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Opposition to tax plan fills air with deception
© St. Petersburg Times For my first assignment in Tallahassee 20 years ago, I made my way through the Capitol with a tripod, lights, microphone cables, sound engineer and cameraman. I was working for WPLG-TV, the ABC affiliate in Miami. The station, owned by the Washington Post Co., had a solid news reputation to uphold and figured that along with the daily diet of mayhem, viewers should be given a taste of redistricting and tax policy. So anchorwoman Ann Bishop and I boarded an Eastern Airlines jet and flew to Tallahassee. We tried to explain the intricate politics of redistricting and the unitary tax in two or three minutes. I'm sure it was not riveting television. But at least we were there. That was 1982. Nowadays, you seldom see a TV reporter from Miami or Tampa or Orlando working the Capitol. The TV turf largely is the province of the venerable Mike Vasilinda, who is still here, feeding reports across the state. Local TV coverage of the state is virtually non-existent on many Florida stations. Yet, TV's influence is greater than ever for a different reason. Because TV is so pervasive a force, it is the forum for political battles, in neat, tidy, often misleading 30-second ads. So it is with Senate President John McKay's tax proposal. The Florida Association of Broadcasters has declared war on McKay's plan to change the tax system. The stations have every right to hammer away at McKay all they want. But while their news programs generally ignore any substantive discussion of the pros and cons of McKay's plan, the stations are allowing their airwaves to be used for demagoguery, for free, in the form of slick 30-second ads that distort the facts and mislead viewers who need solid information on a crucial issue that might be on the November ballot. Stations are donating time to attack McKay's plan. But McKay and his allies will have to buy time. Is that fair, when the airwaves are owned by the public? In any political campaign, truth is an early casualty, and astute viewers are well aware that an ad presents a skewed picture. It's public policy as viewed through a fun house mirror. TV in Tallahassee packs a powerful punch, all right. But instead of trying to alter state policy by exposing a consumer scam or political shenanigans, television makes waves with commercials -- on airwaves that belong to us. But we deserve more from commercial broadcasters than to see them try to scare legislators into avoiding a politically dangerous debate over tax policy. Even though legislators have exempted broadcast advertising from taxes, a new ad shows the phone numbers of 14 senators and urges viewers to call in with their complaints. "Encourage Sen. Les Miller to vote no," a typical ad says. "Tourists are the winners and Floridians are the losers. Hundreds of services will be taxed like day care, electric and long distance bills, interest on mortgages, insurance premiums and even your funeral." None of those services are on the list of items to be taxed. But broadcasting lobbyist Pat Roberts defends his ads, on the grounds that they could be taxed in a separate exemption bill. "I stand by them," Roberts says. Nowhere in the ads is it mentioned that you, the voter, would be able to vote yes or no on McKay's proposal. Instead, the viewer is left with the false impression that legislators will impose higher taxes on the public. So much for fairness and balance on the public airwaves. Florida TV's role in the tax debate calls to mind a famous speech CBS broadcaster Edward R. Murrow gave to a news directors' convention in 1958. "This instrument can teach, it can illuminate; yes, and it can even inspire," Murrow said. "But it can do so only to the extent that humans are determined to use it to those ends. Otherwise it is merely wires and lights in a box." - Steve Bousquet is deputy chief of The Times' Tallahassee bureau.
 © 2006 • All Rights Reserved • St. Petersburg Times
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Times columns today Steve Bousquet Sandra Thompson |
