABC producer says that the need to avoid news stories that might displease Disney "comes up all the time" because "no one here wants to piss off the bosses" (New Yorker, 8/14/00).
The closest ABC came on February 28 to mentioning Disney was noting that the family being profiled lives on Snow White Drive.
ACTION:
Tell ABC that its "Made in America" series should focus more attention on corporations like Disney that choose to rely on overseas labor in order to maximize profits.
CONTACT:
ABC World News with Diane Sawyer
Go to:
http://abcnews.go.com/WN/MadeInAmerica/
And leave a comment in their "Share Your Thoughts on Made in America" section on the right-hand side of the screen.
Republication or redistribution of Baltimore Chronicle content is expressly prohibited without their prior written consent.
Baltimore News Network, Inc., sponsor of this web site, is a nonprofit organization and does not make political endorsements. The opinions expressed in stories posted on this web site are the authors' own.
This story was published on March 4, 2011.